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Hi, I'm your host Vasco Duarte. Welcome

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to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, where

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we share tips and tricks from Scrum

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Masters around the world. Every

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day we bring you inspiring answers

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to important questions that all Scrum

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Masters face day after day. Hello

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everybody, welcome to our Team Tuesday.

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The sick we have with us,

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Emileza Lubinich. Emileza, welcome back. Hello

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Vasco, thank you. So

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first of all, let me say that I

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really appreciate when somebody who doesn't speak

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my native language is able to pronounce

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my name like you just did. I

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have the same gratitude towards you.

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It is quite rare these days because

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the Portuguese pronunciation is quite different from

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most languages, but I do recognize

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that if you have a Slavic language

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background, there are certain things that are

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much easier to pronounce in Portuguese and

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Vasco is one of those. So thank

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you for that, appreciate it. Now

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we're here to talk about teams of course, and we'll

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talk about teams in a second, but

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we also want to know about books

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so that we may learn from those

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and explore new ideas. So Emileza, share

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with us what was the book that

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most influenced you in your career as a

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Scrum Master? I

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think one of the

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books that had the

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biggest impact was the power of

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vulnerability, Brené Brown. I

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think it helped me understand or

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kind of put words

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and meaning to the things that

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I was not able

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to understand and kind of separate before.

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So kind of trying to understand and

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live through the difference between fitting in

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and belonging. And I

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think once I was able

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to kind of nurture belonging

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with I

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don't know, gothic style or whatever, just because you

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would like to fit into that group and you

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feel like that might be something that would work

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for you. Belonging would

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be, I'm coming as I am, for whatever

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that is, I have very bad

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taste in, I don't know, wardrobe

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and I don't know, hairstyle or whatever,

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but I am who I am, I'm

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coming as I am, and I'm risking

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for whatever is there to risk because

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of that, but I'm true to myself.

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And then the connections that I will

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make will be with my true self

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and the people who are able to recognize

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that, acknowledge that, and connect on that

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on a more deeper level. Well,

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you made me curious about that book, so

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thank you for the recommendation and the description.

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I'm definitely gonna read that book next. So,

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Milica, of course, we're also here to talk

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about teams, talking about fitting in and belonging,

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and we want to

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hear about how sometimes, these

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teams create their own problems, and we want to

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hear about one of those cases and

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how it developed, right? Because sometimes it starts with

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very small things, comments,

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attitudes within two, or

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between two team members in a meeting, whatever

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that might be, but even though they start

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small, these dynamics tend to grow and become

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problematic for the team. So tell us one

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of those stories, Milica. I

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think for me, when I look into

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those patterns and when I look into

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those kind

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of challenges that teams are going through,

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mostly they're connected with the lack of

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the ability to sustain a certain change.

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So everyone, so when you get into the

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phase where you feel a pain for a

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certain thing that is not working well, let's

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say, I don't know, just as

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a stupid example, we're not good

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in, I don't know, doing

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refinements. And this is a pain, it's

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a painful meeting. We end up sitting

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there for hours, we have

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no outcomes, it's super exhausting. We end up

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with two or three people talking out of...

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or seven. And so when

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people feel the pain, they're very eager to make

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a change. And that's, that's the easy part, right?

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You help them figure out what would that change

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look like? How would that be?

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And they are very eager to make it to

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make it work. But what what

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I see as a very, very often

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as an issue is the ability to

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sustain that change. And one of the

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things that very often

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happens, and one of the things

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that I actually saw a couple of times in my

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career is that you

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figure out what are the improvement areas,

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people kind of have some action items,

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they start picking up on those. And

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then you have a team lead that

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jumps into this role of team

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reminder. He's,

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he or she, they start

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imposing reminders

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towards certain action items, kind of like, Hey,

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have you thought, have you seen this, this

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is still an action item, we should be,

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you know, taking care of this and that.

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And what that creates, even though it's a

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very kind

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of, it's best intention, it has

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best intention in the background. And

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I know that a lot of

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very often team leads, or managers,

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or whoever are very eager

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to help the team, you know, make

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that transition and make things better. It becomes,

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you know, as you said, it becomes, it

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starts with this small thing, and then it

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ends up with complete lack of ownership and

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taking responsibility. Because as long as there

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is someone else reminding me of something that I

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need to do, it's, it's their responsibility. It's not

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mine, I don't have to think about it, because

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I have someone who will do it for me,

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right? It's as if when you have to

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have when you take have to take a medicine. And,

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you know, for a while, you, you just

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have an alarm to remind

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you, you don't ever have to think about

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it ever again, right? Because there is an

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alarm, it will, you know, set

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at certain at certain points. So

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I think one

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thing that I'm

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working with teams in these kinds of

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situations is just helping them understand that

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it's okay to fail throughout the process.

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It's okay to forget. It's

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okay because habit takes time

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to be created. Very

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often you need, I don't know, around

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40 repetitions. I think that's one of

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the things that research shows, to

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actually take

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on a certain new habit. If

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there is someone else taking responsibility for the things

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they need to do, then it's their habit. It's

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not mine. How do we get there

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with failing and learning from

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that failure? We forgot

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about it once or twice about a certain

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action item or certain thing that we agreed

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on. Okay, we forgot about

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it. What do we do now? What

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is the thing? Let's be honest. Let's reflect on

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that and let's say, hey, we failed. Beautiful.

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Okay. What's next? How do we make

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sure that we don't fail again? What is the thing

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that is going to be working for you? Sometimes

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it's a very stupid thing. Maybe you will have

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a reminder. Sometimes

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teams are creating to-do lists. I

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don't know. It can be

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very... It can sound or

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look very banal, but it's in

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the end a very useful tactic to actually

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create that habit. And sometimes we need additional

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tools to help. It's

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an interesting aspect that you brought

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the idea of sustaining improvements and

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change by

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taking the perspective of creating

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a habit. Because very often,

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and this is actually in my mind

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quite a critical aspect to change. We'll talk

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more about change tomorrow, of course, but very

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often we look at change as a

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project, like something we need to start and

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finish. It's just a bunch of things and

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we just need to go through it. If

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I understood you correctly, what you're introducing is

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that change is a habit. It's

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about understanding.