How Culture impacts the way we do business, work and relationships

Business Odyssey

What do you know about culture? What does culture mean to you?

When being aware of what culture is and understanding the impact that has on the business, community, and people, is when you are starting to create value-added outcomes for everybody involved. You now know one of your greatest assets. Once you reach that level, you can start your transformation journey.

We talk with Steve Crago, founder of Phoenix Rising Trans4mation, about organizational culture, diverse mindset, customs, trust and respect, and how all of that combine together to have an impact on the organization.

About Steve

I have been married to my high school sweetheart for over 46 years. My wife and I have 2 lovely children and 4 incredible grandsons. When I’m not travelling all over the world for business, I enjoy reading anything leadership or agile-related.

The first part of my adult life was spent in the military. I was in the United States Marine Corps from 1971 – 1976 and was honourably discharged as a Sergeant/E-5. After spending a couple of months as a civilian, I decided to go back into the military and ended up joining the Army in July 1976. I retired from the Army in 1992 as a First Sergeant/E-8.

I worked as a developer and solution architect for over 25 years. I have had the joys and pains of many types of software development methodologies and frameworks over the years. I was introduced to XP (Extreme Programming) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, then reinforced my understanding of it when I read Kent Beck’s book “Extreme Programming Explained” around 2003 or so; then around 2005 a colleague gave me a copy of “Agile Software Development With Scrum”, by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle (RIP), and said we needed to use it on our mobile solution project that we were about to kick-off.

I readily admit that when I first learned XP, especially Paired Programming, I was not all that enthusiastic; I was not thrilled about the thought of having someone look over my shoulder while I was coding. Once I was introduced to Scrum and began to really grasp the concepts of working in an agile way, things began to change for me; from that time forward I have been immersed in all things agile-related. I have learned, used, and taught classes to clients on XP, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, IBM’s Agile With Discipline (AWD), Scott Ambler’s Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), and various other “hybrid” client renditions of these processes.

Since my time in the military as a young Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO), I have had the ability and desire to train and coach people in the areas that I was experienced and good at doing. Being able to coach individuals, teams, and organizations on becoming agile is more than a job; for me, personally, it is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Finally, at the ripe old age of 63, I decided it was time to start working for myself, so in January 2019 I started @Phoenix Rising Trans4mation, LLC; our mission is to motivate, inspire, and empower individuals and organizations to grow and evolve into their best possible selves.

You can reach out to Steve here

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevecrago