Build the foundation for self-organising teams with Autonomy (Part II of IV)

Our desire to be self-directed

This is part two of our series about Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose and how they can help with creating a self-organising team. In this story, we will be looking into how Autonomy plays a vital role in the day-to-day life of a team, and how it ultimately builds the foundation to become a self-organising unit.

The Background

For the full introduction, please have a read of part one. I will only repeat some core information here to give context for the rest of the article.

Everybody dreams of working in a high-performing team. Contrary to what we think, individual talent or intelligence is in most cases not the deciding factor. It is how well the team can work together.

When a team is set-up to be self-organising, a large part of the foundation is put in place for it to run like a well-oiled machine. Which, in turn, yields a higher volume and better quality output.

The concepts of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose provide the structure for a self-organising team, which enables it to be highly productive.

How important Autonomy really is

First, let us quickly refresh our memory about what Autonomy means by looking at a definition:

autonomy, noun

independence or freedom, as of the will or one’s actions: the autonomy of the individual.

It all comes down to how much say an individual — and team — has in regards to their life and work. More importantly, a person needs some form of control in (almost) all aspects, including what to do and how to do it.

Businesses have not considered Autonomy for individuals as a big focus for quite a while. In the last 30 years however, research has started to suggest how incredibly important it has become. At the very least, it plays a strong part in how motivated someone is at work — as shown by Pink in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Even more profound are the findings by Deci and Ryan, who created the self-determination theory. In their view, autonomy together with competence and relatedness are the three core psychological human needs.

Self-organising teams — as the name suggests — are all about Autonomy. Only a team with full Autonomy can be truly self-organising.

A high degree of independence and freedom — or self-direction — is the first need of self-organising teams.

As leaders, the challenge becomes to instil a high degree of Autonomy in the team. This can be achieved with the help of tools, processes and guidelines which will be the focus for the rest of this article.

Autonomy over the team’s goals

Goal setting has been used as a tool in organisations for a very long time. And while research has proven a lot of positive outcomes, it has gained a mixed reputation. Some of the negative perception stems from the experiences most of us might have had at one company or another: someone high up in the ranks sets a (monetary) target for a team or employee. And then you are stuck with it until performance reviews happen at the end of the year. In the worst case, this can lead to highly unethical behaviour.

If that is not bad enough already, sometimes management not only sets the target for a team, but also dictates how it should be accomplished. This is, of course, anything but giving employees Autonomy. In fact it is completely the opposite and it stifles engagement and creativity.

There are better ways though, and a couple of key aspects are outlined below. I have previously written up a more comprehensive article on goal setting across an organisation for anyone interested in the topic. It also outlines different goal-setting techniques, which we will not cover here.

Everybody gets a chance to give feedback

Ideally, the whole team is involved in the actual goal setting process. This creates a lot of engagement and excitement within the team because everybody is working towards their own target.

Define the What and Why, not the How

In every good organisation, management needs to align the different teams so that the sum of all efforts make sense — which means some input into the team’s goals is necessary. That is great, but stay well clear of telling a team how to do their job. Using a sports metaphor: You can tell a team where the goal posts are, but never tell them how to kick a goal.

Autonomy over the outcome

There is a good reason why so many articles exist that highlight the toxic climate micro-management can create. It is bad, and you should do everything in your power to prevent it.

This section is an overview about some of the techniques I have used to give teams Autonomy over their day-to-day. You will certainly not have to do all of them to begin with (or ever). But if a team is doing none of those then your alarm should go off, because chances are micro-management is happening. The good news is, it is not hard to start using one or two tools right away.

Everybody is involved in all stages of product development

Assuming you have a cross-functional team (more on that in part three of the series covering Mastery). It is crucial that everybody does a little bit of everything. A good team does not work in silos, where the product manager writes a specification, the designer creates the prototype and the engineers code it up. Some might argue this is not even a team in the first place.

Make the engineers do user research, designers should help code the front-end, product managers participate in design studios. The opportunities are pretty much endless. This gives an opportunity to provide feedback at any stage of the product development process, which ensures the team works towards the same end result.

Crucial to the success of this process is to strike a balance between the core disciplines of team members and the cross-functional tasks. A good place to start is the 80/20 rule. Roughly 80% of time should be spent on the core competency — e.g. coding for an engineer — and 20% on everything else.

Whole team (iteration) planning

Team members should be involved every time work is planned for them, e.g. for an iteration. It is a crucial tool for a team to be self-directed. Other than the pure participation, here are a few key aspects to look out for:

• The product direction should be influenced by anybody on the team. Regular design studios are a great way to share ideas within the group. For an epic kick-off, you can try a week long design sprint.
• Discovery is a planned activity, involving the whole team. This is another great way to make sure everybody is working towards the same product.

Making decisions is not the leaders job

In an ideal scenario, the leader is not the only person making decisions that affect the product or team. No one should wait for the manager to approve a piece of work or release. Leaders influence, guide, suggest — just like everybody else — but the final decision should be up to the team. There are of course exceptions to the rule, but in my experience it should only happen in the rarest of situations.

Part of the job for a manager though, is to help the team come to a decision. Nothing is gained when there are week long discussion about a certain topic. A great guide is to understand when to strive for consensus versus commitment.

Autonomy in regards to Innovation

The fact that teams are responsible in how their day-to-day is run is a great start. Taking one step back though, it becomes clear that involvement in the direction of the company or product is equally as important.

Ideas can and should be created at any level of the company. In general, if a lot of the product feels like it is built bottom up, a team usually has a lot of Autonomy. Following are a few ideas to help the team influence the company’s direction:

• Dedicate a certain amount of time (e.g. 10%) to high risk — or moonshot — features. Even if that project is not successful by itself, it can pave the way for something similar in the future.
• Have dedicated hack or innovation days. The idea behind them is to allow the whole group to work on things of their choosing. If days (or even weeks) feel too daunting, try weekly Friday afternoons.

Next Up: Mastery

The next part of my series will cover Mastery and how it relates to self-organising teams. More specifically how to create an environment that allows people to perform at their absolute best.

Previously published stories as part of this series:

The art of self-organising teams: Create amazing teams by applying Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose

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