Self Managing Teams: for Performance and Wellbeing

There are many different versions of self-managing teams with Holacracy being at one end of the spectrum of empowerment (see Zappos) and full command-and-control organisations at the other. I want to explore the large space in between, that fascinating area of trying to balance genuine empowerment and autonomy, without creating a sense of over-entitlement.

Many of the current challenges that large traditional organisations have been facing for years can be addressed through adopting a more empowering, less hierarchical approach to organisational structure: greater innovation, more flexibility, agility, enhanced wellbeing and stronger engagement are some examples. Hence, it is interesting that so many organisations still operate as a traditional dis-empowered hierarchy containing power in the status of the various layers of leadership.

We can also see that through the huge focus on Employee Engagement over the last couple of decades, an equally huge cultural emphasis being placed on the leader-employee relationship. This is because EE initiatives are usually decided upon, led and cascaded by leadership populations.

We see EE scores are high, yet so are levels of stress and anxiety particularly within those middle management layers who we seem to be layering more and more responsibility onto.

Should we be moving on from asking them to have difficult performance conversations to having mental health first aid conversations? 

Maybe now is the time to consider a new way of working that paves an easier and more successful route to influencing performance and wellbeing?

Maybe it’s time for self-managing teams? Teams with clear outcomes to achieve, very much in the direction of the overall organisational strategy, but with reduced reliance on managers having to “drive” team performance? 

What principles would we offer to support those teams to succeed in this?

I often look at the murmurations of the starlings over Brighton pier and marina in astonishment, at the way they can flock together in motion so elegantly and wonder if there are parallels from the natural world that we could draw on?

There are some simple rules that govern flocking behaviour used in game development that we could explore here for SMT’s: 

·        Separation – knowing your place and not crowding others. Could we interpret this for SMT’s to know their capability (knowledge, skills, strengths), be clear on their own individual outcome and role and staying the right distance from others, so not overlapping with others’ outcomes/roles?

·        Alignment – steering towards the average direction of those neighbours around you. Could this be knowing and working towards the common mission and outcome for team and organisation?

·        Cohesion – steering towards the average position of those neighbours. A sense of awareness of the whole, and keeping connecting is important here; cohesion and togetherness are principles that make a true team rather than a group of individual contributors.

There are other factors researchers have considered that would also be relevant for SMT’s, such as predominantly interacting with only 7 closest to you (this is interesting in terms of spans of control), speed of travel (pacing of work to remain aligned) and staying somewhat near their sleep site (staying somewhat in the industry/market it serves). 

As someone said to me recently, humans love to find patterns in things. That is certainly a big part of how my strategic and futuristic strengths play out in my work, but in terms of supporting organisations to apply new thinking, there are important factors here that relate very closely to how SMT’s could solve our main issues. 

If we want to support the success of SMT’s that follow the principles of Separation, Alignment and Cohesion, we need to ensure that teams are:

·        aware of themselves as much as possible through transparency of regular feedback. This happens most easily when people have great positive conversations about people being at their best. Everyone wants to be high performer; we can all give each other feedback; this doesn’t need to come from the ‘manager’ alone. Often, it’s more helpful from team members who regularly work alongside each other.

·        accountable for their own performance and wellbeing through clear outcomes and useful tools that apply to their whole selves, both inside and outside of work. Ensuring these tools are fun and hence easy to use, ensures they benefit the individuals personally, as well as the team and organisations.

·        constantly developing high quality connections based on trust. This develops a cohesion that can withstand much higher levels of tension and conflict through challenges and leads to better results on many levels.

At Bailey and French we provide tools that are platforms for conversations focused on strengths, performance and wellbeing. They are used in all organisations across all markets/industries, all sizes in the UK and internationally, anywhere where humans work. 

Our tools support everyone, not just leaders, to be their best for their performance and wellbeing.