Reinventing Organizations
The Best Leaders Barely Exist
Traditionally, organizations are managed top-down. Supervisors at the top of a pyramid give orders, make decisions and are ultimately accountable for the results of their employees. This system functioned well for over a century and a half as all industry was organized hierarchically and most employees were loyal to their workplace. They spent their professional lives at a single organization, steadily climbing the career ladder.
Today, however, many will argue that there is something wrong with the way organisations are managed. Polls show that over two-thirds of employees are disengaged with their work. They show up with their bodies but their hearts and minds are elsewhere. In other words, they are there for the paycheck, but there’s no passion for the job, and this is not only true at the lower levels of an organization. Behind closed doors, most senior managers will admit that they’re tired of the rat race, the in-fighting and the ego-games. Perhaps it’s time for a new management paradigm.
Instead of managing an organisation top-down, let’s turn things around and manage from the bottom up. I’m guessing this idea will cause some raised eyebrows, but it’s not as revolutionary as it sounds. By 2020 about half the workforce will be comprised of the Millennial generation, and generations differ. Whereas earlier generations were brought up and educated to listen to a boss, tech-savvy and purpose driven Millennials were raised with constant coaching and feedback and want it to continue in the workplace. To keep them engaged in their jobs, they are looking for mentors and trainers, not necessarily managers.
To turn managers into effective mentors and trainers, a bottom-up approach might prove to be very effective, especially with Millennials who excel in collaboration when a team’s goals and purpose are clearly understood. In practicality this means that instead of managers giving orders and controlling employees with specific static job descriptions, the workforce will consist of self-organizing teams. In these teams, the employees won’t have job descriptions, but are given dynamic role descriptions outlining their purpose and accountabilities within their teams. These role descriptions are constantly updated by the team actually doing the work, allowing its members more freedom to express their creative talents. As roles are tied to the team and not directly to a person, new roles can be handed-off or picked-up fairly easily to suit the team’s preferences. Moreover, as team members have dynamic roles to play instead of conforming to fixed positions, employees will be able to energise their work with a level of clarity, responsibility and awareness unseen in most traditional workplaces.
Another characteristic of self-managing teams is the distribution of authority. In traditional organizations, managers loosely delegate authority, but ultimately, their decisions always trump those they manage and everybody knows it. Any initiative outside the norm typically requires the boss’ approval, explicitly or implicitly. Self-organized teams are given accountability and the team members themselves decide internally how to best reach their goals. This means that an individual employees will have the authority to make team decisions, as long as they adhere to the organisation’s guidebook. For example, a team member might decide to buy new software to improve the work-flow. As long as he will seek advice from everybody affected by this decision, i.e. other team members, finance officers and so on, he will be allowed to buy it without formal authority from a supervisor. In this way, teams are able to adapt to changing conditions without the typical autocratic micromanagement that slows everything down.
A traditional manager reading this will probably have broken out in a sweat by now and be wondering how in earth such decisions can be left to the individual employee. The answer is straight forward: team members will effectively manage each other. The reasons for this are twofold. First of all, because each team member is accountable for the success of the team as a whole, they will keep each other in check and avoid irresponsible actions of any individual. In many ways this will be far more effective than leaving all the responsibility with one person at the top of the hierarchy. Secondly, because every team member is allowed to make decisions and unable to hide behind the “boss”, they will be more engaged in their work and take ownership of the project they are assigned to.
Although the paradigm is new, the idea is not. About two and a half thousand years ago the Ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi wrote, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, “We did this ourselves,” which is probably what we should aim for.
[T]here you are.
Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organizations
For more information regarding self-organizing teams I’d like to refer you to the book Reinventing Organizations by Belgium researcher Frederic Laloux. His book describes in practical detail how organizations large and small can operate in this new paradigm.
