Encouraging team’s freedom : how much is enough ?

When talking with directors about how to enable collective intelligence and co-responsability in their teams, they usually find me too strict regarding their own behavior.
« Yes, last week I’ve been keeping someone’s action on hold -it was over a detail, but I didn’t understood her decision, you know. And the next day I stepped in and took direct control of à team’s action plan, telling people what to do.
But what’s the deal, that’s just two times, right ? On average, I let them go on their own if it’s good for the business. They know I expect them to decide and act without waiting for validation on details, right ? »

My point is : no, they probably don’t.

To explain why, I’ll use a reverse example.

Reverse proposition: dictatorship

Imagine a dictator of a 150 people village. How many people does he have to punish to remove any attempt of free-thinking and free initiative ?
My bet : 2 are enough.
It’s not about controlling all of the free-thinking leaders, it’s about making an example, telling a message. Once people got the message, they’ll stay away from displeasing you. The first punishment makes an example, the second one set a pattern. Then the word spread. Self-restraining behavior will soon appear.

Now let’s say the dictator changes his mind.
How many people does he need to reward to remove the former message, to say « good you take that initiative on your own. It helps ! » ? 10, 20 rewards at least, right ? While restraining from any censorship

Back in our management situation.
Control messages are far more powerful because they’re calling our inner surviving sense. « Don’t get into bad situation » comes before « Thrive in your life ». No balance is possible because these are not competing on the same level : safety wins.

You’re the boss, boss

As a CTO/CEO, you have a lot of power and influence on the people that works for you, probably more than you think.
So when you’re a manager, a CTO, a CEO, and you forget yourself 1 or 2 times per week by being over-controlling, censoring someone who takes an initiative you didn’t understood (in other words : you freaked out), you don’t get an « average » message at the end of the week. You drawn a powerful pattern that you’ll have a hard time to remove.
That’s why, even if I’m being tolerant as a coach, I stay relentless about the behavior required to set a proper messages.

Now, if you’re asking yourself « Am I doing enough to get my teams confident about their freedom to think and act by themselves ? », I would use two reverse questions instead :
1) how many censoring actions are needed to kill people’s investment in your project ?
2) how far are you from that number ?

Tags: Agile Leadership, Agile Management, Agile Transformation, Change, Dictator, Freedom Inc., Model X Model Y, Punition, Self-Organisation