Self-transcendence in self-organising teams
One of my all time favourite articles is "The New New Product Development Game", which introduced many of the Agile management concepts in the 1980s. If you haven't read it, I'd really recommend you do...
When discussing self-organising teams, Takeuchi and Nonaka talk about three conditions for self-organising. As a side note, "self-organising" may not be equivalent to "self-managing" (which I prefer as a term), but I'm using it here as it is used in "The New New Product Development Game".
A group possesses a self-organizing capability when it exhibits three conditions: autonomy, self-transcendence, and cross-fertilization. - The New New Product Development Game
Read: The New New Product Development Game https://agileplays.co.uk/the-new-new-product-development-game/
Read: "Self-organising" or "self-managing"? https://agileplays.co.uk/what-is-a-self-managing-team/
Autonomy
Autonomy is the capability that we all automatically think of when we think of self-organising teams. Autonomy is the opportunity to make our own choices and to feel that we have influence over the world. It is clearly a requirement for a team to self-organise, for without autonomy, the team cannot make decisions.
Team autonomy requires a management style which avoids many of the failures of "Scientific Management". Directive management and punitive approaches will build a dependency on external management.
As leaders we need to deliver on this by avoiding micromanagement and use coaching to allow teams to make their own decisions. It can take a lot of work, especially with teams who have been poorly managed in the past. The rewards are both in motivation and in better quality of decision making.
Read: Autonomy as a motivator https://agileplays.co.uk/the-surprising-truth-about-what-motivates-us/
Read: Delegated decisions https://agileplays.co.uk/decision-making-in-agile-development/
Cross-fertilisation
Takeuchi and Nonaka's "Cross-fertilisation" is closely related to what we might more normally now call a "cross-functional" team. We build a team to include individuals with a wide range of skills. This ensures that the team then has the mix of skills to be able to solve problems without a high level of dependencies. Because the skill is present in the team, we avoid the waste of handing over to another team and back. Handovers inevitably result in delay, context switching and slow information transfer.
Embedding skills in the team also prevents the loss of ownership which can occur when people are responsible only for their functional area.
You then start thinking in terms of what’s best or second best for the group at large and not only about where you stand. - The New New Product Development Game
A cross-functional team also has a level of diversity, which Takeuchi and Nonaka are highlighting with the idea of "cross-fertilisation". A team with a wide range of backgrounds will generate a range of possible solutions and options.
As leaders, we need to build a diversity of skills and backgrounds into teams and encourage individuals to use their skills for the benefit of the team.
Read: Diversity as a counter for Groupthink https://agileplays.co.uk/groupthink-risk-for-high-performing-teams/
Read: Handovers as waste https://agileplays.co.uk/what-is-waste-muda-in-lean/
Self-transcendence
The third item on the list is maybe a little more unusual, especially with the slightly mystical-sounding name. We don't often talk about "Self-transcendence". What are the authors getting at here?
The project teams appear to be absorbed in a never-ending quest for “the limit.” - The New New Product Development Game
By "Self-transcendence" Takeuchi and Nonaka mean a state where the teams self-manage not only their own work but also their improvement. While management may set the initial conditions for the team, the team begin to set their own challenging goals towards getting better.
Starting with the guidelines set forth by top management, they begin to establish their own goals and keep on elevating them throughout the development process. - The New New Product Development Game
This feels like the ultimate goal for a self-managing team. It is easy to see self-management as being about organising work. To trivialise, it can be about who picks which Jira ticket.
However, a genuinely self managing team need to be able to own their improvement as well as their delivery. They need to review their current performance through their use of reviews and retrospectives to look at past events. They also need to be free to plan improvements, both to the team and the product.
This can be a real challenge for an organisation. How much control are you as a leader willing to give up?
It will always be simpler for the organization to have uniformity.? But self-managing teams are inevitably different from each other.? If the teams own self-improvement, they will develop at different speeds and in different directions.
As a leader you need to understand the pace and direction of each team, rather than forcing them all to be identical. You can only do this by working with the team and understanding how they are progressing (observing and discussing similarly to the Lean approach of "going to the Gemba").
Your role as a leader is then to support the teams with what they need to succeed. There are many management functions that could be delivered to the team.
The skill of a good leader is to ensure that each team has the resources which they need for their maturity, rather than delivering all of this yourself from a "one size fits all" model.
Read: Self-transcendence https://agileplays.co.uk/self-managing-teams-self-transcendence/
Read: Management as a Service https://agileplays.co.uk/agile-management-as-a-service/
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