 So that should be recording cool so you got it you got it I see I think I saw you had a drink man right I do I do have a drink here cool do you get a drink they I have yes I'll tell you what I think about this before Jeff I'm not sure if I have or not and it looks fruity it's Thatcher's Rosie or Thatcher's Rose I think they say in the West but that's got an accent and for the purposes presumably Ryan you'll do you'll do a normal agile for humans introduction nice and clean and your interview we tend to on the agile pubgust we tend to make it up as you go along a little bit not quite as professional as you Ryan but for everybody's benefit here that we'll do it we'll do a quick introduction and scene-setting and this is Ryan Ripley who's joining me and Paul Goddard on a inaugural and groundbreaking crossover from the two most popular agile related podcasts in the world fact agile for humans in the agile pubgust and it was always going to be a remote episode anyway because we're on the other side of the Atlantic and but we were anyway by by government decree now so it's legal it's even me and Jeff can't get together in it we can't actually go to a pub this is a quite quite guidance from the government yesterday the government came out in the UK and said don't go to pubs but they didn't say to the pubs you have to shut poor old pubs anyway so so yeah Ryan Jordan say a quick quick hi yeah hi I'm Ryan Ripley as Jeff mentioned we do agile for humans but I'm a big fan of the pubgust so I listened to Jeff and Paul quite a bit and so awesome thanks for thanks for doing this crossover guys it's it's been a long time coming it seems way forward it's a great opportunity isn't it and I know I feel a bit feel a bit guilty saying trying while being positive and you kind of when the when the world is so sort of scared and negative in a way it do kind of feel a bit guilty thinking well there's there's good times and happy times but it's an it's an opportunity to try things and necessity is the mother of invention and so yeah I think that could be could be something we talk about but I'm drinking so Paul you're drinking a Thatcher's Rose and it which is what it's incredibly sweet red and summer set cider so it's all apples oh it's 100% apples made it's beautiful it's almost like a like a cordial it's absolutely fantastic okay and I'm very much enjoying it and what have you got right so I am drinking off-square brewery it's actually close to my to my home so it's a brewery in Crown Point Indiana I for the pubcast listeners I talk funny because I'm in I'm an American it's off-square brewing and it's the 65 South Pilsner so it's a very nice Pilsner that is made locally here in Indiana cool I'm drinking a clockwork tangerine oh which is made by Brewdog which is a Scottish brewery so they're not particularly local to me but I'm a big fan of Brewdog I like their experimentation so this is very much a sort of as it would say it's a citrusy IPA hoppy type thing sounds lovely yeah sort of would you have marmalade would that word mean anything to you marmalade yeah absolutely okay cool because I don't know something which words don't trouble very well but orange marmalade on our toast may be in the morning for a breakfast thing and it's kind of got it's kind of got that sort of taste if you imagine that in a beer very nice yeah I'm cheers cheers cheers I'm raising glass cheers nice you know I am curious though I mean St. Patrick's Day right it is I mean on your guys' island how do you keep everybody out of pubs on St. Patrick's Day well it's an absolute unprecedented event in Ireland today where they've cancelled the St. Patrick's Day parade I think that the first time maybe ever yeah and it's even more stringent restriction I don't think pubs are even closed aren't they in Ireland I think schools are closed lots of things are closed in Ireland yeah so normally they would turn the turn the Liffey Green and have all sorts of parties and festivities in the streets but not today it's crazy so it's kind of interesting the three of us actually do very similar work right so for the listeners who don't know so Jeff Watts the author of Scrum Mastery it's the book that I so when I hire Scrum Masters like I'll get hired by companies to build teams and every Scrum Master I hire gets a copy of Jeff's book I think it's one of the cleanest representations of servant leadership ever so it's awesome book he and Paul our CSTs with Scrum Alliance and they teach the in-person two-day classes you know I'm a professional Scrum trainer with Scrum.org very similar types of businesses like how are you guys holding up like during this time I'm curious you know I know that both Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org had said yeah you can do virtual classes but I'm scratching my head at what a in-person two-day class looks like online but for you guys I mean how are things from I guess from that perspective I mean what are you up to so I have to go first so I don't run that many classes so I've only got one class the sort of CSPO product owner or Scrum Master course scheduled in the next couple of months anyway so I'm actually just using that as an opportunity to experiment and Paul's helped me we went through that together because we kind of teach similar kind of thing so rather than I try and figure out how to turn my class and pull it we do that together over over Zoom and we kind of surprised at how much we thought we could we could change and so I've only got one of those most of my time when you your question is what I did most of my time I'm working sort of two three days a week with with a particular client who are trying to change their organizational structure policies you spin up new squads get people hire new people into new roles change leadership culture and stuff like that and they're all forced to work from home so I'm trying to support them remotely while while they try and set up something that they fully intended to be more co-located were you doing Paul yeah it's similar I'm perhaps a bit more I had a few more things lined up right in terms of training classes which and conferences I was I made it's a pub gas listeners will will may remember my one of my new year's resolutions was to try and get out to more conferences and I was preparing I've been preparing a lot of materials and a lot of sessions to run at those conferences in my downtime when I had it and that's all kind of been put on to the back burner for the moment obviously a lot of conferences have already announced that they're either postponing or canceling all together so I've that's been parked I've picked up I've had to cancel or postpone a lot of my scheduled private or public courses and I just said I've offered one client one and fairly long-standing relationship I have with a client has agreed to virtualize a CSM with me this week so that's I'm in the frantic throws at the moment you probably can't see it from the cameras but a lot of my area here is it's been moved to try and make it more broadcastable to her for a two-day format so Jeff and I went through something and we've got kind of what we think might be a two-day agenda for that so cool yeah it's very much that they're really are prepared to go right with me on it and because what they are effectively a guinea pig for this this type of teaching which has never happened since I've become a CST so it's a new thing completely new thing so have you tried Ryan have you tried have you got anywhere with that question that you're asking yourself so I'm trying to figure out so I do a lot of co-training with Todd Miller you know he and I wrote the book together we teach together quite a bit in person we're trying to figure out trying to get a feel for whether or not we can actually do this online and we're not sure yeah we're gonna give it a shot like I as you can see I have a well the listeners probably can't see it but then office set up in multiple cameras and we're trying to see like can we create a decent experience that would that would cross over we think we can so we're gonna look at that we've honestly we've signed another book deal so we're working on we're trying to see over the next six to eight weeks if we can just get that first draft done you know Jeff you know the the the throws and the the challenges and the just the the sheer misery of writing a book and so we're working through that we're also looking at like complimentary online course offering some a big fan of teachable.com and we've been checking that out quite a bit but you know what I'm on the fence to be honest I know I'm supposed to be like Mr. Positive and and all that but I'm just kind of like man are the students really gonna get everything that we have to offer out of a virtual and I I want to try it but I'm just kind of like what do we what do we do here you know it's skeptical yeah I think I think I think I've been quite lucky that I've got a good relationship that I can lean on in that respect and I've been quite open with this particular company and said even these words I've said I don't think it's gonna be that good and or as good so but they're prepared to go with it a lot of them are fairly they're scrum masters are fairly advanced but experienced so I don't they've got a lot of people in the room who are quite comfortable with the framework already so but yeah that it is very much a trial I've told them that it's it's probably a temporary thing and it's probably not going to be as interactive and there's powerful maybe but it's it's it's kind of how we've got to work so I get what I get the positioning there and I think naturally I would probably adopt a similar kind of expectation lowering yeah that you've taken there but I think what the one downside to that is you're introducing a certain element of confirmation bias in that people are now expecting it to be not very good now we when we when we got together pull to look at this the product owner course I was genuinely positively surprised by actually what you could do now yeah with some free and really quite simple wet widely available tools and I was talking to someone earlier on about I've I've got new facts and I was trying to explain that 15 years ago well 16 years ago when I was training to be a scrum trainer I had a ridiculously bad fear of public speaking Paul knows this maybe you don't know but I would awful you know I'd stand up in front of the room and I would be sweating and like my voice would be cracking and I'd be just hating it my heart would be racing and I just absolutely hated that that thing but when I was working at BT there was it was either me do it or they had to pay loads of money for someone from America to come over and run it so they said Jeff you have to do this and sort of thrown into the deep end if you like and I knew for a fact back then that I would never be able to run a really good in-person course I thought I could probably get to a point where I could get through it but I knew for a fact I would never be as good as Ken Schweber who's who's sort of the scrum augment and who I was teaching with and over time that fact has somewhat changed you know the evidence and the feedback has been actually just yeah you can do that and I kind of think that and my facts around coaching have changed as well I knew for a fact about five years ago that coaching over the internet would be nowhere near as effective as coaching face-to-face one-to-one but again the evidence has forced me to reconsider those facts and so my new fact that I was challenging recently is that teaching online will never be as good as in-person and just from planning this I'm already questioning that fact and maybe through experience and enough trial and error maybe I could replace that fact with a new fact again yeah it's interesting the the stories we tell ourselves and what actual perceptions and realities are they're wildly different and even as I'm listening to you Jeff I'm thinking I finished my college degree so for all of you over there I finished university online right so I started I started in-person left that after a couple years and went into the workforce and then kind of went back and did a couple years of school online and as I'm listening to you talk I was kind of thinking through in between my kids coming in here and fighting you know I think the online experience can be amazing it's what the students decide to make of it and that's what I remember most from from finishing a degree online is that if I decided to dig into the material to really be an active participant if I focused on pulling the most out of that experience it was great and during a few classes where you know when you see that light at the end of the tunnel I don't know about how it works over there guys but in in America when you know the senioritis sets in and it's like I'm almost there I'm almost there you know C still gets me a diploma I don't have to you know you kind of let the guard and I noticed in online classes if I did that the experience was awful and so I wonder if kind of expectation study you know that that confirmation by some of the things which are talking about Jeff maybe that's super important especially in in this kind of setup because of the students come in realizing this is gonna be a good experience but it's really on you to pull as much of this as possible maybe that changes the the dynamic of it well you know I reached out to the people who were who were signed up for the in-person course and said that you have a choice like we can you can come on my next course which is until November so like six months eight months away some of that or we can give this a go and you know if it turns out to be horrible you could still go on the November course you know it's still an option but you know I've been testing things and I've been looking at things and been working with other professionals and I've run it by a few other people and you know what I think I was pleasantly surprised by what I found out and would I prefer situations and circumstances to be different absolutely you know do I think I'm gonna make this the best course ever straight away first time right at right out the bat no but there's a small part of me that is actually a little bit excited about what this could be you know and I like the idea that this is something new and I've liked what I've seen I like the features that I've come across and I think this could be something pretty cool I think you're right and I think it's I think it's actually pushed me certainly to rethink because you will get a little bit guilty me certainly no I get guilty of getting a bit repetitive the same old jokes you know the same you know the same the same old stories so it will force me to kind of you've got to use using different muscles right so you're actually you're gonna have to probably check in with your audience maybe a lot more audibly than you might do in a class that you would do visit visually so it's gonna be stretching me and maybe even slowing me down in certain areas that I would normally do a lot quicker but equally it might be speeding me up parts of my my class that might actually ordinarily be quite slow so it's an interesting it is quite exciting and it's it's nice to break out of that that mold and that repetitive process to perhaps try something of a different I'm equally Jeff I'm quite I'm nervous about it because it's a bit unknown and there's new risks there's always new risks that you that I haven't encountered before the tech risk the internet speed risk is a big one yeah it's and the connectivity might is the unknown but it's it's kind of a nice thing and people I think there's a lot more good will I think it's you know and a lot of people they've realized now that we are in this predicament we we have to work from home we have to find a way to make this work to keep our economy going to keep our business alive so we have to pivot we have to be able to respond to change which is what you know what we should be able to do as trainers as well as what we're teaching we should be able to do that ourselves Ryan you mentioned about the owners being as much on the learner as the as the educator and since because you've been doing this a while and you know your experience now have you have you noticed have has that changed from an in-person perspective have you had less people who've turned up to a class thinking okay teach me you know it's on you to make sure that I leave knowing stuff has that changed and has that been down to you or has that been down to other factors yeah so I've actually seen students who show up kind of in that stance on day one and I you know I make it clear within the first ten minutes that what you put into this is what you get out of it I think what's the the big difference between the in-person and the online is that for an in-person course like we can see when someone's on their phone and we can we can see the distractions and it's and I'll even walk over and say hey you know what can we do here to help make this more beneficial for you and someone might say I'm sorry my kids school just texted and it wasn't anything to do with the class or they might say you know what yeah this is getting boring and so we try to put things in place that move on I think the problem with the maybe one of the opportunities with this online class is we got to figure out you know because right now we're on a zoom we're discussing but I could easily like I just clicked over to email and I could start getting distracted and maybe you guys would not be none the wiser maybe I would you know I think people can start drifting off and it's going to be harder to catch that and then that leads to a cascading you know poorer performance and people not getting out of much as much out of it and and so I yeah I just think it's going to be harder to catch on and so the you know reading the room is a big thing that we do in these classes and we know all right we need to call a break here or I just lost everybody or the concept clearly isn't hitting right but with the online stuff those those cues I think we're gonna have to over index on checking in with people like you're still getting value here or give them away to I mean I'm sure you guys know the Elmo rule right enough already let's move on enough let's move on you know and other ways for them to queue us so that we're not sending them down in these directions that they don't like I mean does that make sense no it certainly does I mean when when Paul and I we were we were discussing how to chop this up into smaller sections primarily because of that right as much it's hard and you know I find myself drifting off on audio calls I was saying to my wife yesterday I noticed that I was responding to an email and gee gee I caught myself doing I said Jeff stop close close the program you know reduce the opportunities to be distracted close the programs put your phone on the other side of the room turn off the notifications there are some things that you can do to help yourself but equally that's something that I I want to be more mindful of rather than I want everybody else to make me more mindful of yeah sections I just I'm curious to like so for me if I if I run a PSM in the next month and I'm considering it Todd and I are working really hard to figure out if this makes sense we're probably going to do like four you know three to four hours like four half day sessions like there's no way you could I don't think you can do a two-day you know six to seven hours in front of a computer kind of class right I mean you almost have to break this up yeah and I think when when Jeff and I discussed this and we almost thought it would be very it would be probably much shorter sections it would be something that's divided up normally in a two-day class you put you know the general advisory is is no more than 90 minutes before people get yeah need a break or whatever that might be but I think on online course I think it's probably for me certainly it's going to be even shorter than that they'll be short probably more breaks more more time that downtime was such to do an exercise or whatever that might be on screen but you've got a you've got to vary it I think a lot more because you will lose people in front of a zoom you know for eight hours it just it won't work I don't think it will work and so I think you the variety of your educational design has to has to cater for that kind of no static learning experience you have to be able to bury it up and even even dipping dipping offline and doing a task and coming back so one of the things I'm going to do next week this week and I would ordinarily do the marshmallow challenge which is kind of a you know a part of a stock scrum scrum class example but it can't do that in a virtual setup I can't do that with the people are in the room together at a table so what I'm going to do is ask people to view that as part of the course in a separate window or be on mutes run it for run the Ted talk for whatever it is 12 15 minutes and then debrief that the video as a class afterwards so it's it's different ways of getting the same message across and I want to put you up on that one I want to put you up on that just just because of the language you use that you can't do that and I you've known me long enough to know how annoying I am and so my instinctive response when someone says you can't do something is I bet you can what I say you can't do what I say you can't do the marshmallow challenge and so now to me I'm now driven to try and prove you wrong on that that's just I knew I am and so I'm thinking so in the joining instructions what's stopping you saying right before you turn out you need to bring this to the class as well as bring a pen as well as make sure your phones on silent you need to bring some spaghetti and a marshmallow and some cellotape and some string all right and they just do it on their own they don't work in teams sure but they still get to experience doing something and I just think just as a fundamental high-level thing if you like of this this is our opportunity to completely challenge all of our assumptions about what we do how we do it why we do it and that that sense of well maybe it is a great opportunity to find something new than the marshmallow challenge but do that mindfully rather than yeah thinking oh I can't do that now you got me so I want a little bit so I like this so everyone has their own string cellotape spaghetti and marshmallow they try it on their own for a bit if we dump them into like different zoom groups then and show the best of each and then they all refine it pick one way into brief the class you just did the challenge I love it Jeff that's that's all distributed way yep sorry you got your call you wanted to challenge my challenge yeah shall I leave the call now is that my part done no my you know bless her my wife today she she was trying to help she and luckily my wife doesn't listen to these these um these recordings or these podcasts so I can say what I like now but um I think she was she was really trying to help and she was trying to suggest different ways that I can run this virtual class and she said you know what you should do um you should um you should do like a musical version I went my immediate thoughts was very ridiculous I shut it down far too far too quickly she said well no instead of doing like a you would normally do like a physical product like a Lego thing or like a physical thing they can do around the table together get them to run up around their houses and find things that make noise and make music you know make make a tune they can hum something together and they can integrate that but record it and like my immediate thought was that'd be ridiculous but so to be fair it ever is like you said everything now is kind of up for grabs and when we always knew your wife was smarter than you for the benefit for the benefit of the tape I'm now opening my can of Guinness simply you wonder what that noise is so happy you know happy happy the St. Patrick's Day um you know it's interesting we're going to we're going to teach scrum masters online I wonder if this gives birth to the remote scrum master is that what you knew who's going to be no no no um but you know what that's probably going to be an amazing topic in a few months here like what does that that role look like in a remote setting yeah and how do we how do we still meet our service levels are how do we meet the the services to the the dev team the product owner in the organization sitting at home I think that's a huge topic of consideration coming up it is it's going to make scrum masters out there really stretch their um the extent of their their ability to lead and to provide and to support people when they can't see them definitely do um do do you still teach the art of the possible Ryan I say you still is that something that scrum.org still promotes the art of the possible I'm I'm not familiar with it okay so years ago um when when Ken was teaching me how to teach scrum one of the the things he would say if you forget everything else about scrum scrum is really about the art of the possible it's about yes you know where you are right now and where you can get better and he used to tell the story about you know it's not about getting the best people in the room and most highly skilled people because highly skilled people will be successful regardless whether you scrum or whatever they'll just do whatever so scrum is about finding out what is possible and then doing that and then working at what's possible next and that requires a sort of you know open mindedness it requires a sort of positivity of mindset it requires creativity it requires experimentation and all of those those characteristics of that of that remote scrum master going to have to be amplified more than some of the other characteristics you might rely on more and that metaphor you use brought of different muscles I think is a really really useful one did that does that speak to you right yeah absolutely I mean that's still something that we talk about inside the the four walls of scrum.org is the art of the possible and and and recently actually it's Melissa Boggs who said and I'm I'm going to butcher the way that she put this to me but the next the next right thing yeah you know trying to figure out what's the next right thing to do and then do that and then sense respond you know probe sense and then try to do that next right thing and and I you know it's empiricism at its finest right we're supposed to figure out you know how do we what's the next possible right thing to do and you know these remote scrum masters then if I'm at home and I'm in a scrum master role how do I help and how do I so maybe it's teaching teams how to use zoom breakout rooms or maybe it's you know stepping up and figuring out I know we're not supposed to focus on processes and tools but maybe for the moment proper tooling will allow individuals and interactions to flourish and I'm fascinated by you know how the there might be a paradigm shift just a little bit and I think some of the ideas are going to get spun on their ear a little bit but yeah I think it's I see a world of opportunity I think if we can help scrum masters get grounded in what's coming up and it's something that Todd and I have talked about like I think we're going to do a series of just free webinars where you know scrum masters if you're struggling with this new remote setting let's figure this out let's discover together what this role looks like and and I don't know if we've got dates or anything like that for that for it yet but I think this is the new it could be the new normal for a lot of people like what happens for example if companies realize this just worked and we don't have to come to the office anymore I mean that's that's a possible outcome of this whole situation right sure but yeah and if you don't really want to get too philosophical or or even I don't know maybe it's political I don't know but I think Paul and I at a meetup recently when when this first sort of came out and didn't know whether it was serious or not we're talking about well it's not going to be the last time that we get a disruption to society like this it's been overdue really the the amount of globalization that we have and the biggest threat on our collective radar is climate change and this is going to take a massive chunk out of our carbon emissions globally so if we can prove that we can do it now why why couldn't we accelerate things or at least you know keep some of this as the new normal there's bound to be some good come out of this I saw a tweet today about it was a two photographs in Venice Italy and there was a photo of the I should know the river shouldn't I that that goes through to Venice but and the water was so clear that the fit you could see fish swimming upstream and you could see and the swans have returned they said the swans have returned to Venice because the lower number of tourists yeah so it's that kind of it is that kind of is trying to something we talk about it's I'm very careful with my words here because I know there's a lot of bad stuff happening but trying to reflect on everything from both sides both positive and negative in terms of what what can we take from this what can we learn from this and the thing that also reminded me the words that you used Ryan I think was was checking in we talked about checking in with people on training courses but yesterday I rang my dad I rang my mom I rang my sister and that is that sounds like I'm a bad bad brother but I don't it would be quite rare that I would actually pick up the phone and ring my sister and I think maybe maybe good scrum masters will be checking in with people to see if they're okay you know because if you if you haven't heard from someone for 24 hours and they're in your scrum team if you haven't heard from someone that afternoon and then your scrum team maybe it's time to check in chef you're smiling while you smile only because I can see your kids running past the wind yeah they're having a good time outside yeah I think you're right Paul I think we're gonna have to really I think the people skills are gonna really shine here and checking in with people like just emotionally like the last few days I'll even admit like I'm supposed to know better I'm supposed to be the yeah empiricism is great we're gonna inspect adapt we're gonna respond to change my I've been unfocused like I have I've really struggled to get my head wrapped around what's next and what we're gonna do and like and most of us are in pretty privileged positions too and I think that's important to acknowledge that you know a lot of us are gonna weather this just fine and there's a lot of people who aren't and so I have a lot of concern for family members who are in a service-based industry and and here in the United States especially in the state of Indiana our governor just ordered you know all restaurants all bars everything closed except for the essentials and so you know if you work in a in a hospital clearly it's open grocery stores remain open pharmacies remain open but a lot of small business have just been closed down and I you know start thinking through that you just get unfocused and you get kind of you know your brain drifts and so even for us that know better I think sometimes the emotions get take hold and and if it can happen to us can you imagine people who are you know not trained in this in these practices and not trained coaches and can you imagine what they're going through right now and just really locking in on that and how do we check in and help and call and I think scrum masters for the next few weeks you're going to be spending a lot of time just asking hey are you okay and you know what that's a beautiful part of the role in my opinion oh yeah I just um just had a call about um I was I was being asked some questions you know from leadership perspective what what should leaders be doing as you know as if I'm the authority here but I from an opinion perspective there's a lot of anxiety understandably and there's a lot of fear and when there's fear and anxiety we we generally respond emotionally and those emotional responses generally tend to be quite closed closing and so without that sense of safety without that sense of comfort we generally hunker down we generally think very narrow and it's all about self preservation there's very little creativity in those very little reaching out very little collaboration there's very little room for vulnerability and and things that we know we need to be successful in a knowledge economy and so for me my I don't know whether this is true or not but my opinion is that from a leadership perspective the number one thing that you can do is is to provide that sense of psychological safety for your people now yeah with psychological say to get psychological safety what do you need well you need a certain level of physical safety you need a certain level of yeah um just environmental safety but also what goes with that for me is that that over communication because especially if you're remote you're not you're not going to have that connection you're not going to have the opportunity to just pick up on bits of conversation that's going on you're not going to and so when you when you are in the dark metaphorically you tend to start getting a little bit suspicious and you know downcast and thinking the worst of a situation so the responsibility for me of a leader is to keep the conversation going to keep the communication going and not just about how bad things are and yeah things are bad I get that um but there's there's there's lots of things going on and I don't know you can pick all sorts of studies about you know you need if someone if someone upsets you and you've got one data point about that person being bad you need 20 data points of them being good for you to get back to equilibrium and trusting them again and I think the similar thing in terms of news so over communicating about the good stuff what's going on yeah the good news stories of neighbors that you've never seen or heard of putting cards through your door saying do you need anything you know that that's a good news story but you probably need 10 of those to get past the 24 hours of everything's going to hell in a hand basket yeah true yeah I that psychological safety is critical I so I we teach leadership classes and some one of the things that immediately came to mind was that um I think we have to shift the way we respond to things as well and it's kind of like you know with our kids right now if we're watching the news I if it's what is it BBC over there for us it's um for us it's CNN or Fox News I'm sure you have them over there too you spend too much time on that if you're talking about that especially in front of your kids and you're not choosing your words carefully you can just freak them out yeah right and I think as leaders when someone shows up with something disruptive upsetting unexpected I really had to like when I was sitting in executive roles I had to get in the habit of saying how fascinating what new opportunity does this lead to it took a lot of practice to not just you know what do you mean we didn't get anything during the sprint or what do you mean the the customer's upset it's really learning to pause for a moment and realize the next thing you say is going to impact not just the person in front of you but that'll cascade out through the rumor mill through discussion through you know whatever it is you want to call it and I think that idea I love that Jeff I think you're taking this very positive tone towards it it's you know how fascinating what new opportunity does this lead to what's the art of the possible I think the more that a scrum master can do that the more that leadership can do that I think it just keeps everyone else sane it's just well wait a minute so they're looking for opportunity they're looking for what's possible they're not panicking it sets an appropriate tone I think it's also being mindful of thinking of what you have what you do have control over yeah a lot of this stuff is happening to us and reminding people of you know there's a safety here and knowing that we have no control over what's going to happen next and we are in that kind of chaotic stage that we just don't know what's around the corner nobody there is no expert here that can tell us what what to do next so you know we'll stick with each other and we're you know and we're there's some safety and numbers here as well that if we have a mental tentative stochasticism isn't it if you can control it then do whatever you can to control it but if you can't control it let it go and so I I appreciate the fact that you're seeing sort of positive stuff in what I'm saying but on the flip side people then will sometimes accuse me of being very flippant and you know not really paying attention and giving credence to the seriousness of what's going on and that's not my intention yeah I wouldn't encourage leaders to say ignore all the bad stuff and just just be positive that's not that's not the point it you gotta don't be naive don't pretend this stuff isn't happening that's not going to help anybody but make sure that you're being mindful as you used taking your pause have a pause and that's the difference between responding and reacting and I think the more that we can get into the habit and helping other people just pause think about it and then respond rather than just emotionally react yeah I yeah that that pause like Esther Derby does the center enter turn you know get yourself centered decide how you want to enter a situation then decide how you want to turn it I think that's really important like that pause is uh it's just it's so powerful right it I think that it's a it that's a game changer idea in and of itself and I'm certainly not pushing the idea that that we are ignoring the bad but I think Christopher Avery's work here is also really important like through the responsibility process and his you know his whole thing is look there's things that we cannot control but we can control how we respond to them and that's the I think that's the important shift right so Jeff with your pause and with Christopher's idea of look this is happening to us how do we respond and then being at full power to decide how best to do that you know those are the the practices at least I've you know have really leaned into Christopher's work lately just trying to get myself correct because it's like I can't help other people if my head's wrong like that's one of the biggest and I took that lesson from you Jeff in your coaching book kind of your lesser known book maybe but the coach's case book was was really important like a lot of biases a lot of things that go on in your head and one of the big takeaways from your book for me was man if my head is not right I'm useless to other people and so I really have had to sit down and get re-centered on all right how what can I decide to do faced with with with circumstances that are out of my control how do I choose to respond and that's brought a lot of power back to um at least my perception on situations does that make sense or it certainly does I mean it's sort of erring me towards perhaps a too deep response and and almost going the other way to when people are accusing me of not taking this too seriously enough maybe I'm taking this too seriously but comparing it to Victor Frankel's work which is where that that I think Avery was inspired by yeah the film The Beautiful Life was I think it was something like that and it was the the Nazi concentration camp where the guy and his son are in this concentration camp and everything's obviously awful but he was the only person that spoke or understood what the guards were saying and so he chose to interpret the the guard's instructions to the other prisoners in a very positive way and the the message is that you know they can take anything away from me but they can't take away how I choose to respond to how I choose to interpret a situation um so it's quite deep but that that sense of I can choose how to interpret this I still have control over that yep and it's not that I can necessarily change the situation but sometimes how I react will change the situation look this stuff's going to happen uh COVID-19 is going to play out exactly how it's going to play out regardless of whether or not I worry or show up in a joyful positive way right is it the same sorry I'll go ahead no I was just going to say is it the same situation here with panic buying in the supermarket yep so you see I'm sure I'm from what I've read the US has a similar problem that I went to my local supermarket there you see one person buying milk or you see it's in our supermarket it's porridge you can't get a box of you can't get a box of porridge or oatmeal for for love no money but you see one person buying it and then you see two people buying it you think okay there must be a shortage so then you feel that you have to buy it and it kind of reads that even though there might not there isn't the food shortage but that it creates this fear this perception of a false reality that there is and you kind of just follow that that that decision-making process because if everyone else is scared I should be I should be scared too we've decided so yes we are having it's not as bad as it is in Europe yet from from what I've read but we are starting to see like I went to the store yesterday and my wife and I have been very mindful where we're not trying to hoard anything we're buying what we need yeah what we can foreseeably predict we need for two weeks and so you know we'll buy a couple loaves of bread we bought a couple dozen eggs but we're trying to minimize what we take because everyone else needs things too and and it was mind-boggling because I was in the the dairy section of our grocery store and we I'm pushing a cart and there's literally someone with like 10 gallons of milk in their cart and I just kind of turned to the person I said I I totally I totally get how you're feeling but half of that will spoil before you and your family drink it and they just looked at me funny and kept walking and I but but there's this idea that you know yeah it's really bizarre to watch it play out but yeah it's one of those where we can decide so we've decided we are going to only we're minimizing purchases to bare necessity we're going to try to leave room for others to get their needs met and we're going to see how that plays out but but that's how we've taken control of our situation like we are intentionally doing that it's kind of you know living through intention rather than going to the store and mass buying and mass panicking and and for us it's left us with a a a greater sense of calm than what we've seen in other people. Yeah your comment of worry Paul makes me think something that I can never remember I'm pretty sure there's a really good succinct quote about this but something like if you worry you suffer twice and again it's not it's not about not worrying because worrying is helpful it helps you avoid risks it helps you mitigate risks but sometimes a lot of what you worry about doesn't come to pass and yet you've suffered for it anyway you you've had the anxiety you've had the worry you've had the stress it doesn't happen and then if it does happen well you get the impact of it so you you kind of suffer twice and I think there's there's an element of that and then it's contagious so all right the virus is contagious but so is worry so is fear so is pessimism but equally so is optimism and you know so is your your mindful behavior people see that and they think okay so not everyone is is crazy so not everyone is panicking there are some logical people around I want to be more like that person there and so by doing that not only are you you know being a good citizen but you're also helping spread that more mindful response but it's scary right there's there must be a small part of you that thinks but what if i'm wrong yeah oh I yeah and that's plus with three three kids in the house a family to take care of you're like you know where's the balance where's the you know how would yeah it it is but at the same time it's I still believe and maybe this is me being naive I still believe in the general goodness of people and I still believe that as communities we will figure this out and I I hope that belief is not misplaced but I I cannot for some reason my brain won't shift that off like I still have to believe that regardless of evidence to the contrary so I'm trying to think of something else oh so it was reminding yourself to say that's fascinating and that yeah you had to get yourself into that habit and I think that that ritual giving yourself some kind of ritual until you get into that habit and having to remind yourself we will solve this as a society whatever it is if you're part of a team thinking okay we can do this we can tell the truth yes we can commit to this no we can say no to that getting into some kind of ritual some kind of habit that helps you develop a new set of behaviors or new muscle memory it takes a lot of repetition and conscious incompetence if you like to get to a point where you do that naturally yeah and that's you know again I I don't want to turn into an infomercial but I it's why I'm a big fan of Christopher's work he just he teaches these skills and I've like I've leaned into him you know Jeff I've referred back to your coaching book as well it's just been a good time to I mean we have some free time right so it's been a good opportunity to kind of brush back up on some of those skills and just realizing you know that that pause that alone is just wildly valuable but the ability to just sit back and say all right I can choose joy or I can choose misery and I love your your your comment there there Jeff where yeah if you if you choose misery or you choose worry you're going to suffer twice so let's just be joyful and let's figure out yes it's a very serious situation but how do we man how do we uplift other people it's kind of like that servant leadership mindset let's how do we how do we make sure everyone around us is thriving how do we make everyone around us is doing well and in return I think we end up okay I think it's placed into your your favorite phrase Paul yes and you never know it might take off the you know it's very easy in these situations say yeah but what about or we can choose to say yeah okay there's a start there's a starting point it's not enough and if we did this it would be even better you're right and there's also a lot in this about um I was talking to someone who's based in Germany today on the phone and um she said she wants to be she she's she's kind of finished the conversation she was talking about the what's happening over there in in Munich and she said I want to be part of the solution I don't I want don't want to be part of the problem so it's she said it's not necessarily about me me now it's about making sure I don't compromise someone else I don't put someone else in in danger or in jeopardy so by being very mindful about social distancing and and trying to minimize like like you said Ryan about only taking what you need off the supermarket shelves you allow it's about looking out for your community looking out for the people you live next to the tap knocking on the door putting a letter through saying can I get you anything can I get you any milk or bread whatever that might be if people take the approach that it's not just about them it's about someone else which again is a very much a scrum master and improv um looking after your partner making you a lot about empathy that recently didn't you about how we are we need to increase our empathy and if anything else this is going to teach us to to you have more we should be practicing empathy now on a daily basis here are how is your how are your team how how is your next to neighbor and yeah and we're doing it probably personally as well as professionally on a daily basis you should well how many of you how many people out there are now thrust into a remote working situation where they're not used to being at home in the first place and maybe they're now working at home with a spouse where they're not used to maybe they're both working from home now I've heard I've had friends that have talked about that quite a bit and now mix into the fact that almost every school in the world has been shut down so now our kids are in the midst and and how how far can empathy go to make sure that you know it's very easy to spend your day yelling right and it's very like the kids like my kids just busted in a little bit ago and I you know gave my daughter a quick hug and and told her very nicely to move I mean it's very easy to turn and get upset to snap to and just realizing man we just have to really turn up the empathy and realize first of all we are going to be at home with these people for a very long time I think for a number of weeks at least given current forecasts and how do you want it to go do you want to be yelling do you want to be upset or is it time to just say man these are just little people who are scared to and I yeah let's just give everybody a break and so I think that's super important right new situations new conditions new context uh the nice yeah I can't think of a better way to to make this situation go better than to just show a little grace and to have some some empathy for what other people are experiencing. I talk in my in my in my once-in-one catching up one of the the common threads is coming back to something I was mentioning earlier on actually but in different contexts assumptions what are we assuming are going to be the consequences so I don't know what went through your head when when you when your daughter opened the door and came in where you're in the middle of recording a podcast podcast podcast um I was just happy to see her yeah I wasn't upset at all because I think a lot of people assume that other people are going to react differently to how they will not necessarily in that situation but just as as a as a flip an example but assuming that other people are going to react badly makes us worry and actually a lot of those worries are unfounded so maybe it's because it's an informal setting maybe it's because you're pretty pretty grounded and you this is fine um but some people would be worried that that's going to make them look unprofessional or that someone's the person that's talking to is going to be frustrated or whatever but a lot of those worries are unfounded and just freeing yourself up from those those worries can be really liberating oh yeah the art of not really caring about what other people think um and unfortunately it took me until I was about 35 to learn that trick and uh once I turn that corner things got a lot better and so and plus you're right this is safe I don't think you Jeff or Paul you I'm sure when my kids came in you chuckled and Paul we've been watching your kids play behind you for the last hour and I've actually enjoyed it they seem to be having a blast yeah but you're right you're right Jeff all of those you know all those assumptions like oh they're gonna think I'm you know what we're drink I'm drinking a beer at 12 30 and it's now 1 30 in the afternoon I we professionalism has been thrown out the window so it's yeah can't worry about that anymore right yeah we've dragged you down to our level and we appreciate you for joining us in the gutter right lunch time drink if you allow the lunch lunch time drink that's why oh no I I I love talking to you guys so I'm more than happy to throw down a can and uh and to join you that's good cool so um yeah for for those I can't imagine that any of the anybody who who listens to the actual podcast won't come across our job humans because it's been around a lot longer than we have and has a much bigger following but if you haven't then check it out and you can go back and find I don't know how many episodes have you done that right we're well over 100 I'd have to look well over a hundred so you can easily find something that's particularly interesting and with all the time when your hands now it's a great opportunity for professional development and and and finding some real bit of quiet time put some headphones on but we genuinely appreciate you for allowing this crossover to happen and oh I I love it and and Jeff like I think I've mentioned your work quite a bit yeah I'm a big I'm a big admirer of what you put into the community and so for the agile for humans listeners check out Jeff and Paul if you're over in the UK and you know when uh when the context permits definitely check out like I even want to fly over at some point and check out your advanced scrum master class like I'm fascinated to see what you guys are doing over there and hopefully we can make that work out someday so definitely check out Jeff and Paul Jeff's books are they're amazing scrum mastery product mastery I think team mastery is going to be coming out soon right the fire went to the printers today so unless the printers get shut down they shouldn't be too long perfect so excellent books uh his coaching book is also I'll make sure there's there's notes and uh there's links in the show notes Paul I do you have a book out yet yep yeah I can send you the link for that that's no problem oh so I mean these guys do great work and so I more than happy to to push that stuff and again equally thrilled that I could join your your pubcast and enjoyed having a beer with you this afternoon and I hope we make this a more normal thing I uh certainly enjoyed hanging out with you guys that's great well look after yourself and your family and hopefully it won't be long until we speak again likewise guys take care cheers everybody cheers Jeff