1 Dojo Coaching Principles

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

—Thomas Jefferson

According to Merriam-Webster’s, a principle is a general or basic truth on which other truths or theories can be based. So it makes good sense to start this book with the Dojo coaching principles. In this way, we are entering Dojo coaching at its foundation, where the rest of the content will build from.

The undeniable truth is that out in the field you will run into all kinds of constraints, situational complexities, and politics. They usually present as challenges, but if you manage to navigate them and nail your goals, it feels really damn good. While the fundamental ethos of coaching is to lead with empathy and be adaptable to the needs of the coachee (shaping your coaching to accommodate their complexities, constraints, and politics), there is value in nonnegotiables to maintain coaching integrity. I like to think of principles as the lighthouse that guides us when we’re lost at sea. You may explore the ocean, but if you get lost you can be guided back home.

Dojo Principle #1: Six-Week Minimum

On initial glance, six weeks of full dedication for one team does not sell well. Why? Because it comes across as expensive or excessive.

In my experience selling the Dojo as a consultant and as a full-time employee, the Dojo looks like a $25,000–$50,000 statement of work for a single team and presents as a $120,000–$200,000 salary for a coach who can feasibly coach just four to five Agile teams or about 45 people in a calendar year. The Dojo model doesn’t appear to scale well, and leadership naturally raises an eyebrow when being approached with a large monetary ask and seemingly small impact.

In order to make the Dojo appear more cost effective, one might reduce the six-week length so they may fit more Dojos in for the same amount of time and cost. As tempting as this seems, don’t do it. You may as well not pursue a Dojo if you reduce the length to anything less than six weeks.

I will beat this point to death throughout this book, but the summarized reason for keeping to at least six weeks is that anything less does not allow a team enough time to get in adequate practice and repetition. Repetition is key because it helps transition a skill from the conscious to the subconscious. The conscious-to-subconscious shift can take the form of developing muscle memory or unlearning bad habits.

There is an entire chapter called “Making the Case for the Dojo” that delves into how to sell the Dojo so that leadership can see the long-term investment that helps them overcome the initial sticker shock.

Dojo Principle #2: Learning Is Greater Than Delivery

The Dojo’s greatest benefit is that it develops skills while delivering real work. This unique intersection of learning and delivery is powerful because doing the real thing has been proved to be more retentive than other forms of learning. We’ll explore why that is when we cover Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience later in the book.

Here’s the thing: in the real world learning and delivery are often at odds. Companies acknowledge that they need to develop their people but simultaneously feel pressure to deliver business outcomes. In most cases, delivery reigns supreme and learning is deprioritized.

Keeping to the scope of the book, what if delivery starts distracting a team from the intended learning of a Dojo? Quick answer: eliminate the learning distraction or stop the Dojo altogether. This sounds harsh, but we don’t call it a principle for nothing.

As part of the initial conversations with leadership and the Dojo candidate teams, we set the clear expectation that learning is the priority of the Dojo. Leaders should ensure that the team is able to focus on learning for the full six weeks, whether that means providing extra air cover or setting expectations with stakeholders. We’ll get into the specifics of what these conversations should look like in Chapter 2.

The expected approach of a Dojo is to “slow down to speed up.” Delivery will remain continuous, but there will likely be dips in velocity in the first few weeks of the engagement as the team acclimates to everything that comes with the Dojo—Dojo coaches, new skills and practices, experimentation, and so on.

The intent of the Dojo is that the team’s new normal is an improved status quo, but the only surefire way to ensure that this happens is to ensure that learning remains on top.

Dojo Principle #3: Optimal Team Profile (Ready, Willing, and Available)

Ready, willing, and available belong together as one principle because they are interconnected as the desired profile of a Dojo team.

We’ll break them down one by one:

• Ready: The team is filled with energy and ready to get after it.

• Willing: The team is willing to do whatever it takes to maximize their time in the Dojo.

• Available: The team is logistically available and free from near-term deadlines or a significant amount of out-of-office.

I have had Dojo opportunities seem appealing on the surface; the work was exciting, the leadership had bought in, calendars miraculously lined up. But when we got to talking to the team, it was clear they were not ready, willing, and available. This situation is bound to happen. It could be caused by a number of things—it could be something straightforward like they have a bunch of out-of-office coming up, or it could be something more serious like the team doesn’t have faith in leadership’s ability to support their learning.

No matter the case, the best thing to do is to hold off on pursuing a Dojo with the team and establish a check-in cadence with them so the relationship is maintained. Some of the best Dojos I’ve participated in were with teams that started with “not now, but later.” Perhaps it was the absence of imposition that helped the teams connect better with the Dojo coaches.

Dojo Principle #4: Maximize Your Time

The honest truth is that, as a Dojo coach, you have a finite timebox of six weeks to make a long-term impact on people in deep areas such as skill sets, mindsets, and work life. That is a lot to do in a small amount of time! I struggle to find the words to convey how fast the six weeks fly by.

When you are in the business of Dojo coaching, making every single day count is your default mode. This means being planful about how to approach Dojo goals and relationship building (examining day by day, week by week). It also means navigating on the fly, such as by pivoting if a learning approach isn’t working.

In order to stay plugged in to determine the best use of time, you will depend on frequent communication with fellow Dojo coaches and the Dojo team. Often, it is a daily collaboration to ensure everyone is aligned and the given day has been seized to the best of the group’s abilities.

If distractions hinder your ability to maximize coaching impact in the Dojo, you must address them immediately. Before you know it, it is week 5 and your Dojo goals are nowhere near target, and that doesn’t help the reputation of the Dojo and it most certainly does not help the team’s learning journey. We’ve got six weeks to affect lives, and the word urgency truly is not strong enough.

We’ll get into more time-maximization techniques later in the book, but for the purposes of introducing this principle, the message should be clear: let’s move, people!

Don’t Budge

Consider the four Dojo coaching principles—six-week minimum, learning over delivery, optimal team profile, and time maximization—as worthy reasons to “die on the hill” because they are fundamental to a successful Dojo. Your unique adaptations and coaching styles are encouraged, but do not budge on the principles.

Now that we have a foundation established, let’s move to the practical side of Dojo coaching.