The Agile Pirate

 

Where the wind and the sea take me.  

As a scrum master or coach, it is important to tell stories.  Stories can be used to explain abstract concepts and reasons for decisions.  These stories are just another tool to spread agile through the firm.  Today, on the blog, I want to talk about a story I often use to explain agility to an organization.  

I have been a big fan of the book "Teach Like a Pirate," from Dave Burgess.  It talks about the off-beat techniques one teacher uses to get high school students to learn.  It includes plenty of useful advice to maintain enthusiasm, deal with challenging students, and set up a learning environment that is accommodating. He uses the term "teach like a pirate" because it is a non-standard way to educate children.  I have taken Burgess's guidance and merged it into my coaching practice.   I have also authored a blog on how it informs my outlook.  

I learned a story in the press about Steve Jobs.  In 1983 the engineering team for Macintosh was struggling.  Jobs then brought the team to an off-site leadership meeting where he gave a pet talk saying, "it is better to be a pirate than to join the navy." After the weekend meeting, the engineers returned to Apple headquarters and raised a modified pirate flag over the office.  It was the traditional skull and crossbones with a twist.  Instead of a conventional eye patch, it has the Apple logo with rainbow stripes.  The flag would fly over the engineering building for Macintosh for over a year.  Jobs would point it out to visitors.  When the company celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2016, Jobs had been dead for five years, but the pirate flag flew again; the buccaneering spirit he inspired in the organization still lingered.  I imagine his approval in the afterlife at this gesture.  

The story has stuck with me ever since I discovered it.  The pirate of Robert Louis Stevenson and contemporary Hollywood is a colorful rebellious creature who lives outside the rules of conventional society.  Pirates are outlaws beholden to no one but themselves.  A pirate is an ultimate survivor willing to fight and die for their shipmates.  It is a lifestyle that often ended at the end of a noose or the point of a sword, but while alive, a pirate was living a way of life that few people could imagine.

I do love the swashbuckling nature of pirates.  I also see it as an inspiration for the teams I serve.  I often joke the development teams are a merry band of pirates attempting to make a living on the high seas.  I encourage people to take calculated risks to innovate and please the customer.  It is not the precise control of a corporate environment.  Instead, it is the collegial environment of skilled professionals working nimbly and collaboratively for swift rewards.  

So here I am, leading an agile transformation and a group of talented people.  I did not expect this out of my career ten years ago, and certainly not when I graduated from college.  It is the life of a pirate, and I will go where the wind and the seas will take me.  

The Hero's journey is no substitute for a product

A hero's journey is not a substitute for a product.

Each entrepreneur goes through a sort of hero’s journey.  If they are lucky, once that journey is finished they will emerge out of the other side stronger, wiser, and accomplishing something amazing.  It is no secret the technology world uses the language of science fiction and fantasy.  That is why a company which becomes extremely profitable it is called a unicorn.  As an agilest and entrepreneur, I convince myself that I am lucky and smart enough to aspire to this status.  It is the story I tell myself.  In the dark moments, it is what keeps me going.  This week, I want to talk about when story telling crosses the shadowy line from inspiration to deception.

Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, articulated the idea the human species has a “collective unconsciousness.”  This collective unconsciousness is the common characters or myths humans use to describe themselves.  The collective unconsciousness also describes what the human species aspires to become.

Joseph Campbell then built on Jung’s work in 1948 with his book, “The Hero with A Thousand Faces,” which talks about the similarities between the mythologies of western and tribal cultures.  Roman Gods were compared with the traditions of Native Americans and Australian Aborigines.  The similarities were too hard to ignore.  We had academic proof that the human species has a common story telling tradition.

Now that this knowledge was out in the open it did not take long for others to exploit it.  One of them was a University of Southern California graduate, who just has a hit film entitled “American Graffiti.”  The other was a technology entrepreneur who cultivated the image of a mystic shaman while he sold music players and later phones.

To be successful, a company needed a story and a heroic figure to pitch that story to the media and client.  It was a way of cutting through the clutter and getting the message out.  That lesson was not lost on Elizabeth Holms who dropped out of Stanford to found her company Theranos.   She created an image which was a frittata of Hitchcock’s icy blond, Steve Jobs techno shaman, and the elegant intelligence of Meryl Streep.  Her story was simple, she was going to change the world making blood testing affordable and less invasive.  She was smart enough and stubborn enough to found a company and make it happen.

The technology press swallowed the story hook, line and sinker.  Soon she was featured in press write ups, on television promoting her company, and receiving millions of dollars in venture capital.  I will not go into the details of Theranos and the fraud they committed.  Vanity Fair Magazine has already done an outstanding job on that front.  Suffice to say, Elizabeth Holms had a good story to sell but didn’t have a product.  Her blood testing tool was nothing but fantasy.

The lesson here is that every story should have a grounding in reality.  You cannot change the world with your products if your products do not work.  The rumpled engineers have to build something before the myth makers in sales and marketing come along.  Telegenic good looks and a story are not a substitute for business acumen and a product.

Anyone who grew up during the stupid and giddy time of the dot.com bubble should have known how this story was going to end.  They chose to ignore it and suspend disbelief because the story was good.  Instead of a hero’s journey, what the public got was a true crime story of fraud and greed.
It is a sobering lesson for an entrepreneur and consumer.  I hope that we are smart enough to recognize it before it happens again.

Until next time.

Saying Good-Bye

Remembering Steve Job's in China

There are three types of businesses in the current economy.  The first are businesses which make their money providing services.  The second are businesses which make their money pushing paper.  Finally, there are businesses that make their money building things.  Apple Computers was one of those companies which made things and in the process changed technology forever. 

I suppose that is why there is such an emotional outpouring for Steve Jobs.  Steve made things and they were stylish, innovative and helpful.  He had a few duds along the way but no one will deny that his influence in the computer science field will be felt for decades to come.  I doubt that the CEO of Goldman Sachs will be remembered as fondly if at all.

This is why I wanted to start a technology company and go into business for myself.  Life is too short to be working for others and I hope to make things which people can use.  If I make a little money and provide employment for a few people along the way so much the better. 

Good-Bye Steve, you will be missed.