A coach is not part of the team

Teams are cool. Forming part of a cool team is even cooler. By working closely with a team it is easy to feel part of it but that’s not the job of a coach. As a coach your role is to make the team go through the tortuous path to high-performance. Chances are you are not going to be able to be their friend through the process.

Furthermore, every member of the team is committed to achieving the team’s goal. This goal is to develop a product increment. They should care about this product enough to want to make it grow healthily. The coach doesn’t need to care about the product the team is building. The coach’s product is the actual team. His goal is to make the team an amazing one. One that is well coordinated and capable to step-up to challenges together. To achieve that you will have to ask them to do things that they might not understand, disagree with, and even dislike you for. Tough luck! Hopefully you will be right, they will end up understanding and eventually thank you for it.

It feels good to be appreciated by the team. You appreciate them. Beware of being driven by this need of appreciation, you might make decisions that the team will like you for but end up hurting in the long run.