Archived The Agile Tao A conversation about the source of agility

Agility started (if there was a starting point) not 20 years ago, but 2000 years ago with the first Agile coach – Lao Tzu.

Join us and discover the story of Lao-Tzu, the first Agile coach, and what he had to say about leadership styles, flow, resistance and hierarchy (and life 🙂

19. Mindset (xv)

Agility is practical, not mystical –
A way of working, not a state of grace.

Listening as if crossing thin ice,
Testing as if surrounded by danger,
Learning as in a strange land,
Simplifying as thawing snow,
Integrating as the deep woods,
Leading as the river valley,
Innovating as the spring silt.

Imagine the ice solid or the stream clear,
Stop to plan your way ahead,
Ignore what moves underfoot;
You fall and disappear.

Dov Tsal is an agile coach, a self-proclaimed Taoist, and a noise-maker.

Peter Merel – the author of the Agile Tao – has coached XP years before Snowbird, he traces the agile origins back another 3,000 years. Peter first spoke on the “Tao of XP” at XP2K, the first agile conference.

Peter’s famous translation of Lao Tzu into an agile context, and Dov Tsal’s podcast that focuses on it, provide a way to apply this ancient perspective to your organization’s culture in a contemporary and immediately practical way.