Karen Armstrong was frustrated. Having joined a convent at the age of 17 and committing to a life of poverty and service, she wasn’t succeeding in the ways she thought she would. A nun is only as good as the quality of her prayers, she stated, and hers were lacking. So after 7 years, she […]
Read more "What Will It Take To Build A Team Of Compassionate People?"Willful blindness: a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting his or herself in a position where he or she will be unaware of facts that would render him or her liable. That’s a pretty severe accusation […]
Read more "Are you afraid to raise your hand and speak up? You’re not alone."We are officially UX crazy, and for good reason. Software cares for users in a way I wasn’t sure was even possible, thanks to the litany of work done to care for them. I thought about it recently when I saw this amazing tweet: That is care in a nutshell. Empathy is not reached in […]
Read more "I’m Chris Murman, TX Strategist"Growing up, I had a hard time with the word “humility”. Much of my adolescence was what I would call a charmed life and good things had a way of coming my way (even in the face of defeat). This led to me learning humility the hard way as an adult — by falling on […]
Read more "Being ‘Humbled Well’ Is Very Different Than ‘Living With Humility’."It’s happened more than I’m willing to admit. Standing before the team, I’m faced with an issue that I have to address. A company policy we have was not being followed by one of my team members, and I needed to call this person out and make sure it doesn’t continue. Instead, I sat back waiting […]
Read more "How Has Passivity Crept Into Your Teams?"satisfice (ˈsadəsˌfīs) – verb – To accept an available option as satisfactory. Anyone who has cleaned their house recently knows the definition of this word. You didn’t pull out toothbrushes and spend all weekend on your hands and knees. You cleaned until you were satisfied with the state of whatever room you were in, and moved on. […]
Read more "‘Satisficing’ Is The Best Word Your Team Didn’t Know Existed"It is not an exaggeration to say that I have spent my entire life around coaches. I used to think it was because we just went to the church all coaches in my town attended as a child. Small town politics aside, it was more than that. My dad was just one of those dudes […]
Read more "Regardless Of The Sport, We Are All Coaches"While I’m not proud to admit it, I am a people pleaser by nature. I’m inclined to go an extra step if I think it will gain favor in someone’s eyes, and I’m hesitant to lovingly speak tough truth if I think it will cost me that relationship. It’s debilitating to picture myself in those […]
Read more "Coming Out Of Your Own Closet"Regardless of how much I knew the material I wanted to present, and the supreme amount of support I had in the room, there’s always something about presenting to a large group that can make you a bit nervous. It was my third or fourth time presenting the same topic, but this time it was […]
Read more "Blog Post: When A Presentation Becomes More Than Just Slides"Agile coaches, project and product managers all have their strengths. While the specifics tend to differ wildly, I can usually divide them into two camps: the immediate and the future. The immediate specialists are awesome day-to-day negotiators of roadblocks and issues that arise on the team. They love spending time with the team, keeping meetings […]
Read more "Blog Post: Are You Better At Focusing On The Future Or The Immediate?"
Chris Murman 