Self-managing teams: when the bubble bursts

A couple of reflections from the Spanish Rebel Cell gathering

Yesterday we had our fourth gathering of the Spanish Rebel Cell with two organisations on a self-management journey, P4Q and Daleph.

We talked about the tricky stuff. What are the things we struggle with as a decentralised organisation? What are the inconsistencies we live with on a daily basis?

Here are two juicy questions that stood out for me, and my reflections:

❓"Even though people voted to go on this transformation journey, did they fully understand what they were voting for?"

💭 I’ve learned the hard way that it’s almost impossible to really convey what embarking on this process will be like. Many hear about it and think: "No managers? Sounds like a dream! Sign me up!" and get quite a shock when they realise it's not the utopia they imagined. That’s why one self-managing organisation in Sweden that my colleague Karin Tenelius worked with invented the “Scare Them Away Letter”. It was a way of being honest with candidates about what they were really signing up for if they accepted the job offer – that working without hierarchy means taking on other challenges, like decision-making or being a co-producer of your organisation, rather than simply an “employee”. Several people realised after reading the letter they weren’t up to the challenge, a good result for everyone involved.

In the NER approach (which has been implemented in more than a hundred companies), it’s customary for employees to take a day out of their schedules to visit other companies who have already been on the journey to better understand what becoming a self-managing organisation involves, and ask people questions about their experience. Only then can people make an informed decision and vote on whether this is something they are ready to commit to.

I’ve also spoken to fellow practitioners about how we could give people a taste of being in a self-managing team so that they get an experience of what it might be like before starting the process. One of my peers, François Knuchel, has developed “Swimulation”, an embodied experience where “participants experience the dynamics, processes and merits of different styles of working across a diverse set of assumptions… They learn to observe how they solve problems and make decisions, and they develop skills for working more effectively across differences.” Another peer, Hugo Lopes, told me he’s experimented with simulations such as asking groups to produce a film or cook a meal, introducing obstacles and constraints along the way, to demonstrate how it feels to work in a self-organised way.

Finally, I know some organisations who decided to vote again one or more years after starting a process towards self-management to see if it’s still something they want now that they better understand what it actually means in process. I’ve yet to meet a company that has voted “no” and reverted, but I’ve heard that it gives people a renewed sense of commitment and ownership (even if the vote isn’t unanimous).

Photo by danilo.alvesd on Unsplash

❓"Some people have realised they preferred it before, when they were in the dark. What should we do about that?"

💭 One person in our gathering said it’s almost like The Matrix – some people wish they could go back and take the blue pill, remaining in the blissful ignorance and comfort of their previous existence. I hear this a lot, and it’s connected to the previous point about misconceptions regarding what practising self-management is like in reality. I think this is why it’s so important to highlight the challenges, both so people can really choose if they are up for it or not, and so that we don’t prematurely blow up a self-management experiment because we’re encountering some resistance.

Resistance is natural. Our brains are wired to avoid discomfort, and the dominant paradigm of workplaces has kept us boxed in like battery hens for so long, letting us roam free is disorienting at first. I’ve heard leaders say things like: “We realised after six months, when our numbers started going down and people weren’t stepping in and taking responsibility, that most people really do just wanna be told what to do.” From all the people I’ve interviewed over the years, and the organisations I’ve worked with, what seems pretty clear is that it often takes at least two years to really start seeing shifts and big results. Decentralisation a nonlinear process, and it takes some courage and commitment not to panic when encountering resistance or make a reactive decision to revert to how things were before.

What I’ve learned is that resistance usually has two outcomes, if you allow it. The first is that there is a percentage of people who end up leaving the organisation – it commonly seems to be between 10 and 20%, depending on the size of the company. This is a good thing. These people can be supported with coaching to make an informed decision and if they decide that this is not the place for them, we can support them to find something more suitable. There is no judgment; they are not deficient for not wanting to, or being capable of, working in this way. It’s simply not the best environment for everyone to flourish, as Michael Y. Lee’s research has been pointing to.

The second possible outcome comes when we accept that resistance is a natural part of the process. When people expressing concerns or complaints feel heard and seen, they are often able to grow or contribute to improvements. The key is not to see them as a problem to be fixed, but rather as people who need to feel heard. When we create spaces for listening and coaching, people can draw on their potential and make choices for themselves. This will not happen if we (especially as leaders) act as parents, either making them wrong for resisting, or trying to protect them from suffering by soothing them or solving their issues for them. We are so programmed to look to another person for a solution or decision when were are uncomfortable, but if someone listens to us with curiosity and compassion, and asks us a few coaching questions, like “What would you need to move forward here?”, we are so much more capable than we realise.