Follow the Energy

Motivating a team when you're not on the team is tricky business. You could be expected to conduct a workshop to identify a quality strategy. Yet, you might not have all the context available to know what risks exist and why obstacles exist. What you call quality activities, they might hear 'extra work'.

The key is to identify their motivation, not what you think their motivation should be. Jerry Weinberg coined the heuristic as "Follow the Energy".

Becoming an active listener will help you better understand a team's motivation. A good way to learn this skill is to practice facilitation. Another is to learn to reframe in terms of benefit. As a quality coach, I can frame a suggestion by saying, 'Extra unit tests will make the quality better' or, 'Extra unit tests will get your weekend back'. Which one sounds more appealing to a team of engineers?

Another version of the follow-the-energy lens is to look at negative energy. What frustrates people and prevents them from getting their work done? Ben Simo told me a great story about how his team became known as 'the fixers'. They identified pain with/between teams and worked to fix it.
When working at Google, Trish Khoo identified her biggest superpower as getting teams to speak to each other.

Following the negative energy can be helpful, especially if a team cannot vocalise what they want. It's easier to identify what's blocking you right now than some aspirational end state that neither you nor they believe will come to fruition.

Part of your role as a quality coach is to help bring out what people need. Sometimes, it's recognition; sometimes, it's better technical tools, more information, or greater visibility. Do they need that? Perhaps, perhaps not. Time and learning will reveal those insights to all of you.

And, of course, never forget about your energy. Make sure you follow that too.