Great coaches lie awake at night thinking about how to make you a better board member. A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see so that you can be who you always knew you could be. An important part of the coach’s skill and service is to never wait to give feedback – a great coach coaches in the moment.
The prove → plan →execute model doesn’t work in agile land. Instead it’s a case of Act → Learn →Build.nAction is primary. You can’t do a financial plan if a customer has never seen your new product or service. You must put something out there!
Each of these has its place and can heighten our understanding of what is really going on – but without the critical 4th mechanism of acting from shared awareness – the difficult problems as exemplified by housing, health and climate change will persist. That shared awareness must extend to cultural awareness.