Gaslight does not help Agile

Business should never run by gaslight.

As a scrum master, you spend much of your time getting individuals and teams to improve.  It is the central role of a scrum master to encourage improvement.  Countless training courses have come along to help people better coach and facilitate change.  The work is deeply satisfying and provides direct value to the team and organization.  Eventually, a team will reach a plateau of improvement.  It happens because further growth requires changes to the organization surrounding the team.  The biggest frustration of my agile practice is overcoming those cultural and organizational barriers to agility.  I have noticed a significant portion of colleagues and managers have a vested interest in discouraging the spread of agile because it threatens their careers.  Every reformation has a counter-reformation, and this week on the blog, I want to discuss the most dangerous tool used by agile opponents; gas lighting.

The term gaslighting originated from the 1944 movie “Gaslight,” starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.  The film follows Bergman as she is slowly driven insane by Boyer to obtain her inheritance.  The film highlights the cruelty and abuse required to force someone to doubt their reality.  Today, the concept applies to any situation where you have a narcissistic or sociopathic person attempting to manipulate someone else.

According to Ken Schwaber, one of the original signatories of the agile manifesto, scrum holds a mirror to the organization.  Gaslighting begins when colleagues and managers are embarrassed by what is in the mirror.  For instance, a manager could accuse you of pushing the organization or team too fast.  The reality could be you are making the manager look bad because the team is delivering software better than they ever could.  It is gaslighting because the reality is their team is shipping software, but in the manager's eyes, you are upsetting the natural order where they control releases instead of the team.  Feedback like this is insidious because in many organizations the manager’s opinion counts when it comes to appraisals, pay raises, and promotions.

The website “The Ladders,” has a blog on typical gaslighting behaviors which are employed.  If you experience those behaviors, you should leave the organization.  Life is too short to work for an organization which makes you crazy.  Scrum helps address gas lighting behavior because the transparency of inspection and adaption provide physical proof of software releases, performance improvement and pace of the team.  Finally, I have discovered shipping software silences most critics in an information technology organization.  The work speaks for itself which drives the power hungry, absent, incompetent, and micromanaging to use gas lighting to save their necks.

I am a big fan of Kim Scott and her book “Radical Candor.”  Gaslighting is the polar opposite of radical candor.  Scott calls it manipulative insincerity.  Gaslighting is the inability, to tell the truth, and care personally for the performance of the person being coached.  It is abusive.  When it happens, it should be called out, and if it continues, it is up to Human Resources and leadership to become involved.

Organizations who want to succeed should understand gas lighting behavior is wrong.  I have been in numerous situations which were examples of gas lighting.  The survival tactic I have relied upon is to count on my peers for support and seek out authentic coaching.  The first step to fighting this form of abuse is to recognize it is happening; the next is taking action.  I have I have given you a few tools to do it.

Until next time.