How to create common goals and tackle each other's areas, while avoiding the downsides of micromanagement?

This post is linked to an earlier blog on micromanagement and Patrick Lencioni. Both also work independently.

It is difficult to distinguish between autonomy and siloing

The following structure is often repeated in comments on management:

• Level 2: I do it myself, no one else gets involved. Autonomy.
• Level 1. The boss tells me what to do, I do it. Hierarchy.

It is better to be in the higher world: the author has autonomy when others do not interfere in matters under his responsibility. Micromanagement is terrible! That's why you should not interfere and give autonomy. I understand the logic very well and I agree with some of it, but it is not that simple. Indeed, autonomy is the beginning of siloing, and siloing is another thing that many people find terrible. It means that different parts of an organisation operate too independently, which often leads to inefficiencies and cross-fertilisation between units or people. 

I argue that if there are no silos in an organisation, but everyone is committed to common goals, shares goals and helps each other, we CANNOT HAVE advanced autonomy in what each team and person does. If we are autonomous, we decide our own things and others decide theirs. When this goes on for a while, we also get tied to our own goals and others to theirs - not to the common ones. If, on the other hand, we each do things for a common goal, then naturally everyone is interested in what others are doing. Otherwise we cannot achieve our goal, which is a common one. We share what we learn with each other, we improve our own working methods and those of others.

Above autonomy is joint action

Ken Segall's excellent book Insanely Simple takes a close look at the issue. According to the book, one of the secrets of Apple's success has been the pursuit of simplicity in everything it does and the associated craters of ideas. This brings us to the third level. The key challenge at level 3 is how to operate in a way that makes people feel good, motivates them to work and interacts in a respectful way. I will return to this below.

• Level 3: Everyone can and must intervene. The best idea wins. A cracy of ideas.
• Level 2: Autonomy, do it myself, no interference. Autonomy.
• Level 1. The boss tells me what to do, I do it. Hierarchy.

The most efficient organisations are shallow, and shallowness brings with it a craternity of ideas. There is no boss to decide, but tasks are shared. Whoever knows best gets to do it. If many people have ideas, the best idea wins.

For example, if I'm chopping halon and a colleague brings me a better axe, of course I'll use it. If it's not clear whether the axe I brought is better, I test it and use the better one. The same can happen even if the colleague is replaced by a boss. Taken to the extreme, autonomy would mean that others would not even offer me a better axe they had found, but I would only use it if I found it myself, I am autonomous.

The example is an obvious example of what to do. Autonomy in managing one's own affairs is the key to finding meaningful motivation when the organisation is inherently hierarchical. An appropriate amount of autonomy is a set of hierarchical fixes, but maximising autonomy is not the final goal. It only gets you to a reasonably well-functioning organisation, not yet a good one, let alone an excellent one. Above that, the next level is joint action.

Ignorance gives power to cognitive biases

Ideacracy does not mean everyone intervenes in everything. That would be absolutely terrible. But to achieve common goals, we need to overcome the extra sensitivity to our own ideas and habits. It is easy in autonomy thinking for people to want autonomy and to control its implementation, and a barrier develops to the reception of a new idea. When someone tries to break down this wall, they are seen as indiscreet, aggressive, unappreciative, etc. 

While building a wall to protect our own way of doing things, we easily reinforce our cognitivebias. Many of these reinforce our prior beliefs and we see others' ideas as weaker than our own, if only because they are overwhelmed by others, and especially by an indiscriminate aggressor. We use old solutions because the familiar ones seem good, and our brains prevent us from seeing better ones. This includes Not invented here, confirmation bias, illusory superiority and the Dunning-Kruger effect, all of which lead us not to listen to outside input and feedback on our work. We should not build a wall to protect our old habits, but rather try to break them down.

How to give feedback constructively?

The aim is to create a situation where the recipient does not have a significant wall, but the message senders are critical of what they are giving feedback and new ideas about. In other words, there is so much wall on the senders' side that the receiver can keep their receptor open. Message senders:

• do not comment on style issues related to the way they do things
• do not raise issues that are of little advantage compared to the author's way of doing things (because the discussion is a cost in itself, it is not worth starting to adjust small things in a group)
• work tactfully, they can ask first if there is room for an idea: "I might have an idea to make this work better, is now a good time to talk" 
• present feedback in an appreciative way
• usually ask the author's views first, and relate their own views to them - the person who gave the idea may have missed something, which means that their idea is not actually applicable to the situation

When idea contributors use these principles, having an outside idea come to my property usually even feels like a good thing. This can lead to a world where everyone is genuinely interested in getting ideas to improve their work. No silos are created when ideas don't have to be held back for fear of infringing on someone else's autonomy. And when there is a constant, shared discussion about work, people learn from each other. There are no big issues to bring up with a colleague, and you're on the same page all the time.

We need acceptance so that we can rise to the challenge of truly working together

Doing things together involves very demanding issues of acceptance and self-esteem. It's not always clear that a colleague - or especially a boss - should come and offer me another axe if I need to show that I can do the job on my own with my old axe. Which is the greater need: to do it my way alone or to complete a joint task? 

This issue is aptly addressed in Dave Logan et al's book Tribal Leadership, which brings us to level 4, with the motto "we are great".At level 4, a group of people are actually working together to achieve results, they respect each other and their positions are secure enough that they don't need to prove to others their contribution. In such an environment, questions of who proposed and who decided become irrelevant. As long as results are achieved, the best ideas naturally win. This is how the best teams work, and the decision-making process in this culture is what I call the ideaocracy. 

The fact is that in most workplaces, there is no real shared ambition for results. And it is also a fact that employees do not always fundamentally respect each other, at least not all their colleagues. In these situations, autonomy can be a good thing and a wise intermediate goal. But it is not the ultimate goal when it comes to building a team that works well. Tero Rinne of Iogen said, somewhat paraphrasing: "When hunting mammoths, you need a team, an individual does nothing. There are teams that are in the same unit but do more work at the individual level. On the other hand, there are also teams whose members are genuinely dependent on each other's efforts." For the former, it is worth aiming for stronger individual autonomy.

What are the steps towards common goals?

What does this involve? It's a long path and requires developing the whole working community and working together.

• trust is the key word. Patrik Lencioni writes extensively on this.
• Psychological safety is another keyword, a close subject to trust. Brene Brown has written and spoken on this subject in an excellent way.
• Shared goals, which have been discussed in particular in the book Tribal Leadership.
• Changing routines is challenging. It is possible and reasonably easy to build a culture of shared goals in a new community that does not need to change its routines. 
• Lead by example: share ideas, give plenty of positive feedback, listen. Structure your own processes so that you ask for feedback on raw ideas a little too often rather than at least infrequently, and thank people for their feedback.
• Actors occasionally visit companies to teach mocking, improvisation and brainstorming. These skills are important for jobs with creative elements, and the exercises help you to be imaginative and agile at work too. They can support a shared culture, but they do not yet do it alone.
• "Control" of behaviour and actions: negative behaviour is tackled, in particular inappropriate comments that go beyond the scope of others' actions, i.e. taking advantage of others' lack of masonry, and on the other hand, masonry. We need to keep the channels of communication open.

The last point is important. The ideocracy environment is vulnerable to a dominant person who interferes unduly in the actions of others, regardless of their position. Invasions of others' territories are not tolerated, but constructive interference in others' plots is encouraged.

Working together is more enjoyable than autonomy

When I'm doing a job, am I willing to go beyond the next level of autonomy and put everything out in the open for everyone to see all the time, and at the same time ask for comments at any time? To throw the ball to every besserwisser and be ready to change my direction when I get feedback? The best teams work together, the question of autonomy is irrelevant. It usually feels bad at first, but once you get used to it and find ways with colleagues to work together on shared goals and common approaches, you can move to a new level of tribal culture. And life there is really cool!