Bob and Dale Chat about Social Challenges at Work

A few weeks ago, at Agile Development Practices West 2010 conference in Las Vegas, my friend and colleague Bob Payne hosted me for an episode of his Agile Toolkit podcast. I invite you to listen to our half-hour conversation and to other episodes about all things Agile.

Bob's podcasts are always conversational—the conversation wanders where it will, but seldom strays far from the topic du jour. Our wanderings touched on:

• Resistance is mutual
• Bridging the gap between hamsters and wolverines
• Solving the deeper problem is sometimes easier than solving the surface problem
• Ineffective patterns of coping with stress (blaming, placating, distracting)
• Joe diffuses the boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's blaming
• The power of aggregation
• The power of giving yourself choices
• Payson Hall's terrific keynote about the dilemmas of risk management
• Dale fails to grok space and time
• Three definitions of resistance
• Overcoming resistance (boo!) versus resolving resistance (yay!)
• Resistance is feedback
• To encourage change, start by meeting people where they are
• Two styles of Agile adoption: "By the book" and evolutionary
• From balance to differentiation—from "how much" to "which"
• My upcoming Resistance as a Resource workshop at Agilistry Studio, July 14–15

Only in retrospect could I name the central topic of our chat: social challenges at work. In further retrospect, that central topic is nearly inevitable, given my interests.