• Agile Transformation

Snake pit? These 3 tips will help you climb out!

You want to be able to thrive. Especially in your (new) work environment. A place where you feel safe, valued and completely in place. Where team members complement and trust each other. Yet it wouldn’t be the first time for me either that this work environment turns out to be toxic rather than fruitful. What do you do then?

A snake pit with a culture of fear full of mistrust, political games and envy. Unfortunately, almost all of us have had the experience of a job, client or team where we feel completely out of place. A place where your talents are squashed, where you work against each other rather than helping each other along the way and where no one seems to dare do anything about the situation. Even as an Innovation Coach and Agile Transformation Coach, I encounter this on a regular basis.

Done with that culture of fear at work

So as a trainer and coach, I have found myself in that outlined situation several times. As a result, I have since found out that a work environment with a lot of politics is killing for me. I see it as a tennis court for Messi; I am out of place there and I just end up becoming a very mediocre player. Fortunately, those situations have also given me some interesting insights that I’d like to summarize for you in three applicable tips.

• Pursue complementary colleagues

One of the first things I do as soon as I start within a new organization (or team) is to see who my immediate colleagues are. More specifically, I look to see who in my new environment are complementary to me. After all, those are the people who can make me thrive.

• Take out the politics

Not every decision has to be political. The role that suits me well is that of the independent outsider. Who understands both right and left, and above all wants to guide the process so that everyone is heard.

• Or stop!

About 1 in 20 assignments I stop earlier than agreed upon. To me, that feels like being professional. Daring to say honestly, “I don’t think I’m the right person in the right place. Of course, that feels like taking a huge risk. But the most common reaction? ‘How cool, rarely does anyone in our area do this’. The result what happened to me several times: being asked back. But then for an assignment or task that is tailor-made for me.

What are you doing?

Do the situations in this blog remind you of your team? Tricky, but then maybe you are the right person to do something about that situation right now. Feel free to contact me to discuss the right way. Or maybe you, as an Agile Coach, sometimes find yourself in the same situation as me and want to learn to deal with it better. Take a look at the Agile Coach Training I and the in-depth training.

By the way, all our blogs and vlogs on Psychological Safety are also extremely interesting if you want to do something about the fear culture at work. Want to measure psychological safety in your team? You can do that very practically with this free tool!