Common traps on a way to achieve Team Autonomy
In his book Drive, Daniel Pink talked about the things that really motivate us: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Purpose means understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing, while mastery is about improvement in one’s skills and abilities. And then there’s Autonomy — being able to direct yourself. In this article, I will focus on autonomy, how it applies to teams, and some common mistakes to avoid.
Autonomous Teams
Let’s begin with defining what an autonomous team is. Here are two definitions of autonomy from a dictionary:
- the freedom for a country, a region or an organization to govern itself independently
- the ability to act and make decisions without being controlled by anyone else
Simply put, it’s a team of people who are free to act and make decisions without anyone else controlling them. They can work independently and manage themselves within the framework of their tasks. Autonomous teams are usually given a clear objective to achieve, but the team members have the power to figure out the best way to reach that goal. This means they can choose how to use their resources, make decisions, and take accountability for the results of their work.
There are clear benefits of autonomy and many articles about those (one, two, three). Just to list a few, team autonomy:
- Enables fast flow of work by allowing teams to make decisions and act quickly, without the need for time-consuming approvals or micromanagement.
- Increases motivation and engagement when team members feel trusted and valued by the organization.
- Promotes creativity and innovation when individuals are given the freedom to make decisions and try out new approaches.
It all sounds good, but there are traps on a quest to team autonomy, so let’s discuss them and how they can be avoided.
Common Autonomy anti-patterns
Micromanagement is well-known to undermine team autonomy, but there are other, less apparent actions that can have the same effect. In this section, I will go over three of these behaviors that can seem like they support autonomy, but actually get in the way of it.
Autonomy only for the leader
In an autonomous team, all members should be empowered to make decisions and take ownership of their work. When team members are not given autonomy, they will feel undervalued and disengaged, which can hinder the team’s potential. A leader who holds all decision-making power will stifle creativity and independence. This can also limit diversity of thought and perspective.
On the other hand, a truly autonomous team distributes decision-making power among its members, allowing everyone to contribute their unique skills and expertise, which fosters a culture of trust and innovation. A good rule of thumb is this:
Would the team’s performance suffer if the leader were to take a month-long vacation?
Not enough context
It’s important for team members to understand the company’s goals, strategy, and values, so they can make decisions that are aligned with the company’s vision. When there is no clarity on this, team members may become confused with how their work contributes to the company’s success and frustrated by not seeing the results, despite their autonomy.
To avoid this, leaders should provide clear objectives and context for the team. This allows team members to use their expertise and experience to find the best way to achieve their goals while aligning with the company’s vision. By communicating the bigger picture, leaders can create a sense of purpose and direction that helps the team work more effectively and achieve better outcomes.
Context is something that has to be communicated over and over, constantly, with every project, task and assignment. This includes both the top-down approach (such as company town halls, weekly emails, and department objectives) and clear communication between teams. While the former is important for providing direction and clarity, the latter is critical for ensuring that dependencies are identified, goals aligned, and the work coordinated.
Expectation of no dependencies
Engineering teams would often build their own set of tools but at the same time epect the HR department to source new candidates and Cloud providers to provision their infrastructure. While this is usually the right direction, it is important to recognize that there will be dependencies, and that you have to make an informed decision on each one of them.
Autonomous teams should not be mistaken for teams that operate independently of everything and everyone else.
Autonomous teams should not be mistaken for teams that operate independently of everything and everyone else. While these teams have the freedom to make decisions, they should also have the freedom to choose which other teams, services, and people they rely on to achieve their objectives. For example, an engineering team can rely on finance and HR departments for payroll processing without losing their autonomy.
The key is to strike a balance between independence and interdependence by allowing teams to use the resources and expertise of other teams and departments when necessary.
Conclusion
To sum up, giving teams autonomy is crucial to boost their engagement, creativity, and innovation, and to facilitate quick decision-making that is necessary for fast value delivery. An autonomous team will create a climate of trust, teamwork, and independence that can lead to success. However, teams need to avoid autonomy traps, like relying too much on the leader, not giving enough context, or expecting no interdependence. By doing so and embracing autonomy, teams can reach their goals and unleash their full potential, thus benefiting the organization as a whole.
