In an increasingly dynamic business environment, high-growth leaders are finding greater agility and efficiency via self-directed work teams. These teams democratize the world of work by empowering employees and advancing innovation. As many organizations are looking to eliminate bureaucracy (read: managers) high-growth executives, entrepreneurs and business owners are looking for ways to design the modern office team. A study by McKinsey & Company found that organizations with decentralized decision-making reported a 25% improvement in customer satisfaction. By reducing bureaucracy, self-managed teams can enhance productivity, increase employee (and customer) satisfaction, and improve profitability. Here’s high-growth leaders are redefining the future of work.
The Case for Self-Directed Work Teams
Traditional hierarchies often create bottlenecks, slowing down decision-making and stifling creativity. Corporate giants like Meta and Bayer have taken substantial steps to cut out bureaucracy and improve the bottom line. But you don’t have to be a multi-billion dollar international juggernaut to empower teams (and your company) with new ideas. Self-directed work teams operate with greater autonomy, enabling employees to manage projects, solve problems, and make decisions collaboratively. According to an article on Small Business Manager, these teams thrive when given clear objectives, appropriate resources, and the trust to execute their tasks.
A study from the National Library of medicine shares that high growth organizations (HGOs) emphasize self-directed teams and a knowledge-sharing culture. First described in the 1982 classic, In Search of Excellence, high-growth organizations have leaned in on self-directed teams and democratization of decision-making. Self-directed teams have a high level of “determination” – which encompasses control over the speed of work, allocation of duties, work periods, and involvement in hiring and training new team members. Self-directed work teams also have more autonomy than traditional work teams.
Research from the Harvard Business Review underscores the benefits of SDWTs, noting that companies with decentralized decision-making are 1.5 times more likely to report improved organizational agility and innovation. For businesses of all sizes, the ability to harness the collective power of teams doesn’t always require a manager. If you want to access greater growth, start with how work is designed. That task gets easier with some Beer.
Beer Helps Us to Understand Teams – It’s True
Stafford Beer was an English social scientist, considered the father of cybernetics. While you may think that’s a book about Tom Cruise’s religion (actually, you’re thinking of Dianetics), cybernetics is the study of management structures. Specifically, how systems regulate and control themselves.
Beer famously said, “The purpose of a system is what it does.” What that means is: the way that work is designed determines the output that a team (or organization) creates. Beer emphasizes that the most accurate way to understand a system is to observe its real-world effects, not rely solely on intentions (read: your mission statement) or descriptions. How is work designed? Have you aligned your teams in a way that generates success, or strife? In the age of AI, every business both large and small needs to consider how to set up teams for success.
Steps to Build Effective Self-Directed Work Teams
Define Clear Goals and Expectations: Successful SDWTs begin with a clear understanding of their mission. But, who decides the mission when there’s no manager? Jack Stack, the author of The Great Game of Business, said that “People will support what they help to create.” An advocate for employee ownership since the 1980s, Stack’s work has helped thousands of companies to support themselves, from the inside, by redesigning what “management” really means. Collaboration and communication just moved to the top of the org chart, where team members must decide what needs to be done. The self-directed team takes ownership to set the goals and timelines. For owners and executives, defining the goal is now a team sport. Are you ready to play?
Choose the Right Team Members: Building a self-directed team requires individuals with complementary skills, strong communication abilities, and a collaborative mindset. Like an expert coach building a championship team, the executive role is one of selection and organizational design. Remember, flexibility is a key advantage in self-directed teams. Capitalize on that resource by allowing (and expecting) that subject matter experts might join teams, as needed. For example, when legal assistance is needed, or when product testing or L&D requires expert consulting. The right team members will come up with a plan to identify and access additional resources. It’s not up to an owner or executive to tell people when, where and how.
Provide Training and Resources: Empowering teams starts with equipping them for success. The future of work is undergoing a redesign, and people need to understand the operating system that determines the success of every self-directed team. That operating system isn’t designed by Apple or built on Nvidia processors. It’s the human operating system. Self-managed teams need people who can listen, and who don’t let unnecessary sensitivities interfere with required discussions. Discourse is vital, and challenge is to be expected. Evaluating ideas in a spirit of mutual respect means knowing how to give and take, especially as new ideas are brought forward. Training is really an opportunity to reinforce cultural change and inclusion, changing the narrative around teamwork, dialogue and collaboration.
Foster a Culture of Trust and Accountability: Self-directed work teams will fail inside a toxic culture. Transparency is the key to implementing the new initiative. In a world where many leaders can’t tolerate working from home, can your executives commit to transferring leadership into the organization? Commitment fuels trust, as team members make the goals of the group job number one. Leaders must give employees the freedom to make decisions without micromanaging, while setting up systems for accountability. In a top-down structure, expectations govern performance. In self-led teams, agreements determine performance. Have you created a culture where agreements have replaced expectations, as the guiding force for results?
Self-Directed Teams and the Future of Work
As a consultant to organizations undergoing massive changes and digital transformations in the age of AI, I believe self-directed teams represent an opportunity for high growth. Why? Because human beings are meant to work in groups. Not necessarily respond to titles and artificial social structures. Long before the industrial revolution, humans were forming teams – naturally. The shift to self-directed teams is a return to human nature, where forward-thinking leaders can re-imagine the future of work.
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