Empowered by Design: The Source Code of Effective Teams
The Power of Purpose
While missions like "manufacturing quality winter socks" seem boring compared to grand visions like SpaceX's "enabling humans to become a multi-planetary species," every organization serves a unique role in society and the economy.
The purpose of an organization is about more than just its operational goals. It is about the underlying reasons why it exists and why it does what it does. Without an awareness of it, organizations risk drifting in a sea of aimlessness, somehow surviving, but rarely thriving.
Having a clear purpose provides direction and meaning for employees and provides a compass that guides decisions and strategy within an organization. It’s not enough to have written vision and mission statements; Purpose must be a living, breathing part of the organizational culture.
Strategies to Use the Power of Purpose
- Purpose Discovery: Organize workshops where teams explore and define what the organization's purpose is and means to them. Encourage each team to create their own purpose statement that aligns with the broader organizational purpose.
- Leadership Communication: Regularly schedule discussions where leaders share their vision and the deeper 'why' behind organizational goals with the rest. It is the leader's role to communicate the shared vision, goals and purpose frequently, so they become embedded in the collective mind of the organization.
- Purpose in Goal Setting: Integrate the organization's purpose into the goal-setting process of teams. Ensure that each team’s objectives and key results (OKRs) are reflecting the purpose, creating a direct link between daily tasks and the larger mission.
- Communication Alignment: Provide internal trainings to leaders on how to effectively communicate the organization's purpose, ensuring that it is communicated in a consistent and compelling way in team interactions and presentations.
- New Employee Onboarding: Ensure that the onboarding process for new hires includes a full introduction to the company's purpose and values. This sets the tone from the outset and integrates new employees right into the purpose-driven culture
Purpose-driven organizations naturally attract top talents, who seek to make a meaningful impact in their industry, society and the world. Some employees seek more than just a paycheck; they crave a role in a meaningful story larger than themselves and will choose workplaces in which the organizational objectives align with their personal goals and values.
This alignment of the goals of individuals and the organization's goals creates a powerful drive of motivation. However, some organizations can also end up taking advantage of this drive, counting on the idealism of employees to work hard for less-than-average salaries, which will eventually result in turnover, especially when competitors start poaching them. Impact alone does not pay the bills.
It is important to be aware that purpose keeps evolving with the organization's growth, external market changes, and the personal development of its employees. The purpose of today might "grow up" and look different in 5 years from now. This is a natural process and not a reason to not fully embrace the current purpose. Until then, everybody will benefit from the focus of working towards shared goals, based on a shared understanding of why they do what they do.
The Need for Context Sharing in Organizations
"In the absence of data, we will always make up stories" - Brené Brown
Imagine a scenario where two teams at the same organization are working on similar projects without knowing about each other's efforts. The result? Wasted resources, duplicated efforts, and a missed opportunity for collaboration. This real-world problem can be more common than you might believe.
Situational awareness in an organization is more than just being informed—it’s about deeply understanding the internal and external factors affecting the company. This involves a deep understanding of internal workflows, employee interactions, market trends, and broader industry shifts.
Data is often seen as the bedrock of situational awareness. It can provide an objective basis for establishing situational awareness, removing personal biases, wishful thinking and assumptions from the equation. Dashboards and a shared vocabulary of business terms and key performance indicators go a long way.
However, an overreliance on data can lead to 'analysis paralysis' and the discounting of human judgement. Unmeasured or unmeasurable elements like employee morale and subtle market shifts might be overlooked entirely. It will always require human judgement to make the final call, but this final call should be based on the best possible understanding of what is going on.
Making decisions in a vacuum or with incomplete information can often lead to massive strategic blunders with significant consequences. Lack of shared information can also lead to disjointed organizational cultures and misalignment across different levels. It is not uncommon that internal conflicts arise from misunderstandings and a lack of awareness of other departments’ challenges.
On the other hand, employees and teams who feel informed, understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and understand the 'why' behind decisions are more likely to be supportive of each other. Informed employees tend to be also more engaged, committed to the organization and less resistant to changes.
Strategies for Effective Context Sharing
- Regular Cross-Departmental Exchange: Encourage regular interactions between different departments. Monthly meetings where each department shares updates, challenges, and achievements build a broader understanding of the organization's operations. Top management should provide context on organizational goals, changes in the external environment, and how these impact the various departments.
- Data as Communication Tool: Use data not just as raw figures but as a tool for storytelling. Present data in a way that tells the organization's journey, challenges, and successes, making it more relatable for all employees. Have leaders share how they balance hard data with human judgment in decision-making. This transparency demystifies the decision-making process and helps employees understand the rationales behind choices.
- Centralized Information Systems: Implement a centralized database or intranet where all employees can access key information about the organization’s strategies, goals, policies, and performance data.
- Reverse Mentoring: Encourage higher-level managers to shadow frontline employees and engage in reverse mentoring programs. This "exposure to reality" can provide valuable context that is frequently missed at higher levels. Engaging with all levels also communicates a sense of interest and appreciation to employees.
- Frontline Committees: Creating formal forums for feedback is essential to cultivate situational awareness. Establish councils or committees made up of frontline employees and leaders who can provide regular, direct input to management. They have direct experience with the day-to-day operations, and often deeper insights than the leaders at higher levels.
A lack of situational awareness or a superficial understanding of what is happening can lead to decisions that cause an explosion of new problems that did not exist before. In the absence of shared information, people will make up their own version of the truth. One way to prevent this is by involving different stakeholders at the front end of the decision-making process.
In the 'Consult and Decide' method, leaders seek actively input from frontline employees, before making a decision. It is not about seeking approval or finding a consensus but about collecting diverse perspectives and information to make a more informed choice.
Once the consultation process is complete, the leader weighs trade-offs and takes full responsibility for the final decision and its consequences. The expectation is clear: once a decision is made, team members, regardless of their personal views, are expected to execute it.
Striking the right balance between being open to input and keeping the full authority on decision-making is critical. Overemphasis on either can lead to decision paralysis or autocratic decision-making, which can erode the foundations of trust in a team over time.
Leaders need to make decisions that are not only top-down but also informed by the realities of the frontline experience. There is always an inherent unpredictability and complexity in business environments, so fully informed decisions are not possible. At least though we can anticipate and mitigate potential issues, and take more effective and pragmatic decisions in general.
This requires that the information ecosystem of the organization is activated and in full motion. It is the job of the leaders to facilitate that.
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Cultivating a Mindset of Ownership
"When everyone in an organization understands and believes in the 'why,' they become champions of the 'how' and 'what.'" - Sheryl Sandberg
In fast-growing startups or high-stakes situations, unpredictability is the norm.
Employees must think on their feet, using their training and problem-solving skills to navigate unexpected situations. Until a process is established, they will need the freedom to experiment and innovate. Commitment to the purpose and being equipped with context are crucial in these scenarios.
In an empowered execution culture, leaders clarify objectives and reasons. The 'how' is up to the employee. They plan, act, and learn from mistakes, with leaders providing feedback along the way. This ‘structured freedom’ approach has been highly effective for me as a leader.
When employees own their work, it shows. The sense of ownership injects passion into their tasks, resulting in high-quality output. It is not about delegating and then disengaging, but about delegating and keeping a very vigilant eye on what unfolds. As leader, I expect to be informed about developments and as long as this is honored, then autonomy is granted.
Allowing autonomy does not work if the employee is creating an umbrella of secrecy around their actions. Too often it turns out that this is a cover to avoid accountability for negligent, unprofessional, or lazy behavior. Should the information stop to flow or should the information turn out to be corrupted, then interventions and uncomfortable scrutiny become instantly necessary.
Strategies to Cultivate a Mindset of Ownership
- Clear Roles and Expectations: Start by ensuring clarity in roles and responsibilities. Every team member needs to know what is expected of them. The typical result of not having defined roles is that important work falls through the cracks because nobody feels responsible for it or multiple employees try to do the same tasks at the same time, stepping on each others toes and duplicating work.
- Autonomy within a Framework: Provide a clear framework within which employees have the autonomy to make decisions. It fuels creativity while ensuring alignment with the company’s broader goals. Employ the “I would give people freedom to act, if…†approach to define the boundaries of this autonomy.
- Resources and Support: Ensure that employees have access to the necessary resources, training, and support to execute their roles effectively. Empowerment is as much about providing the means and ability to perform tasks as it is about granting permission.
- Trust-Based Environment: Create a workplace where taking risks and learning from mistakes is encouraged. A culture of trust is fundamental for empowerment. It motivates employees to experiment and innovate, knowing that the focus is on learning and growth, not on penalizing errors. We will deep-dive into that in Part 2 of this article series.
- Regular Feedback Loops: Feedback is critical for continuous improvement. Shift the focus from monitoring day-to-day activities to measuring outcomes and impacts. This approach sets implicit expectations and empowers teams to find the best paths to their goals, encouraging creative problem-solving. Recognize not just successes but also the willingness to take risks, making it part of the team's DNA.
Of course, senior employees have an easier time with "structured freedom" than junior employees who often need a lot of guidance. Nonetheless, in highly dynamic environments, constant micromanagement is counterproductive. A controlled and limited degree of autonomy, paired with mentorship by a senior offers them the opportunity to grow into their roles over time.
Personally, I always made an effort to not just delegate tasks, but to delegate entire areas of responsibility, even if small in scale. There is a different tonality to being asked to do something specific or to taking ownership of a permanent responsibility in the team. If accompanied by coaching and being enabled to execute successfully on it, the latter can be extremely uplifting and empowering for employees.
Also do not underestimate the Pygmalion effect, which is a psychological phenomenon in which people will rise or fall to meet the level of expectations set for them. When leaders have a positive image and high expectations on their employees, then those are more likely to perform at a higher level, driven by the belief placed in their capabilities.
On the other hand, low expectations can lead to a decrease in employee performance. This underscores the importance of positive reinforcement and the need to project confidence in the employees' abilities. By consciously using the Pygmalion effect, leaders can create a self-fulfilling prophecy of success.
This requires active inner work of getting to know each team member, identifying their talents, and intentionally choosing to see them on the way to reaching their full potential. It is recommendable to do so with a loose grip and to be prepared to be disappointed as well.
I used to have a mental picture of each employee at their highest level of capability and had the ambition to bridge that gap through coaching, encouragement and strategic placement in responsibilities and projects that would help them get there.
If a leader cannot find any positive attributes or qualities in an employee after a lot of soul-searching, then they should probably consider separating ways. They are not doing themselves or the employee any favor. It is also important not to fall into the extreme of seeing only positive qualities in a person, when they are evidently not there at all and there is little potential of them being there anytime soon.
The Pygmalion effect works and can be extremely powerful, but needs to be used with caution and judgment to not delude oneself about people either. A realistic assessment of employees is non-negotiable, but creating a space for them to step up to become a more capable professional is the role of a leader as well.
Culture Reflects Leadership
Effective teams are not the result of hiring top talent from big companies, packing them into an office, and hoping for the best. Effective teams are the result of proactive and intentional leadership, based on core concepts like purpose, context and ownership. Here is a recap:
Purpose goes beyond operational goals to encapsulate the core reasons for an organization's existence and can be a strong motivator for talented employees. It is not just a nice-to-have. It is a cornerstone of organizational success.
Context is critical because a lack of shared information can lead to inefficiencies and misalignment, while effective context sharing leads to better decision-making and organizational integrity.
A Mindset of Ownership is based on clear roles and expectations, autonomy within a framework, and a trust-based environment. When employees are equipped with the right competences, the 'Why' and the context of what is going on, then they can increasingly act autonomously towards the goals of the organisation, with the leader becoming their coach and guide instead of a taskmaster.
Our words, emotions, actions, and our vision will influence the mindsets and behaviors of those who we lead.
If we choose them wisely, then we will build self-organizing teams, while freeing up your attention and staying in control.
If we choose them poorly, we will have a mess at our hands that will drain most of our time, energy, attention and capacities on a daily level.
Remember, that culture is more often than not a reflection of leadership. If you are a leader or an aspiring one, then you will be responsible for the culture. I hope you could benefit from these foundations and take something with you to make your teams and organisations more effective.
If you want to take this to a deeper level and learn how you can integrate all of this into your leadership style, I am just a message away for further personal discussions.