I started at
my job a little over a year ago. It's
been quite an adventure for me. The
great thing about working with amazing people is that you tend to follow the
same people around to different companies.
The risk with working with amazing people is that you tend to work with
the same people. Before Nordstrom, I
spent 10 years working with most of the same people in 4 different companies,
that includes working for myself.
At Nordstrom, I knew one person. He brought me in but I
had only worked with him once and only briefly met him on 2 or 3
occasions. Essentially, I knew no one. I had no work history with anyone and I had
no credibility. I thought it wouldn't be
much different than a consulting gig.
I've had to earn trust and build relationships with people who didn't
know me from Adam before. It shouldn't
be any different, right?
Oh, but it was and
it didn't go well for me. I approached
my new job in the same way I would've approached any consulting
engagement--hitting the ground running.
Within a month, I wanted to quit.
My role was new and everything was awkward and uncomfortable. I felt redundant and ineffective. My friends, former colleagues, and mentors
told me to wait it out. "Give it a
year," they said. By 3 months, I
was depressed and irritable. It seemed
that my team hated me and I was on the verge of hating them, too. We didn't connect and it seemed that
everything I tried only made it worse.
"I'm done. I'm just over
it. I am so tired of trying. I am just
so tired," I remember saying.
I didn't want to
give up and admit defeat. I didn't want
to be wrong, especially when I knew it could be better. I wanted things to be so amazing because I've
seen it BE amazing and, gosh, there's just nothing like it.
I found out about
the Agile Transformation and I wanted to be part of it. I joined the People & Teams track which
eventually became Los Braggadocians. And
we are indeed amazing.
There's an energy
that comes from being part of a truly Agile team and that's what saved me: My
team and the Agile values. It's
difficult to describe what it feels like to be part of something greater than
myself.
I once tried to
describe that same energy about the greatest company I have ever worked for:
It’s in the intangibles and the intangibles are difficult to not only convey but also to measure. Intangibles are the kinds of things that you cannot appreciate without ever having experienced them. It's like needing glasses your whole life then finally putting on a pair of glasses and saying, "I never knew it could be like this."
I like to think I had some hand in why our little Agile Transformation team is so great. I hope that I fostered my passion for Agile values and principles and that it found its way to my teammates. Even if it had little to do with me, I'm still so proud and happy to again be part of a team that makes me smile when I'm with them.
