Many Parts, One Body - Part Two

This post is a continuation of this one. 

While shared consciousness is the starting point as one works to build a team of teams, it does not end there. The different teams might be aware of what each is doing or meant to do but if the power to act on the information is still centralised, there will be delayed execution that can lead to poor overall outcomes. If this goes on too long people lose morale and get frustrated with their inability to act. As the flow of information becomes free for all, the ability to act on that information needs to also be decentralised. This is termed as empowered execution. Gen Stanley describes empowerment as the decentralisation of decision making authority, and studies have shown it improves employee satisfaction as well as creates intrinsic task motivation.

Unlike the era of scientific management whereby almost every possible outcome could be predicted and a solution planned in advance, the complexity of life today increasingly requires the ability of employees to make on spot decisions when faced with unanticipated situations. As a leader I should become more comfortable with sharing power; I need to accept that divergences from plan inevitably happen, and equip those I lead to respond and take action when this happens. Empowerment does not simply involve pushing the decision making authority to the periphery of the organisation. The people to whom the authority is handed should be in position to make the right decisions. This requires careful nurturing overtime, as well as free sharing of information such that whoever has to make the call has the right training and context. Otherwise, it ends in chaos. I do this through regular trainings on policies and standard operating procedures. In order to foster empowered execution, the leader needs to spend time with those he leads, talking them through the thought process on decisions and then asking them to make the call. 

When those I lead give feedback on decisions made and I publicly acknowledge and applaud those decisions, others are encouraged to also start making decisions. Full accountability and high visibility is necessary, with those I lead letting me know what is being done but this is not to encourage me to meddle and micromanage. Challenges with empowered execution include lower level leaders trying to hoard authority at their level or partners questioning decisions that subordinates have made. As a leader establishing empowered execution, I need to build a nurturing environment that allows growth of other leaders as opposed to being the central source of directives.

Empowerment without context results in chaos. People can only be expected to make the right decisions after they have all the information in order to act in context. Shared consciousness therefore needs to be established before the introduction of empowered execution in my journey towards building a team of teams. Shared consciousness is powerful but is not enough; appreciating the big picture will give rise to commonality of purpose but the group will still fall short of its potential, if those informed are not empowered to act. In conclusion, both the provision of sufficient information to all concerned parties and the nurturing and authorisation of all parties to decide and act on the information provided are essential to the successful creation of a team of teams.

Many Parts, One Body - Part One

During the late 19^th century and for most of the 20th century, management of enterprises was based on planning and prediction. At the time, the majority of people subscribed to the scientific management model whereby if you knew the rules and inputs, you could predict the output and even manipulate it. The emphasis was on efficiency and specialisation whereby individuals just needed to know and perfect their bit of the process, with next to no clue of what happens before or after the product moves past them. Managers planned and made decisions while workers simply executed as commanded. Information flow was bottom up and decisions flowed from the top downwards. 

In the latter half of the 20^th century, with advances in technology leading to greater connectivity and information transfer happening at faster speeds, it soon became obvious that this form of management was quickly becoming obsolete. The emerging interconnectivity of the world made collaboration not just necessary but essential for survival. In order to remain relevant and make discoveries useful for the times in which they found themselves, people, organisations and enterprises had to work together with others far removed from themselves, not only in terms of location, but also in trade and expertise. This was usually challenging because different teams were being asked to work together towards a desired outcome.

Within a team, the elements that bind the team together and ensure success include trust among team members, common purpose, shared awareness as well as individuals being empowered to act. When different teams are asked to work together, there is the risk of each distinct team regarding its role in isolation. The blanks between teams cause the breakdown of a collaboration and communication. Just like in scientific management whereby each worker did not know what happened before or after him, the teams only know their piece of the whole. This results in information or produce from one team that is late, not very useful or out of context for the next.  Between teams, there is usually an attitude of “The other guys suck”, such that there arises competition between the different teams as each works to outshine the other teams. This is ultimately counterproductive as the goal of each team is to place themselves in a favourable light, and achieve their team’s goal, not the overall goal. Bringing it home, I oversee a team of health personnel that include nurses, doctors, midwives as well as data technicians. They usually gang up based on their educational qualification and information flow remains within these arbitrary teams, yet we are all working towards a common project goal.

The only way to successfully get different teams working towards the same goal is through building a team of teams. As I work to build a cohesive team out of my different teams, I need to master two fundamental processes: shared consciousness and empowered execution.

If a team of individuals is to succeed while working towards a common goal, each team member should know their role, but also that of each of the different team members. In that way they each execute their part with the overall picture in mind, at all times aware of how their actions affect the actions and output of other members of the team. This commonality of purpose in a team needs to be scaled up while one attempts to build a team of teams. For functionality to be maintained in an environment that is increasingly more interdependent, every team must be allowed to see the big picture ie the interaction between all moving parts of the machine. Each distinct team, while carrying out their specific role needs to know how that role affects the ability of the other teams to carry out their roles and its impact on the overall goal. This is shared consciousness. The teams cannot do this without knowing what the other teams are about.

One way in which I can foster this commonality of purpose across my teams is by removing the blinders on each team, ensuring information flow between teams. This can best be achieved through regularly scheduled meetings involving members of each of the different teams where all can hear what is happening in each team and as such get an idea of how the other teams tie in with their own. We currently do this through daily morning meetings with out-going and incoming shift staff, as well as monthly full team meetings.

In some instances, a leader can also make use of embedding members from one team in another for a period of time. This gives the host team the opportunity to interact with and put a face to the other team, fostering relationship and building trust. Lateral bonds between teams are thus strengthened, enhancing the collaboration between teams that is required to increase chances of success. Given the widely varied duties members of my different teams are permitted to perform, this might not be very possible, but in the meantime the use of common space and regular meetings fosters the inter-team interaction and collaboration.

...To be continued...

Of Strings and Stretching

I dabbled with playing the guitar when I was younger and the sound of one skilfully played is one of my favourite things in the world.I dabbled with playing the guitar when I was younger and the sound of one skilfully played is one of my favourite things in the world. 

I picked up something interesting during that time. See, each time you pick up a guitar to play, you check if the strings are in tune with each other and other instruments. More often than not, they are out of tune, loosened by repeated strumming or some other mechanism.

To ensure the best sound is produced, the player will need to turn the knobs that hold the strings, in effect tightening the strings. I bet if the guitar could speak it would be screaming about how “…that is painful…why does anything have to change…things are fine just the way they are…” and so forth. 

And yet when the tuning is done, and a single strum produces that perfect A11/E … it sighs blissfully thinking “This is what I was made for.”

We, like a guitar, will occasionally have some loose strings that are in need of tightening if we are to produce the perfect note in God’s on—going melody. The tuning more often than not is uncomfortable, painful even, but rest assured that when it’s over the output will be beautiful. 

In defence of employment

The rhetoric these days revolves around self-employment. A lot of what we read or listen to seems to say “quit your job”, “have a side hustle”, “working for someone else will not make you rich” and many such sentiments. I have been blessed with a job since I left formal education, so maybe I am brainwashed but I would like to expound on the beauty of employment that you hardly hear anyone speak about.

First and foremost, employment is a blessing that so many long for. In a country with steadily rising rates of unemployment, I cannot take for granted the fact that I’ve had a steady income for the past so many years. It is a blessing I regularly thank God for.

Employment helps one learn a number of things that can be used if they eventually go into self-employment. Take for example the regularity of work hours. Having to rise at a set time every workday can condition one to this habit that they can then maintain even when they are their own boss.

Accountability, meeting deadlines and transparency are other things one can learn at their workplace that they can later use. Depending on one’s attitude towards these disciplines, they can either shun them as stressors or use them to grow into better versions of themselves.

One can also learn how to work with other people, whether peers, superiors or subordinates. One can study a hard boss and learn how not to treat their own employees. One can learn how to interact with all sorts of characters in a free environment.

The pay from employment can be saved for a rainy day or future investments. Salary can also be used to start and run a side hustle. Many people have business ideas but amassing starting capital is a challenge and an offset. Having a stream of income that can be channelled into a fledgling enterprise before it becomes self-sustaining can help it get up to speed faster.

Depending on the field of employment, one can have opportunities to build connections with influential people in their field that could prove useful if they eventually choose to strike out on their own.

All in all, employment is not the evil that some people paint it to be. It is a blessing that one can use to better themselves and the world around them if one uses it right.