46. Personal competences for a self-managing team

Self-managing or autonomous teams are the newest hype in the organizational landscape. This structure promises greater involvement and motivation, togethers with a better wellbeing of employees as self-regulating power increases. Certainly in comparison with our traditional hierarchical organization, more empowerment is clearly a step in the right direction. But too much naivety leads to accidents. Not everyone is able to function with a large autonomy.

If we try to put that into practice by providing a list of competences that people should have to be self-managing is helpful. Using this kind of criteria contributes probably to the success of that team. After all, we live in the age of competences. (1)

Domain knowledge

It is essential that people work, and have the necessary knowledge for the job. Purely theoretical knowledge is insufficient here; practical experience is needed.

Context insight

Knowing the work is not enough. The circumstances in which the work must be done always play a major role. After all, the context determines which actions are appropriate, how to approach things, how to involve people, etc.

Targeting

A clear insight into the objective, and that may be ambitious, is necessary. But also the ability to keep an eye on that goal, and not to lose oneself in non-relevant lateral problems, is essential. There is no need for exaggeration in the form of excessive ambition, but focus is needed.

Emotional stability

Perhaps the greatest temptation to become unproductive is the emotional pressure that comes with working in a team. This can be due to the difficulty of the assignment, but also due to the relationships in the team. If that emotional pressure absorbs attention and energy, then there is no longer space of productive behavior. All energy is lost in the lack of emotional stability and the survival reflexes related tot it.

Relativizing capacity

Not all matters are equally important and can be tackled at the same time. Moreover, the styles, the knowledge, the beliefs, the personalities in a team are very different. Team members who want everything 'now' and 'perfect', probably cannot live and work with this complexity. Their rigid attitude will undermine team focus.

Learning ability

If a team gets a lot of autonomy, it must also evaluate itself. And this should not only lead to putting things into perspective and social support, but above all to learning from the mistakes and shortcomings. Gaining new insights, and retaining them for the future, converting them into agreements and continuing to refer to them, are very necessary competencies. Being able to change beliefs and cultivating other habits are visible outcomes of this competence.

Communication

The team members must communicate productively in order to get the necessary coordination about objectives, working methods, work distribution, etc. Individual communication is the building block. And so it is much more than talking or ventilating. There is a need for focused coordination, dealing with difficult issues respectfully, give and receive feedback.

Listening skills

To work together, one must be able to listen. If that is not possible, there will be too much focus on winning the discussion, and colleagues will soon give up trying to make agreements.

Complexity management

As soon as situations have to be assessed and the relative importance of certain aspects has to be determined, complexity is a challenge. People who cannot handle complexity, and who tend to judge things one-dimensionally and binary, will violate this complexity.

Critical attitude

A team that has autonomy will have to evaluate itself, in whatever area. If its just keep repeating the same thing, the quality of self-management will suffer.

Organizational insight

Organizing oneself is perhaps the basic assignment for a self-managing team. A minimum of practical insight into how the tasks are best organized to make something work is essential. Whoever has a difficulty with that, will quickly be seen as a problem in the team.

Cost awareness

Autonomy inevitably means that decisions must be made with financial consequences. These must of course be properly managed to respect the available frameworks.

Self confidence

Those who lack self-confidence probably also lack the ability to actively participate in team meetings. Compliance and passivity could result, and that is not a contribution to self-direction. Passive people risk to be seen as non-productive by their colleagues.

Modesty

All too self-confident people, who overestimate themselves and their ideas, are a problem in a self-managing team. To achieve a good solution together, each team member should be aware of their own limitations. Dominance from a team-member is a serious threat to cooperation. If you try to eliminate the negative effect of dominant leadership by introducing self managing teams, you school be aware not to create the problem again within the team.

Openness

In order to come to good consultation and good self-evaluation, it will be necessary to discuss matters, even the personal ones like styles and competences. Everything that determines results must be included in agreements and evaluation. A lack of openness means that an employee cannot participate in this process, and therefore becomes a brake on teamwork.

Flexibility

Self-management requires the team to adapt to the possibilities and limitations. Adhering to fixed routines too strongly will create a structural limitation in the team, especially in the longer term.

Collaboration

Many of the abovementioned competencies determine the ability to work together. It is essential that goal-oriented collaboration is strong enough for each of the team members.

Experience with reorganizations in the direction of self-management (soft tilt of organizations (2)) shows that failures are often the result of poor approach and organization by the management of the organization. But honesty sometimes forces us to see the cause in the inability of the team members to effectively use the space offered. It is a too naive view of people not to see that the required competencies are sometimes not sufficiently present.

By the way, I suspect some managers wanting to get rid of their leadership responsibility. If one feels that one fails in this role, it is sometimes tempting to believe in the possibilities of self-management. If it then fails, at least they have provided visible evidence that they were in line with the modern trend, and that the error therefore clearly lies with the team. To be clear: with empowerment, estimating the ability of the team members to use the provided space of autonomy, is a responsibility of the management! The fact that most people overestimate their competences, is a pitfall, and a bad excuse for being naïve in the process of introducing self-management.

To make a good estimate, each team member should be judged on these competencies. Roughly speaking, in using this list as a judging tool, a score of 7 out of 10 appears to be the average, with no scores below 5. Naturally, this standard depends on the degree of autonomy. Team autonomy is not a binary choice, all or nothing. It is about a precise agreement of responsibilities and powers that lie within the team. A learning process has to be part of the plan.

Hugo Der Kinderen

      (1)    See for a realistic analysis of the use of competences in HR in a separate contribution.

      (2)    See separate contributions on ‘tilted organizations’

45. Sociocratic decision making (1)

The analysis of the disadvantages and limitations of both compromises and unilateral decisions makes it clear that we are looking for a better methodology. This should explicitly focus on the quality of the decision and at the same time the acceptance of those involved. This should be possible with a little common sense and a dose of discipline. The "sociocracy" as a concept offers a perfect inspiration here. The sociocratic associations that exist in the Scandinavian countries (apparently also in Canada and the Netherlands) demonstrate once again that the use of power that is embedded in leadership cultures is a cause of poor final quality in decision making, but that aside. We try to formulate our own "sociocratic alternative" as a method based on the sociocratic idea, completed with some practical experience.

"Democracy allows passions free rein,

and leaves no space for virtue. "

Plato

This methodology includes a number of basic rules. In summary, these are the following:

	SOCIOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING
1	Bring the right people to the table. Step-by-step participation according to the potential contribution, the role in the organization and the involvement. No replacing representatives.
2	Begin the discussion of complex problems with building a broad image. Then move on to judgment and decision making. Organize multiple meetings if needed.
3	Give extra attention to deviating (different / minority) ideas.
4	Listen actively to be sure that the message is correctly understood.
5	Look for elements that can improve the decision in each contribution.
6	If you find such a thing, name and confirm it explicitly. Make the connection with the objective. If not, thanks for the contribution, but park the idea.
7	Monitor targeting. Ask about relevance for the purpose. Marginalize preferences, interests and styles.
8	Reformulate the intermediate decisions each time they are enriched.
9	If there are no new contributions, ask the exception question: Who could not live with this conclusion, and why?
10	Process-related failures deserve priority
11	Do not tolerate sabotage (personal agendas, emotions, statements, ... )
12	In case of a dilemma, look for external reference points (possibly a working group or experts).
13	If time runs out, give an explicit mandate to a limited group.

Some elements deserve a brief explanation:

The ‘contribution’ element in point 1 is important. It means that people participate in a meeting or decision-making with a clear involvement in the subject and a well-defined potential and needed input. The mandate the have does not have to be total, in the sense that the decision or agreement also automatically binds the entire organization. If there is no careful mandate at the basis, the 'affected' people are excluded from participation, and that will subsequently be avenged by the support of the decisions taken. Working with representatives will therefore split participatory process is into two parts. Indeed, after the decision-making process, the mandator comes back to his group to not only report, but also to complete the participation process, by ‘selling’ the solution. The latter can, depending on the decisions taken, be quite difficult. It seems an unfair and unproductive methodology.

The mandated decision makers must work out the solutions with their know-how in the decision-making process . The entire group of decision-makers has the responsibility to complete the final phase of participation. If this is not done, and the decision-making is limited to ‘finding’ the solution in the small group of decision-makers, the second part is left to the mandates and a major impact on the final overall quality of the decision-making is missing. (2)

The 'image' in rule 2. Means that a complex problem must always be captured in a total picture. Initially, that can suffice in broad lines, details can be added afterwards. Artificially reducing complex problems to simple dilemmas is a sort of power maneuver, and is not appreciated by some co-decision makers. Especially if this conceals elements that are personally important to them, resistance is created, which is the more negative version of lack of acceptance.

It is only in the ‘judgment phase’ that a distinction is made between the important and the less important arguments and aspects. The transition to the next phase, formulating the decision, is best made by the chairman of the meeting. Only then will the contributions of the participants be synchronized into a useful whole. Lack of clarity and mixing of these phases obscures the decision-making process This is in line with the general rule: always make the process transparent. Chaos and contradictions take the trust away!

At rule 3. Different ideas are explicitly permitted and tested for their potential. This contributes greatly to final acceptance. After all, in this way no one will have the experience that their own ideas are pushed away by the game of power.

Rule 5. This rule focusses on the search for elements that improve the decision. This should of course not only be done by the chairman. As the entire group is better attuned to this methodology, everyone will make a contribution to this, and the chances of success will therefore increase. It is clear that the quality of the decision is monitored at this stage of the process.

Rule 6. will be contribute again explicitly, both to the intrinsic quality (which is the contribution to the objective or mission) and the acceptance (this is what I have contributed).

At rule 7 that is generalized again. Eliminating ‘preferences’ and ‘interests’ in particular is very difficult. These are two elements that might at first glance not threaten acceptance, but beware! The non-applicants of these elements are not happy with the fact that other decision makers can push through their preferences or interests. It therefore stimulates polarity, which we must reduce. The influence of preferences and interests on intrinsic quality is clearly negative. The link with the objective mission or common interest is then indeed completely subordinate to self-interest or subjective feelings. In ‘healthy’ decision making, an attempt is made to formulate decisions based on reliable knowledge that is brought together to a whole with rational links and a clear focus on relevant objectives. Everything that has a disruptive effect should be avoided. There is of course an important problem in the macro system in which one functions. If one has a context in which the interests are ‘clustered’ in in groups in advance, which moreover live on a tense basis for various reasons, it will of course become difficult to suddenly eliminate all these disadvantages at the time of decision-making. (This means that in every political system where the polarity between the parties is strong, the used sociocratic decision making will be difficult.)

At rule 9. The ‘exception question’ is asked, as an explicit way to avoid the polarity. If you ask who is ‘in favor’ and who is ‘against’, that again creates polarity. Once again, it invites you to weigh the hidden agendas and interests. The purpose of the exception question is to find out whether there is still an insight or knowledge that was not used in the present decision, and which is nevertheless important. It is therefore once again a test of intrinsic quality.

Rule 10. States that process-related failures must first be cleared before continuing. This goes back to general wisdom: if the process is wrong, the result will not be good either. Ignoring process failures and continuing is therefore something like sticking your head in the sand. And that is;  as is pretty broadly accepted, not very wise!

The ostrich that sticks its head in the sand,

has a much bigger problem than its limited visibility.

His bottom is a huge target.

(Ricardo Semler )

Hugo Der Kinderen

March 2019

(1) For inspiration: Endenburg Gerard, Sociocratie,: het organiseren van besluitvorming, Eburon , Delft, 2002,   

 (2)  See elsewhere for a description of participation methodologies like the ‘funnel technique’.

44. Team building : an exploration

There are quite a few pronounced opinions about the sense and nonsense of team building. If we briefly explore the drivers in this area, we soon see two dimensions in the issue :

1- Find satisfaction for the relational uncertainty in a group. When people seek safety, they especially want their ‘reflex brain’ to calm down, reduce emotional ‘overload’. This can be done by by "searching " and "playing " (1), but also by all the actions that bring the emotional aspect of behavior to rest. The needs of the 'reflex brain' are central, and these needs have to be taken care of.

2- Strengthening the common basis of the team's mission, forward thinking and making agreements. This means that the pre- frontal part of the brain is used and stimulated: working on goals, agreements, ...     

Depending on the diagnosis (need of the team at that time) one of the two mentioned dimensions will be appropriate, or a well-considered combination. If there is no safety in a team, all efforts to agree on a goal or a plan are meaningless. It is sowing on the rocks.

However, it is not because the team members themselves ask for "play" and "search" activities that this is also the real need of the team. Playing together promotes confidence, and therefore fits in with primary group formation. "Play" and "search" are behavioral patterns that reduce anxiety. That is their role in human development. In the growing stages of childhood, playing is the ideal way to learn how to deal with reality (without immediate consequences). Playing together has the added advantage that social relationships are developed simultaneously. Colleagues are a crucial part of the social environment, and these are explored by playing, tested and graded. The result is a safe social environment that offers the opportunity to form a team.

However, more is needed to turn a group into a team. Next to safety, work must be carried out on goals, plans, work distribution, processes and social hygiene. As always: relationship comes first, then the content. Without safety, no team.

The question remains whether playing together is the only way to work on group formation. Maybe not. It is basically about getting to know each other as a person, and thereby developing security in the relationship.

People who have a strong preference to develop relations primarily through play, presumably have more preference for playing than for the real social needs in general. Or they simply associate one with the other. (Association is a substitute for a proven cause-effect relationship, and is based on a resemblance between two things, often with an emotional foundation.) When they have indulged in a playing team building, they often feel satisfied that they are feeling well; they had ‘a good time’. But after finding a relaxed state of mind, the focus still needs to go to the team. And that naturally requires more than a relaxed feeling. Sobriety commands us to acknowledge that this preference for relaxing is based on one's own need to feed the reflex brain. (Another good game together, horsing around in the pasture, release control and give free rein to the mammal in the brain) is not building, rather satisfying. Agreed that the search for satisfaction of curiosity and the voluntary testing of people and relationships is a useful activity, but only to the extent that it makes the necessary group formation possible. Sticking with it is more a sign of limited maturity , or a lack of responsibility to achieve something outside of oneself. But that also points to rather limited maturity. Searching for satisfaction is self-centered behavior, with comfort as a first desire. Looking for solutions is serving behavior, even if that is about good relationships that should form the basis for good agreements.

There are also other ways to get to know each other, and that have a more mature background. Dialogue on the major issues of life. Discuss and verify values. Sharing experiences and insights. Share results and disappointments. Exchange and compare plans. Investigate personalities and give and receive feedback. If a safe social space must first be developed, then these actions seem to be more obvious methods. We could place this as a pre-frontal, conscious and purposeful way to work on relationships and secure context. In this way, emotions are also made subordinate to constructive behavior. Get emotions out of the way to allow constructive attitudes.

Moreover. It is known that giving space to emotion further stimulates and strengthens the emotion. This leads to social derailments as every observer of this world can determine; it is the basis of conflict and polarity. To channel emotions and make them subordinate to common sense and constructive behavior, reflection is also needed on the emotions. Analyzing and placing is the message, no further heating. Teambuildings that give a lot of room to emotion, and the associated behavior (such as competition, for example) therefore have a counterproductive effect. If team members give priority to the playing urge, even bullying behavior could arise, which is the most aggressive way to seek social security, based on a very weak maturity (or bad examples?). And who will be targeted by bullies in such a team building? Exactly, the less assertive colleagues, rather modest and shy, and especially the very sensitive and introverted personalities. After all, they provide a safe ‘subject’ to the ‘players’ to test out their own urge for control. It goes without saying that in such a way the team can suffer considerable damage, and especially those targeted. In this way, there is even an ethical side to team building.

Hugo Der Kinderen

March 2019

(1)    Temple Grandin, Making Animals happy, Bloomsburry, London,  2010

43. The operational temptation of the Deming circle ( PDCA )

The Deming circle has been developed in the context of quality management. It is a way to achieve quality improvements. The four letters PDCA stand for Plan, DO, Check, Act. It means that you make a plan, then go to work to implement it, and then check whether the intended plan has been achieved, and make adjustments if that is not sufficiently the case.

If this methodology, which in itself is very valuable in its context, is also used at a wider level of policy, and is used to support a learning organization, something things go wrong. The operational implementation of something according to the criteria that were set is a different assignment than organizing a learning process in an organization. The latter is much wider.

What should precede a plan and is not included in the PDCA concept is:

-           The vision and strategy that underlie the plan, and which must deliver the 'why' of that plan. This must be provided by the mission of the organization and the organization concept that has been developed to meet this.

-           The strategic significance of the plan, and therefore also the priority and importance given to it, and the relationships with other objectives and plans, including timing, investments,…

To describe and develop a real learning process, a start must be made with "wanting". This concerns: motivation, ambitions, assignment, strategy, intentions, long term, … . A good plan can only be made if the "wanting" is sufficiently present and of satisfactory quality.

Critics might state: we can also see that "wanting" as part of the plan. But of course, this is how you solve everything. If we give different meanings to one word, then we create confusion instead of clarity. Then, in this case, strategic and operational objectives and processes begin to fade, and in practice everyone understands and uses it according to their own wishes. Too many policy makers think that they are working on a policy basis, while they mainly work in an operational focus. They are not aware of the underlying strategic questions, and will therefore fall short on that point.

What is missing in the 'Check' of PDCA to make it a broader policy-based process is the following:

-           Was it a good plan?

-           Even if results complie with the plan, is that result a step in the direction in which we operate strategically, and were the efforts worthwhile?

-           Are the objectives of the plan still relevant when we reach them, or can we learn something about the way in which we make plans?

-           Whose goals have we served now? Is that consistent with our mission?

Case: The progress of the ISO 9000 project was discussed on a board of directors. Someone asks: "Who really believes that the quality of everything we do will be improved when we have completed this process? Nobody, it turns out. New question: "Is there another compelling reason why we do this?" No, it turns out. New question: "Why are we doing this?" Two months later the project was canceled as irrelevant. There was clearly something wrong at the level of "wanting", the driving force behind starting the project. This type of evaluation is broader than the "check" whether the plan is being realized. That is the real dynamic of a learning organization. It has been learned that work processes that are not and should not be standardized cannot be improved with an 'ISO 9000 style' quality approach. In a service delivery (and certainly with expansion in a healthcare environment), the processes are too diverse and the context too unpredictable to standardize all solutions. New versions of quality systems have tried to compensate for that and place more emphasis on responsibility and authority. But policy-based 'learning' goes further than PDCA.

If we apply this to education, PDCA appears to work well as long as the goal is 'teaching'. Then we are purely in operational optimization (quality management). If the goal of the school is redefined to 'develop children', then the relevance of teaching becomes a completely different one. Perhaps it is no longer so important that certain systems work as they were intended, and the pedagogical vision shifts to other forms of guidance and support. Even the organizational structure may have to be altered, even though it was almost perfectly implemented according to the old concept. ( eg departments).

We have of course saved ourselves beautifully if we speak of a “PDCA on a higher level”, meaning that the strategy is also the subject of a PDCA cycle. To my taste the words 'plan' and 'check' should certainly be replaced. In this context, I would rather replace 'act' for 'adapt '.

And concerning 'do'; I believe much more in 'trying'. This means that you keep looking for alternatives, even if they were not in the plan, to achieve your goal/result if unexpected difficulties arise. That dimension has everything to do with involvement, and makes the difference with operational obedience to a plan.

Remember that the PCDA cycle originated in production companies, in the US and Japan. (top-down cultures)

Conclusion:

A real learning process starts with 'wanting', including all the visions and motivations that underlie it. Then we try to realize something and we use a plan, action, follow-up and adjustment. The third step is the evaluation and appreciation. Everything is questioned on the basis of that result, and the 'wanting' is adjusted, possibly confirmed. The relative importance, the vision, possible alternative plans .... Everything can be part of the real learning process at that moment. Including sometimes radical changes to policy.

This has to do with the difference between 'efficiency' and 'effectiveness', something many people don't realize either. And that's why they use those terms interchangeably. Efficiency is the ratio between results and resources. Effectiveness is about doing the right things.

Hugo Der Kinderen

March 2019