In order for organizations to succeed, they must cultivate trust. Trust doesn’t happen overnight; it’s built on the foundation of patience. Patience with people, processes, and, most importantly, patience with outcomes that may not always align with expectations.
Agility is not just about speed or flexibility; it’s about creating an environment where trust and empiricism can flourish. And to do that, your organization needs patience.
Why Patience is the Key to Trust
Let’s face it, not everything will go as planned. Mistakes happen, failures occur, and sometimes the product we create doesn’t meet the desired outcome. That’s part of life in product development. Every feature, every decision we make is a bet—an educated guess that something will work. But we won’t know if it works until we’ve gone through the process and validated it with users, customers, and stakeholders.
📝 Key Takeaway: Not all outcomes will be successful, but patience allows us to learn from them and move forward.
Building Patience Within Teams
For an Agile team to truly thrive, they need the space and trust to experiment, fail, learn, and improve. Patience is required from all sides:
Leaders: Must be patient with their teams as they navigate complex challenges.
Product Owners: Need patience with the development process, trusting the team to deliver the best possible outcome.
Teams: Must be patient with each other and themselves as they learn, adapt, and improve through iterations.
Without patience, frustration creeps in, leading to a culture of blame. And in a blame-oriented culture, trust erodes, and with it, the foundation for any effective Agile or Scrum framework.
🔑 Pro Tip: Trust is the foundation of empiricism, and empiricism cannot thrive in an environment where blame and frustration dominate.
Why Trust Matters in Agile
Trust is essential to any Agile environment because it empowers teams to make decisions, innovate, and self-organize. It allows team members to take risks without fear of backlash, leading to more creative solutions and, ultimately, better products. However, trust is fragile, and without patience, it’s easily broken.
How Impatience Erodes Trust
When impatience sets in, teams begin to feel the pressure to deliver at all costs. This can lead to:
Cutting Corners: Teams might skip critical steps in testing or validation, leading to poor product quality.
Blame Culture: When things don’t go according to plan, the focus shifts from problem-solving to finger-pointing.
Loss of Innovation: Without trust, teams are less likely to experiment, reducing creativity and innovation.
📉 Reality Check: When blame replaces trust, your organization is setting itself up for failure.
Embrace Failures as Learning Opportunities
Failures are inevitable in product development, but they should be seen as opportunities to learn and improve. Here’s where patience comes into play again. When something goes wrong, leaders and teams need to approach the situation with a mindset of understanding and growth rather than frustration and blame.
The Role of Empiricism in Agile
Empiricism is one of the core pillars of Agile and Scrum. It relies on transparency, inspection, and adaptation. To make this work, teams need to trust each other and the process, using data and real-world results to guide their decisions. But without patience, empiricism falters.
Transparency: Teams need to be open about what’s working and what’s not. This requires a safe space where honesty is valued over saving face.
Inspection: Regular reviews of progress help teams assess whether they’re on the right track. This requires leaders to be patient with the process, allowing time for meaningful inspections.
Adaptation: Based on the inspection, teams need to make changes. This often involves trial and error, which takes time and trust.
🧘♂️ Patience Tip: Allow your teams to learn from their experiences. Rushing the process can lead to shortcuts and missed learning opportunities.
How to Cultivate Patience and Trust
Building a culture of trust and patience in your organization isn’t an overnight task, but there are steps you can take to start this transformation:
1. Acknowledge Failures Openly
Create a culture where failures are seen as learning opportunities, not career-ending mistakes. When teams feel safe to fail, they are more likely to take risks that lead to innovation.
2. Set Realistic Expectations
Set clear and realistic expectations with your teams, stakeholders, and leaders. Unrealistic expectations often lead to frustration and erosion of trust.
3. Practice Empathy
Put yourself in the shoes of your team members. Understand the challenges they face and be patient as they navigate them. Empathy builds trust.
4. Avoid the Blame Game
Blame never leads to positive outcomes. Instead, focus on understanding the root causes of any issues and work collaboratively to find solutions.
🚀 Action Step: Start your next sprint retrospective by focusing on how patience (or lack thereof) has impacted the team’s performance and trust levels.
The Role of Consultants and Coaches in Building Trust
Sometimes, it can be difficult to recognize when an organization has lost its way when it comes to trust and patience. That’s where external help, like consultants or coaches, can be invaluable. At Naked Agility, we specialize in helping organizations realign with the Seven Virtues of Agility, including trust and patience.
Our approach is grounded in helping teams foster better communication, patience, and trust through practical, hands-on guidance. If you’re struggling with building trust within your teams, it might be time to seek outside help. 🌱 Final Thought: Trust and patience aren’t just “nice to have” values—they are critical to creating successful, sustainable Agile organizations.
