The Agile Coach as the Corporate Jester

Last week, I read a Dutch article about a company offering services for corporate jesters. While reading the article, I noticed many similarities with the role of an Agile Coach (and the Scrum Master).

The purpose of the corporate jester is to create an enjoyable work environment where everyone feels safe to speak openly about problems, worries, and challenges.

Corporate jesters… 
✅ Speak truth to power
✅ Increase psychological safety
✅ Make organizational ‘blind spots’ visible
✅ Hold up ‘the mirror’ to show what’s going on
✅ Verbalize employees’ troubles and anxieties

Additional research into the traditional ‘Court Jester’ learned that they…
👉 Entertain with humor, wit, and cleverness. They often used wordplay, satire, and even physical comedy to amuse and provide commentary on social and political issues. 
👉 Had a unique freedom to speak truth to power through humor, often poking fun at their masters without facing the same consequences as others might.
👉 Typically wore colorful, eccentric outfits, including a distinctive cap with bells. Their outfits were meant to be eye-catching and humorous.

A key difference with the clowns 🤡 is that a clown is a performance artist who uses slapstick in a routine. A jester is an entertainer who jokes and mocks people and will improvise on the spot. A clown makes a fool of himself; a jester makes a fool of the audience.

This organization’s ‘Corporate Jesters’ never provide services for more than 45 days. Otherwise, they blend too much into the company and can no longer use their ‘outside-in’ perspective.

Looking back at my career, I’ve often fulfilled the Corporate Jester role! Occasionally, we wrapped it into a different concept called Zombie Scrum 🧟‍♂️. As Zombie Scrum researchers, we could also speak truth to power, make blind spots visible, verbalize employees’ worries, and many other things.

I don’t mean to say that ALL Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters are corporate jesters, but I see a connection.

What’s your take on this? How do you connect to the corporate jester narrative and perspective? 🤔