This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Laurent Bossavit. Original Post: What you check at the door Feed Title: Incipient(thoughts) Feed URL: http://bossavit.com/thoughts/index.rdf Feed Description: You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all alike. You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all different. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Laurent Bossavit Latest Posts From Incipient(thoughts)

I've been following Colin Morley's blog, Empowerment Illustrated, for a while now. I have little love for mucking around with the tools of blogging - it's the writing practice that keeps me at it - but Colin's blog was the impetus for putting aside this distaste and equipping this page with a blogroll, so he could be on it. (There are others just as deserving, who'll be appearing on the list as time goes by.) This entry of Colin's made my day earlier this week. I want you to go read it now, and while you're at it check out the rest of Colin's blog, before you come back here.

Many people are uneasy with the word "soul" enters into a conversation. I'm one of these people. Don't be distracted by the word, and consider instead the question of whether you come into work as a whole person, or whether you check at the door any part of who you are: your feelings, your ethics, your passions, your vulnerabilities, your ambitions.

If you do, you are not as powerful a person as you might be - at least in your workplace.

This is a key lesson from practice and from my readings over the previous three or four years, from Jerry Weinberg to Peter Block through Tom DeMarco, Barry Oshry or even Michael Bosworth or Jacques Werth. Bring the person you are, entire, to the work you do.