 Look what I'm drinking, this is a Belgian beer, Bacchus Crack, Bacchus Creek. Bacchus is the name I've heard, Greek Roman God, hasn't it? I've made that up. It's a sour cherry beer apparently, sour cherry beer, it's in a plastic brown paper bag. I like that the fact is it's the first ever beer you've had where it's been... I haven't tried it yet, just... Oh, you're just looking at it. It said more in the bottle. Smells like sour cherries, like those sort of Haribo cherries, but not quite as sweet. No, I don't know. Not for me, not sweet enough. No, but it smells like cherries. I've never heard of a cherry beer. The Belgians, they love their fruit. That's quite nice, I think you'd like that. I'm not going to use share the bottle. I don't think you'd consider it a beer. I say that, I say that to my wife. I don't think you'd like that, but then I've built you a fruit of my life. Is that when you feed beer to your one-year-old child? Whoa, whoa, whoa, we're recording here, I don't do that. So, we are... What's the place called The Saint? It's the... Yeah, it's the fullest pub, isn't it? It's the Saint Bar & Kitchen. We're on Paternoster Square in our old stomping ground. Very close to... In St Paul's? Yeah, to BT Centre. Which, according to Nigel, is soon to be not BT Centre anymore. I think it's the last building they own as it stands. Really? I think so, they've sold everything else off. Yeah, I'm drinking... On the recommendation of the barmaid. Waitress. Barmaid slash... She says it's a very good beer, very popular beer. It's Sour Cushion. And I do quite a lot. I'm not quite sure how many I would drink. They're strong, is it? They're 6%. They're stronger than my side. The Belgian beer is not that strong, but it's definitely... It doesn't taste that strong because of the cherry. And from Belgium to Cornwall, I'm drinking a bottle of Cornish Orchard... I don't know if I can say it. Cornish Orchard, it's gold cider. Pressed blend in a bottle that West North Manifam, Cornwall, near Liskard. Can you tell the difference between that and the summer cider? No, absolutely not. It's lovely, you see, it's nice and cold. It's reasonably sweet, it's quite nice. Dude, she said it was medium. She said it's a long dry finish on it. It's nice though, I think I'm quite thirsty as well, so this point isn't going to hang around for too long. Cheers, mate. Cheers. I'm not going to clink much because... Got paper on it. Paper bag. I quite like that, it's a nice touch to that. It's a new one, isn't it? Different cider feature. It's a bit different. Makes it stand out a little bit. Good day? Yeah, we've been doing a... I'm going to say a basic course today in terms of the Scrum Alliance... Pathway. ...development pathway at the basic level. We're doing a certified Scrum product on the course. So... Yeah. Unusual to be doing that together, thank you. It's quite hard. Inquisitive bunch. We had to improvise through several parts. It wasn't... We're caught out a little bit by expectations, not perhaps being different to what we were going in with. So we adjusted, we pivoted. So that's a good example of proxies, I suppose, handoffs, I suppose. So one person arranging the training course on behalf of many, speaking to somebody else, thinking that they want one thing. But actually, it's quite... It's a real mixed bag of people with different experiences, different roles. And so... But sometimes the best training courses are when you've got a real mix of different... Oh, yes. ...across function of the company in one room, which you do get. You hear it all sides of the story, don't you? But we've planned on this being a pure product... almost a pure product owner training course, just product owner techniques and strategy mindset and stuff. But actually, it's a lot more than that. So this is something I'm proud of. Am I allowed to be proud of, maybe? That we can pivot. We don't have a script. And so the plan that we had at the start has changed, even today. And tomorrow is going to be very different to how we planned it. Morphing to the needs of the class, really. While still meeting the learning objectives of the scrimmage lines. But we are lucky we've got a little bit of a variety of materials that we can go to. Well, that's the beauty of... Well, that's the backbone of resilience, isn't it? Having options. Options increases resilience, experience. Having done this for so long and done so many different types of exercises and courses and real life examples that you can build it as you go. Still, interesting, when we came back to... as we were walking in today and we saw the old BT office, you and I said to each other about the old days. And there's a lot of fondness in our memories, but there's also a lot of, oh, my words. I'm not sure I'd want to go back to that again. And we had quite a lot of prisoners, didn't we, in the early days, as you call them, people who didn't want to... Didn't want to be there. When you're running a train course there. And even on projects, you didn't really want to be involved in it or didn't want to change. And that was hard passages. You didn't have the tools and the experience and the skills, maybe, to engage them differently. But we... I got an email from... Did I get an email? I have a feeling I got an email. Did you get an email from the Scrummelites about course expectations? Student expectations? No. So I know it doesn't happen all the time, but I do sometimes not certify people. Oh, OK, right. I'm not sure everybody is of the same mindset as me, but I'm not a fan of someone just getting a certification just because they've turned up. They need to participate. Yeah, I'm quite... I try to be quite explicit in the beginning of a training course that this isn't just an attendance-based... Attendance isn't the fact that you're in the seat. Attendance is actively participating. Yeah. I put on my T's and C's. And that's effectively what... I think it was an email said, it's OK as long as you're quite clear about what's expected. Yeah, so on my website it would say, don't expect a PowerPoint, you're not going to get it. And especially in our advanced classes, you'll need to do some pre-work, you'll need to do some post-work, you'll need to get involved. It's not sit there and soak up information. And just that clarity of expectations I think is important. When it comes to these entry-level things, it's not as strict. Well, especially where... I know this is probably going to change over the course of the next few months, within the year, hopefully. But at the moment, so we're teaching a PO class today, there is no test to fall back on. True. So it is hugely down to trainer, in this case, trainer as me and you in the room, as to whether we deem students, that's the word, kind of appropriate, or it kind of should be granted, a license. Yeah, based on our subjective view, how they've performed in the class. There are some basic constraints there. We're not allowed to just say anybody can be certified. They have to turn it to a two-day class. That's a bare minimum to be there. And if they duck out for an hour or two... And I think even that is... that's non-specified by this problem, as far as I'm concerned, isn't it? Or am I wrong? Maybe you're right, I'm not. I know Nides used to operate on a half-hour basis. If you missed half an hour, you were out. Or you wouldn't be certified. I think that's maybe a personal thing, maybe. I know... I think it's a very clear boundary there. You need to attend two full days of training. Yeah. The difference again between public and private training is on public courses you generally get people sort out that course, found a date that they can do, and you'd hope they're going to attend fully those two days. I completely get that some people have childcare, pick-ups, drop-offs, or emergencies they have to attend to. I get that completely. If that's known to me, I can work around that, we can adjust things if we need to. But if you're setting... in a private setting, if you're attending a two-day class, you've got to assume I'm required from nine to five, you know, a full business day. Yeah. You put an interesting caveat there, so if people tell you in advance, then you can do something about it. Yeah. So as well as... it's on your website, two full days of training, whatever. And then at the start of the class, we'll say, right, even before that, some pre... training instructions, you know? You've got to be there, you've got to stay there. But then we start off today saying, you need to be here, you need to stay here. It's a pretty low bar to begin with. And can anybody not meet that? And it's a horrible thing, I hate doing it. And also, very... imagine who's going to be a person that stands up in a class, even in a private class that people you know would say, I'm not going to be here, but they're not fully committed. That's a big call, isn't it? It is important. It's a big call to make with relative strangers that you've, you know, you've never met. It is the right thing. It is the right thing to do. And you take a lot of courage to do that because you potentially as a trainer, jeopardize that relationship you have with our students through that two days. Yeah. And it really plays on your people, please, to train. Of course you do. You want people to be happy. But equally, you have integrity, right? Yeah. You've got to... sometimes you've just got to... there's nothing really... I'm putting my career on the line if I don't. I'm putting the value of the certification probably else on the line. Where then do you draw the line? Can you do this in an hour? Can you do this in an hour and a half? And it's not just a different example, but it's a similar thing about doing the right thing. I think it was... I think I was doing a job for you. This is a couple of years back. But I think I rang you or text you in the evening. I said, Jeff, these... it was after day one of a two-day class. And I just said, half the people in this room are actively destroying this two-day class. They don't want to be here. And in fact, they don't like what we're doing. They don't want it to succeed. And they're trying to convince other people that they are destroying... from inside, they're destroying this class. And I think there was a huge fallout from it. And there was a huge... lots of different people got involved. But I didn't certify about... think about half that class. That's the most extreme I ever had. And there was a lot of people complained. I took a lot of people out once. I one-to-one discussed with each of those people. It wasn't a time-based thing. It was an attitude-based thing. Now, unless you change how you're going about this, I am not prepared to certify you as a certified scrum master at this point, because I don't think you are showing the traits a scrum master should about being positive about change. And it's not that you don't want dissent or challenge... No. ...or alternative opinions, but there's an element of, is this constructive? Or is it undermining, sabotaging and stopping other people from learning? But that's a really difficult thing to do. I really struggle with that, because the easiest thing to do was to just get my head down, get to the end of the class, tick the boxes, certify them all. Nothing will ever ban... I'll never hear about it again. But it was, for me, it was too much, you know, kind of testing my integrity of it wasn't the right thing to do. So how do... can you think, apart from calling me, was there anything else that you sort of did? Any processes you went through? Anything you did that made it a little bit easier for you to do the right thing, rather than just stick your head down and tick the box and ignore it? So I needed to... I don't think I ever went... I wrote them down, but I certainly was quite categoric about what I'd observed. So to help verify my decision, I went back through in my head, well, this person did this, said this at this point, deliberately tried to... said this to this person, was rude to this person about these things. And that's, for me, that's gathering evidence of the evidence in my head. For what purpose? I suppose to try and... verify that this is... repeat in my head that that's not what is expected. So, because that's important to me, that question, because what you said there is that that was for you to effectively prove to yourself that this was an issue, rather than just a feeling. Rather than to cover your ass if anybody complained about what you were going to do. Yeah. OK. But I was... I remember at the time I was very fearful about doing it. I don't know if I did anything else. I was... I think it affected me massively, and I think... didn't really help the other people that were there more there to learn, because it came about me trying to manage those people rather than teaching the class. I still find it difficult. The word that always comes into my head in those situations is conflict. And natural reaction for many people is, do I really want that? Do I want that conflict? Because I know it's going to cause me anxiety, but then weighing up the alternative, the conscious alternative, how would I feel about myself when I go home and I weigh up non-action as opposed to action? Action A against action B. And so I have a few sort of questions that I ask myself when I find myself in those types of situations. If I realize I'm in that situation, it's not easy to realize it all the time. I'll ask myself things like, if my kids were watching, what would I want myself to do? What kind of example would I like to set for my kids, that kind of thing? If I look back on this and I'm retired, what action would I be proud of? That kind of thing. It just makes it a little bit easier for me to think, okay, that's worth it. And we've talked a lot about fear setting in the past, haven't we? Certainly on these podcasts. Actually, just playing out consciously, what do you think will happen if you do do the right thing? And quite often, a lot of those things, you realize actually probably won't happen. I'll give you a recent example. I don't want to stop you there, but I'm not sure if I've told you about this, but so, recent holiday, non-work, it's a complete out of work context. On the Eurostar. Book to seat on the way home. Have a lovely holiday away with the kids and the wife. Go and take our seats. It becomes quite clear quite soon that there's going to be a group of very loud squaddies. Do you want to explain squaddies? You might do, yeah. So military, or certainly ex-military personnel on a train who are in civvies in kind of regular clothes, but they're off duty, but they're quite close as a group. They're certainly quite loud, and they are sitting right in wind amongst my family, and they've got a lot of alcohol on the tables they're drinking. And already, before we leave Lille, which in France, the noise levels are quite high. So, my kids there, and I think you're right, having my kids there does make me do things that I probably would think longer and harder about will certainly be slower to react because I'm taking a decision now, not just for myself, but for my other four or two kids. I said, I'm going to say something now early. It is better to get this out there now. I think that's good, yeah. But I think I would have dwelled on it a lot longer. So I just said, I made eye contact with one of the guys. I said, look, I don't mind the noise and the volume, but what I don't want is the language. And my kids are here, and although they've got their headphones on, they're watching an iPad, I don't want them to hear the type of language that might occur. So you were anticipating that language? Had you heard that language at that point? Yeah, a couple of times. So I was, and I made an assumption that this is probably going to get worse. So I wanted to put my, it wasn't an easy thing to do, but I felt it was the right thing to do by my kids. And I didn't need, I didn't discuss it with my wife, I just did it. I didn't ring anyone and ask for advice, I just did it. And I think that does make a huge difference when you take yourself away as to what would you or your children or an innocent bystander expect to do. But despite the bystander effect, nobody else said anything. Interesting. Did they think you've solved the problem? I don't know. Because the risk there is that everybody jumps in and then it feels like that party is getting ganged up on, which can have a negative effect. Because then they feel that their autonomy is being impinged and they need to exert their independence again. But we ended up moving further down the carriage later on in the journey because it did get worse. But I felt that it was kind of, they knew why I was moving. I didn't have to explain myself. I felt more comfortable with, they knew why I was unhappy. You could argue I could have gone further and reiterated, but my secondary tactic was then to say, it's happened, I'm not happy with it, I'm moving away. I think that's interesting. Another reason, because alcohol will generally change the dynamic. Yes. So it's not, you're not necessarily dealing with rationality at that point. No, no. And so doing that early while they were still relatively sober, that's why I felt I did the right thing. Tough conversation, but I felt I handled it as best I could. Yeah. Interesting. You felt your hand, do you think you know anybody that would have handled it better? Question. I don't know. I don't know. I think maybe people, I know that would have handled it differently. I'm not so sure it would have been better. I can know people that would have been a lot more alpha about it, a lot more controlling about it. So maybe, certainly my wife went to, her tactics were different. She, she didn't feel confident enough to confront them. She went to speak to the train manager and asked if we could be moved. Yeah. Or if we, so she knew that she had that fallback. Yeah. That's a different tactic. I know some of my friends that would have perhaps turned up the aggression. For me, that wasn't how I would approach it. I would have done it differently and tackled it differently. The reason I ask that is because that's another tactic that I use. And I've written about it in a different, in a specific context of an inner board room. So when you're trying to make a decision and you're unsure, and you think, well, whose opinions do I trust and what would they say? And a good board room, a good team really has a diverse set of perspectives. And these people, I mean, as it could be anybody, they don't have to be real. You don't even have to know them. You can have Bugs Bunny in your inner board room. It doesn't matter. And sometimes having that, you know, Elmerford, or Dick Dusterdale, or Wiley Coorsie, whatever, could be quite a mighty home assumption. But who would approach this situation really, really well? Or conversely, who would approach this situation really, really badly? And why? And is there a way that I could emulate some of that? Yeah. It's a question that I find quite useful to me. And, you know, different people have different strengths, and sometimes you can borrow those strengths from them. Just by playing that role. Yeah. Helps to do the right thing a little bit. It's hard, isn't it? It is hard. But then some people find it a lot easier to do the right thing. Yeah. Doesn't it? No brainer. Yeah. I think the thing that drives a lot of those behaviors is fear, isn't it? It's this idea of what's going to, how is this going to come back on me? Yeah. Because those people could have reacted quite. Really badly. And, I mean, in a worst case scenario, I don't like that. In a worst case scenario, they could physically overpower you. Yeah. And my kids are at risk. Yeah. So my kids, but then I think I'd grow a lot more courageous when my kids are. Yeah. In a similar situation. Again, completely different again, but we're at a skate park with my kids. And there's a 13, 12, 13-year-old boy who's, again, using language that I don't think is, I don't think my kids want to hear. So my gut, and I was very different then. I went over and I actually face-to-face confronted. I suppose it's, again, a bit of a status thing, isn't it? Yeah. There's a group, different between a group of squads and a 13-year-old kid who's mounting off. And I said, I don't think your language is appropriate and I don't want my children to hear it. Can you tone it down? So you've made a request? Yeah. I mean, nonviolent communication is a structure that I'll often give to people when they don't really have the confidence to come up with their own words. So they can name something. And you effectively went through that. Well, I'm just trying to repeat what I said then. I don't think it's appropriate. It's more of a judgment. That's... So yeah, but when you were doing your squady example, Yeah. You'd observed something. You told them how that impacts you. Yeah. Because of a need you have, which is related to your children. Yeah. And you made a request. Yeah. And that's a fairly understandable process for other people to be able to empathize with. Yeah, yeah. And even if those squodies then lapsed later on, they would have been aware of it. And they still have the choice to say, no, freedom of speech, we can do this, whatever we have the authority to do this, but you've made a logical rational sound to me, judgment free. It's interesting. So I feel I, whether this plays into the whole, how easy this is, I made, as a sentiment, I made on contact. There's a group of lads. Yeah. Some of them were drinking more than others. Some of them have stood up, some have sat down. I made eye contact with someone that made eye contact with me. Okay. So I don't know if that makes a difference, that I felt, again, this is a feeling, I felt he knew he could sense my discomfort. Yeah. Before, I think there was one glance, and maybe I glanced down on what they were doing, and glanced back at him, and glanced at my kids, and glanced back at him. There's a non-verbal invitation. There's a non-verbal acceptance there of this could be, this is going to potentially become an issue. And he kind of almost silently, body language, he acknowledged that the kind of, he knew he stopped talking enough to make, to slow down and acknowledge that I was there, and that kind of then, 10, 15 seconds past when I'm setting up the iPad for the kids, I look back, he again makes eye contact with me, because I've made eye contact with him, and then I said something. The other thing that I noticed that you did there was, had to word it, you gave them an out, in a way. Yes. It was, they don't have to stop, they just have to change. So you said, you can be as loud as you like, effectively, these weren't the words you used. Yeah. Be as loud as you like, and you can sing, and you can joke, but just the language. That's all I want you to do, the language. Yeah, yeah. Rather than, stop what you're doing, it's bad. Yeah. Everything you're doing is bad, absolutely, yeah. And that, that I think, giving people an out, and... An option to change. I'm reading into this, because of what I know about you, there was no way that, knowing you, you would have, you would have had that conversation without that, some kind of empathy. No. I'm not saying you are the person who gets drunk on the train and starts singing, but you are the kind of person who gets drunk on the train and starts singing. So you know how much fun that can be, and you, you can empathize with them in that situation, and you know it's a bit fun, and you're the party pooper, and whatever, but that empathy builds a lot as well. It's not, you're not coming down on them as an international audience, but as a merry White House, complete, judgmental, very, very strict, Victorian style attitude. I think there's a huge difference of having that direct, confronting that directly, whereas I can imagine some people I know would have verbalized their, their disdain for their behavior, but to the person next to them, but just talking to them. Oh, passive-aggressive. Yeah. So kind of, oh, I just can't hear myself think. The language is terrible, but telling their spouse or their partner, rather than, and that actually attracts more, seems to attract more attention. That's great. Yeah. That's a classic, I follow a Twitter account, very British problems. Yeah, I do. And it's a classic British response, isn't it? The passive-aggressive tucked. And you expect other people to change their behavior just because you tucked rather than actually tell them what you fear and what you want. So just coming back to your original question, do you think culture plays a part in how easy it is to do the right thing, rather than the easy things? Not to do nothing? I think yes, because I don't, I don't remember ever being told that as a Brit, you should just let things slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just something that happens. It's the British thing way to do it. You see it a lot, because it's part of your personality. Turn of blind eye. Whereas I know other cultures having worked internationally that just wouldn't stand for that. No. They would say it, and they wouldn't see it as conflict, either. They wouldn't even see an argument as a conflict. They would see it as an exchanging of views. So, but I think equally, there are probably, I wouldn't be able to name them, but there are probably some cultures that actually would see a physical altercation as the right way to settle it. Wow. You know? Yeah. Maybe going back in time, perhaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That idea of, you've got an opinion, I've got an opinion, let's fight. Jewel, yes. To the death. So, I'm not saying the British culture is the wrong thing, at all, but I think we all have something, well, I certainly have something that I work on in that. I find it difficult, I work on it all the time. And there are some tools that I've picked up that I know help me do that. And, you know, when I'm working with a team, any team, really, it's even harder in a team because you have an opinion of what the right thing is, and I have an opinion of what the right thing is, but that might not be the same. And if you're talking about a team of seven people, you might have seven subjective opinions of what the right thing is. So how do you then deal with that? Do you just let things go? For me, I'd facilitate that conversation amongst the team, so there's a team we can say, this is where the line is. I know you did a session, you did a session years ago about what an acceptable level of swearing was on the team, didn't you? Language, yeah, and then expletives, and things like that, yeah. And that, what do we collectively agree is the line that should not be crossed? Yeah, and even, I mean, we're both big fans of stand-up comedy, and we go and watch a lot of live shows, and there's points that you think have different lines within the audience, and you get a sense, and all comedians do this, they play a line or a joke to test where the line is, and then they push it. We had that, the day we saw somebody said that joke was a barometer. Yes. We played early to see, okay, what's acceptable here, and what's not. Yeah, because I'm back to courses and training, I generally don't swear in training courses. Maybe the occasional crap or the occasional shit. Yeah. But I know some trainers, who won't know, who go full, full F and C bomb. No, they move it on the C bomb. Well, I think I judged that. Maybe not always successful, but I won't be the first to swear. No. So I'll send... Oh, so you sense whether someone else has gone there first, in the class? No, I will never be the first. Well, I try not to be the first. My intention is not to be the first person to swear. Okay. So I'm listening out for it, and then sensing the room to see whether there's discomfort. And if there isn't, then I'm happy to match them. Yeah. Because I like matching language, I like matching that kind of thing, banter and fitting in. But no, I wouldn't impose my level of vulgarity on a team. Interesting. Well, I try not to anyway. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Do you want to try this before I get my coronavirus all over it? No, that's nice. Oh, oh. It's got a kind of, a bit of a dirty aftertaste. It's just that I don't like the taste of beer. See, I didn't, I can't taste beer. That tastes like Bakewell Tarts, which I suppose is right. You like Bakewell Tarts? I do, I do like Bakewell Tarts. But it's got, it's more of a gritty, gritty taste. I like a pure sugar taste. That's good. I think we're just about cook that one. That's good, it's a, it's a meaty discussion topic, isn't it? Yeah, it's a tricky one. But it's something that every well, outside of work, we've all got to, we've all got to figure out where that line is. And how do we get more comfortable? And I think we instinctively know when we crossed it. Or more accurately, possibly, when somebody else has crossed it and we haven't done anything. So whatever it is, whatever tool technique you adopt to help you be more courageous, I suppose, really, whether it's fear setting, whether it's imaginary, what are my potentials, what do I want my kids to see with me? What do I want to be proud of? What do I want to be in my epitaph? Whatever, whatever it helps you get to that point rationalising. I think it's helpful. The only thing I'll say on that is it's very, very easy to beat yourself up of, oh, I wish I had done this in the past. I wish I had done this. Sort of whipping yourself. I was weak, I didn't do what I should have done. I don't think that's helpful. To a degree, there's no other reflection. Okay, that's interesting. If I didn't do that, I would like to have been able to do that. If the circumstances arise again, I would make me more likely to do that. It's interesting, this might get cut. It might be not ready enough. I was quite surprised. The comedy store players never review a performance. What do you mean, review? Never talk about it. Really? Yeah. Never have a retrospective? No. That was one of the things I was quite surprised about was if it happened, it happened. If it was shit, it was shit. If it was great, it was great. When the curtain goes down, that performance is kind of... What's the rationale behind it? I don't know, I never got to the bottom of it. I think it was just that whatever happened happened for the right reasons. We did the best thing at the time. And there's always the next performance. I can see benefit, but you know that it's never going to be for teams. Yeah. So you can act freer. Yeah. But equally, I think there's a potential missed opportunity there. Yeah. Interesting, isn't it? Maybe that would be because of the height of their profession, maybe. I don't know. Interesting. Anyway, this is an aside. Anyway, we've eaten our time box here. We're on to point number two. This could be a long evening at this rate. I'm quite thirsty. Cheers, mate. Cheers, bud. The right thing is to stop. Yeah. We're going to carry on. Bye-bye.