Pawel Brodzinski on Leadership in Technology

Whatever it takes to lead a team, build a product, and run a business

Tag: autonomy

  • Hierarchy Is Bad For Motivation

    Whenever a topic of motivation at work pops up I always bring up Dan Pink’s point. In the context of knowledge work, in order to create an environment where people are motivated we need autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

    The story is nice and compelling. However, what we don’t realize instantly is how high Dan Pink sets the bar. Let me leave the purpose part aside for now. It is worth the post on its own. Let’s focus on autonomy and mastery.

    First of all, especially in the context of software development, there’s a strong correlation between the two. Given that I have enough autonomy in how I organize my work and how the work gets done, I most likely can pursue mastery as well. There are edge cases of course, but most frequently autonomy translates to mastery (not necessarily so the other way around though).

    The problem is that the way organizations are managed does not support autonomy across the board. Vast majority of organization employs hierarchy-driven structures. A line worker has a manager, that manager has their own manager, and so on and so forth up to a CEO.

    The hierarchy itself isn’t that much of an issue though. What is an issue is how power is distributed within the hierarchy. Typically specific powers are assigned to specific levels of management. A line manager can do that much. A middle manager that much. A senior manager even more. Each manager is a ruler of their own kingdom.

    Why is power distribution so important? Well, ultimately in knowledge organizations power is used for one purpose: making decisions. And decision-making is a perfect proxy if we are interested in assessing autonomy.

    Of course each ruler has a fair level of flexibility when it comes to decide how the decision-making happens in their teams. There are, however, mechanisms that discourage them to change the common pattern, i.e. a dictatorship model.

    The hierarchical, a.k.a. dictatorship, model has its advantages. Namely it addresses the risks of indecisiveness and accountability. Given that power is clearly distributed across the hierarchy we always know who is supposed to make a decision and thus who should be kept accountable for it.

    That’s great. Unfortunately, at the same time it discourages attempts to distribute decision-making. As a manager I’m still kept accountable for all the relevant decisions made so I better make them myself or double-check whether I agree with those made by a team.

    This in turn means that normally there’s very little autonomy in hierarchical organizations.

    It brings us to a sad realization. The most common organizational structures actively discourage autonomy and authority distribution.

    If we come back to where we started – what are the drivers for motivation – we would derive that we should see really low levels of motivation out there. I mean, vast majority of companies adopt the hierarchical model as it was the only thing there is. Not only that though. Even within hierarchical model we may introduce a culture that encourages autonomy, yet very, very few companies are doing so.

    We could conclude that if the above argument is true we would expect really low levels of motivation globally in the workforce. It is a safe assumption that high motivation would result in engagement and vice versa.

    Interestingly enough Gallup run a global survey on employee engagement. The bottom line is that only 13% of employees are engaged in work. Thirteen. It would have been a shock if not the fact that we just proposed that one of the current management paradigms – a prevalent organizational structure – is unsuitable to introduce autonomy across the board and thus high levels of motivation.

    In fact, active disengagement, which would translate to being openly disgruntled, is universally more common that engagement. Now, that tells a story, doesn’t it?

    What we look at here is that modern workplace is not well-suited for achieving high motivation and high engagement of employees. There are certain things that can change the situation within structural constraints. There are good stories on how to encourage the right behaviors without tearing down the whole hierarchy.

    It is also a challenge for a dominant management paradigm that makes a rigid hierarchy a prevalent and by far the most popular organizational structure out there. While such hierarchy addresses specific risks it isn’t the only way of dealing with them. The price we pay for following that path is extremely high.

    I for once consider that price too high.

  • Two Rules of Autonomy

    One thing that we are doing at Lunar Logic is we evolve toward no management model of leadership. This means a lot of small changes that all happen with the same attitude at heart: to distribute more and more decision-making power across the whole company. This by the way also means systematically stripping down the management from that power.

    The latter is easy in our case as the management is limited to me and I kind of launched the whole process. I would have to be either a hypocrite or a schizophrenic to resist the changes. Luckily enough I believe I’m neither. (Unless that other me has something else to say, that is.)

    I don’t say it’s easy. One challenge in each step toward participatory leadership is that we, humans, don’t like to give up on power. I’m no different. I like that warm feeling that I can make a call and it shall be as I say. It’s not only that. Sometimes I simply know which option is good and the temptation to intervene and tell people what’s the best choice is strong. It would mean, however, taking a step back on a path toward democratizing leadership. So I keep my mouth shut.

    On other occasions I just feel like we are going too far from my comfort zone and I slow down the process.

    Giving up on power is a prerequisite to go further. While I don’t say it will go as easy in every case it isn’t enough to get that part working. In fact, despite being vocal how much I don’t want to make all sorts of decisions and how much I appreciate autonomy I still get loads of the questions that start with “Can I…”

    If I’m lucky enough to suppress my System 1 reaction that would be either of: yes, yes but, no, no but answers I’d reply with “Can you?” The ball is back in your court and as long as you take responsibility for the call you make I’m OK with that.

    The interesting thing is why these questions are popping up over and over again though. Despite the fact that on a conscious level we promote autonomy our natural behaviors means retreating back to the old pattern of asking for permission.

    We simply don’t claim autonomy even if it slaps us in the face.

    Besides years of programming our brains by education and work system that make it hard to act differently there’s another reason for that. Most of us want to be good citizens and we don’t want to use our autonomy to do stuff other wouldn’t like or even would be against. So we back up to the ultimate decision-making authority who is supposed to know what everyone in an organization likes or approves or more likely who doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks – a manager.

    The interesting thing is that the fear sometimes is well-grounded. We have different sensitivity toward different things. Behaviors that we consider positive or neutral may have negative connotation for others. If I’m a manager and I use my ultimate decision-making power and I don’t give a damn then, well, I don’t give a damn. But what if I’m just a team member who cares?

    The idea we came up with is a set of two very simple rules.

    1. The Nike Way
    If you want to do something just do it.

    2. Speak Up
    If you don’t like what someone else is doing speak up.

    Yes, that’s it. There’s one underlying principle, which is mutual respect. We don’t need to love each other. We need to respect our autonomy and our right to have different views on stuff.

    The nice thing about this setup is that it is a self-balancing mechanism. It takes only one person try something new. It doesn’t require permission or even extensive up-front discussion. Pretty much the opposite, as a default we assume that every initiative would be awesome and everyone would love it or at least have nothing against.

    The Nike Way is verbalizing the attitude described by famous Grace Hopper’s words: It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

    What we do know is that despite best intentions it won’t be true all the time. Occasionally, OK more often than occasionally, someone would do something that somebody else is not OK with. Then we have Speak Up rule that triggers a conscious and meaningful discussion (sometimes dubbed a shit storm) that provides additional insight for both sides and most likely some sort of consensus.

    Speak Up rule was designed with a positive scenario in mind, i.e. someone unintentionally stepped on someone else’s toe. It works however in malicious cases as well. When someone intentionally crosses the line or pulls an organization in an unwanted direction someone else will speak up too.

    The best part is that the same way it takes only one person to just do it, you need only one person to speak up.

    One might point that there’s a risk that it would end up in indecisiveness. So far I don’t see that happening. First, speaking up doesn’t mean the ultimate veto power. It simply triggers a discussion. Second, the respect bit that is a hard prerequisite keeps the discussion civilized.

    There’s a little more sophistication to balance that. Naturally extroverts would have an upper hand in unstructured discussion. That’s where empathy plays its role as helps to facilitate these weaker signals. On a basic level there are just these two simple rules: The Nike Way and Speak Up rule.