Give context and play infinite games

The week was tough, but also carried numerous insights. So many of them, I couldn’t even process all of them yet.

The Agile State of Mind

It started with an interview with Maria Chec. Maria is the creator behind “Agile State of Mind”, a YouTube channel about everything agile. No matter if you want to learn about methods, the right mindset, or onboarding, it’s the right way to go.

With Maria I talked about what it means to set the right context about company and product goals. Often managers only think about caring about their people (which is good), but that’s not enough. As a manager it’s also your job to make sure to convey the ultimate goal of the company/product to the team and make sure they understand why they are doing what they are doing.

The chat with Maria was especially great, because I got a great neutral view, as she is not the typical manager that I am interviewing. As the Head of Agile Practice, it is her job to enable and facilitate collaboration. Therefore she needs to bring down barriers and make the right people collaborate.

Lessons Learned

Each interview lasts about an hour and here I am only delivering one or two points.

For example, the interview with Maria carried so much value, that I didn‘t even make it through until Friday (where I write and record this update).

Even though most of it will make it into the book, I thought it would be great to have a lessons-learned here on the blog and on YouTube. This helps the book and hopefully provides some value for you too.

Playing Infinite Games

This week I thought about the concept of finite vs infinite games.

A finite game you play to win. An infinite game you play to continue to play.

An example makes it easier. Soccer is over after 90 minutes, it‘s finite. This book journey won‘t be over at a certain point, it‘s infinite.

I am playing to continue to play. And that‘s also what I am optimizing for. Yes, I have a certain goal when to publish the book, but that‘s not when this journey ends.

The release of the book just marks I have reached „the next level.“ Then it will be about marketing, preparing workshops, delivering more value for people that need help beyond the book.

Therefore I am not „grinding and hustling“ to get the book out there. I am building healthy and sustainable habits on top of each other to make this a fun and doable journey. There is no value in all-nighters to get this updates out if the results suffer from it.

And I must say, that mental model helps me a lot. I am happy with my progress. Yes, I could still do „more“ on social media, but that wouldn‘t be sustainable at the moment.

What‘s next?

Next week there won‘t be that much progress on the book itself. I am at a team retreat and a lot of my time and effort will go into that.

I also will be giving a workshop about modern management there. Surely I will tell you how it went.

Let‘s see how next week goes. See you.