Emotions are Intentional on Your Agile Team

Existential thinkers have plenty to say about emotions.

I have been busy working on a large project.  My life has become a dull whirlwind of train rides, conference calls, and e-mail chains, which never end.  The days tick by as we draw closer to our deadline.  Everyone is feeling the pressure.  As the scrum master and coach, I have to maintain a semblance of grace under pressure.  If I do not the team will continue to careen out of control, and the project will fail.  I have talked about emotions plenty of times on this blog.  Today, I want to discuss the intentionality of emotions and what it means for your teams.

I have been reading plenty of philosophy books on the train, and I have become intrigued with post-modern and existential philosophy.  In particular, the trio of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus.  Two of these writers earned the Nobel Prize in literature.  The third gave birth to contemporary feminist thought.  The three of them survived the horrors of the great depression and the Second World War.  In the aftermath, they were authoring a philosophy centered on individuals and the life choices they make.  Instead of grand narratives of history like Marx or Hegel, existential thinkers wrote about freedom and opportunity.  The existentialists spend time discussing psychology.  Each of them pushes back against the leading theories of psychoanalysis and attempt to provide a better way to discuss emotions.

As psychoanalysis grew in popularity and respectability, people began to accept many of its presumptions about human nature.  A central hypothesis was the concept of the “unconscious mind.”  The unconscious was a mental black box where we kept our repressed memories, emotions and irrational portions of ourselves.  Therapy could help us unlock some of the mysteries of the unconscious, but it would never be able to untangle the numerous tangled threads of repression, trauma, anxiety, and emotion each of us possesses.  If someone was easily angered the psychoanalysis would say there was nothing to be done because emotions are part of the unconscious mind and it will require extensive therapy to address the complicated issues causing the anger.

Existential thinkers reject this extreme version of the unconscious mind. To an existentialist, humans do have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind, but the unconscious is not a black box that cannot be understood.  Instead, the unconscious mind contains emotions, memories and hidden elements of behavior but instead of them obeying irrational processes they are rational and intentional depending outside stimulus.

For example, you are in a retrospective, and some stories did not get completed.  The inability to get work done becomes the main topic of the retrospective.  Two developers are upset by the discussion.  An existentialist would say this is natural because the two developers did or did not do something which caused the sprint to fail.  The feeling of anger, disappointment, or anxiety is a logical and rational response to failure.  If you are a good enough coach or scrum master the team should be able to express those emotions healthily.  One developer should be able to admit they are struggling writing automated tests.  The other developer should be able to confess that they do not have time to help the other developer improve their testing skills.  In a condition of psychological safety and openness, the team can work out how they can avoid failure like this in the future.

The scrum master should ask “What” style questions instead of “Why” centered questions.  When someone is angry, ask, “What is making you feel this way.”  It is less judgmental than asking why.  Ask people what they are going to do to change and what they can do when they feel angry or upset.  It is not easy, but it guides you and the people on your team to take ownership of emotional behavior.  It means that emotions are still irrational and exhausting, but the reasons we have them are not.  To the existentialist, a feeling serves a real need in each human.

As a scrum master and coach, it is up to you to understand emotions and how they are natural and rational responses to real situations.  It is up to you to ask questions about what is triggering emotions instead of why emotions are triggered.  Finally, a coach or scrum master needs to help others take ownership of emotions instead of dismissing them because emotions affect the team and the individual struggling to express them.

Until next time.