Staff management
Self-organisation: opportunities for teams and companies
From Sabine Walter, Head of netzwerk managementberatung | coaching
The idea of self-organised teams is becoming increasingly popular in business practice. But many questions arise when introducing this management philosophy: To which companies does it fit? How do I get my employees to work independently? Who bears the ultimate responsibility? Do we still need leadership at all? What does this leadership look like? ... We answer some of these questions in this article.
To which companies do self-organised teams fit?
In our experience, the basic idea of self-organisation suits every company. The question that needs to be answered: Each team can organise itself within what framework. The answer depends on various factors:
- How independently is the team working so far?
- How strong is the basis of trust in the team?
- What decisions can be made based on the competence of the individual team members in the team without creating significant entrepreneurial risks?
- How are decisions made (majority vs. unanimity)?
- How well are mistakes dealt with in the company and in the team?
- How constructive is the feedback and criticism culture?
What are key factors in implementing this leadership philosophy?
In order to ensure that the self-organised teams work effectively in line with the company's strategy, it is important that throughout the organisation there is a culture of trust and not fear. In many companies, this is the most difficult change on the way to self-organisation. Along with the culture of trust comes the Error and communication culture. In order for teams to be able to organise themselves well and act in the sense of the corporate goals, they also need:
- A common vision
- absolute transparency of information
- the know-how and the know-why
- Clarity about the area of responsibility and decision-making authority
- Clear rules on decision-making processes
- Sparring from outside for feedback and impulses
- a high level of conflict management skills and clear rules for dealing with mistakes and conflicts
What are the risks of an abrupt change in leadership philosophy?
As with all change processes, success lies in the Appropriateness of the pace at which this change is shaped. Time and again, we experience companies that want to change from a strictly hierarchically organised company to an organisation of agile and independent working teams almost overnight. These companies often experience very painful, that the cultural framework is missingto implement the new leadership philosophy at the push of a button. This is reflected, among other things, in the fact that:
- Employees are overwhelmed to take on responsibility all at once
- Managers do not want to hand over their responsibilities or do not know what tasks they still have.
- The number of open and hidden conflicts increases because information is missing or roles, processes and competences are unclear.
- Mistakes are covered up
- Decisions are not made due to uncertainty
In these companies, the new philosophy is often only on paper; action continues to be taken according to the hierarchical philosophy. As a result, trust in the success of change processes is gambled away. The Resistance to change increasesThe frustration rate and thus the Number of internal terminations increases.
Self-organised teams support cultural change
What are the opportunities of self-organised teams?
However, companies that succeed in shaping the change towards self-organised teams in such a way that trust in the new way of working can grow within the change and development process will benefit from the opportunities that self-organised teams offer. These are above all:
- Willingness to take responsibility for oneself, the team and the company increases
- Entrepreneurial thinking and action among every employee increases
- Space for creativity grows
- Decisions are made more quickly where they are needed.
- continuous process reflection increases the chance for continuous end-to-end process improvement
- Greater flexibility and willingness to change
- Continuous learning and development
- Willingness to cooperate instead of silo thinking
Allowing employees and thus teams to work more autonomously pays off economically for companies. The question is not whether the philosophy of self-organisation suits companies, but how much autonomy is appropriate and how the process towards more autonomy is designed.
You can also find more information on this topic in my Article on CIO.de
