Manage Your People Like Patents

What are patents?

For many organizations, they're the heart and soul. They are the unique knowledge and insights that the value of the company are built around. They are cherished secrets; companies have paid billions to acquire just the intellectual property of others.

Should you treat your employees like your most prized possessions?  Set them upon a pedestal and stand guard around them? Not quite! Stay tuned and I'll explain.

Patents are often misunderstood.

They are negative rights, not positive privileges. In other words, a patent does not provide the owner with the privilege to produce the item in the patent - it gives him/her the right to deny others from producing said item (or selling, or importing, etc).

In fact, an idea being patented in no way guarantees that the patent holder could manufacture and sell it as a product without infringing upon someone else's patent. This is particularly true in the case of "improvement patents", where the new patent is granted as a patentable improvement on other prior art.

So what does this have to do with managing people?

Before you go to market with a patented product, one must determine "freedom to operate". In other words, you have to not only see that your intellectual property is patentable (can be protected), but also that you have enough room around your product to build/sell/whatever without infringing upon someone else's patents.

Much the same way, and I believe this applies particularly to intellectual workers and creatives, your team needs to be given freedom to operate. To me, that means freedom to think for themselves, learn to creatively solve problems, and to grow above and beyond their daily job responsibilities.

Lately, it seems fewer around me take complete ownership of their role, which includes fully using the resources available to them to solve problems and bring results. Often, an obstacle is encountered and that's the end of the road. Few entertain the myriad possibilities to overcome or circumnavigate the obstacle.

Simultaneously, our specializations have grown increasingly narrow and deep. Increasingly, I am able to solicit advice from someone with very niche, but relevant, expertise. That seems to only further enable the above point - with such focus within a niche, it's equivalent to "blinders" that prevent vision of the adjacent possibilities. 

I've seen managers work tirelessly to increase performance by inserting themselves into daily operations, which actually reduces the team's ability to think for itself. The improvement is short-term; the long-term results are decreased morale due to lack of engagement, and ultimately high turnover. 

Sustainable performance comes from collecting and guiding specialists into roles where they self-motivate - and then coaching them to grow.

In my view, "freedom to operate" doesn't equate to a lack of attention, oversight, or guidance. Instead, it provides a necessary frame of reference for the attention, oversight, and guidance provided. 

An expectation of performance and a foundation of trust.

If you can't trust a team member to perform their duties to the very best of their abilities, and if you had any less than the highest expectations for performance from that team member - why are they on your team?

Be an authentic coach and listen - those are the basics to building trust on your team. Then, give them room to pursue their passions, learn new things, and solve new problems. If you've assembled the right team, they'll exceed your expectations and become stronger (and more loyal) professionals in the process. Give them freedom to operate.