#ef7e12

If not Now, When?

Ayça Pak // Allianz Türkiye - Agile Coach

A Chinese saying says: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is now." Bahar Eriş’s book "If Not Now, When?” is also inspiring in terms of agile working.

“If Not Now, When?” is a book that asks the right questions to the ones who wants to change their lives, or for the ones who at least dare to try. I wanted to tell the points that intersect with my Agile Office journey by taking inspiration from the book as well.

Bahar Eriş’s question “If not now, when?”, which is already a very powerful question, encourages us to ask ourselves and think about it. The book, which contains essays on many different topics such as courage, determination, effort, vulnerability, perfectionism, hope, goodness, directed me towards different mind journeys and became a book that I enjoyed very much. I also wanted to share with you the points in the book that I was most impressed by and connected with my own life.

The first question of the book is “If not now, when?”. Since this is the case, I would like to talk about my transition journey to the Agile Office first. In fact, the period of implementing this decision, which has been in my mind for two years, but which I have always postponed, led me to take an important step. You know very well what you want to do, but somehow you always postpone it for various reasons; you can't take that step, that step actually frees both you and other lives that you never realized at that moment. That's why we should put the "sunken price" misconception aside. Taking bold steps to leave behind the things that bind us, that we can't give up because we put in the effort, can change many things in our lives. Let's not forget that our time is limited and running out so fast, that is why it's important to ask ourselves the right questions and find out what we really want.

The Chinese saying that I have read in the book tells this situation very well: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is NOW."

So, either we will dare to this now or we'll spend our lives not knowing what we're missing. Do you ever ask yourself this question?

One of the topics that impressed me the most in the book was the “Tiramisu effect”. Tiramisu has meanings such as “Pull me up, take me up, cheer me up” in Italian. Bahar Eriş names this cheerfulness, this ability to do good to someone as “Tiramisu potential”. The author correlates the fact that every living creature grabs something and pulls someone up as much as possible with the fact that everyone has a “tiramisu potential”. We can all use this potential if we want; a little smile, a nice motivating word, holding the hand of a child who needs help and guiding him or her, leaving food and water for animals who are living on the street, helping an elderly aunt or uncle trying to cross the street and helping her or him, everyone rolling up their sleeves to support a team member in need of help in the Daily ritual of agile teams, in fact, it is possible to diversify them even more.

I thought about how important the tiramisu effect is in teams when I was reading. I think it's definitely a very effective concept. How valuable is it to have at least one person on every team who does this and moves the team up, right? So, could this person in our team be us? If you don't know who has the potential of tiramisu, maybe that person is you... why not? Actually, we all have this potential.

The book contains essays on many different topics. I'm sure there will be other topics that will interest you as well. Let my gift to you also be a recommendation to read this book…

Pleasent readings to everybody 😊

P.S. You can contact us by clicking here to share your experiences and ask questions about the agile working method.
 

Reference: Şimdi Değilse Ne Zaman?, Bahar Eriş, Alfa Yayınları, 2021

Dr. Bahar Eriş is an academic and writer focused on the education of superior intelligence and abilities in children. After completing his master's degree in gifted education at Columbia University, he received his doctorate from the same school. During her 6-year education, she has been teaching at Teachers College. After returning to Turkey, Eriş taught courses on “gifted education” at the Faculty of Education of Boğaziçi University for 10 years (2004-2014). In years 2015-2017, she entered graduate courses as an Assoc. Dr. at Bahçeşehir University Gifted Education Program. In 2017 she implemented MomTalks, which brings together experts and mothers. This organization, which aims to raise the awareness of mothers, is organized every year in different cities of Turkey, especially in Istanbul. She is also a professional simultaneous translator. Advocating the idea of ”every child deserves the best education", Eriş believes that there are unique talents worth exploring in every child.

Comments

Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.