10. Recommendations and Toolkit
This toolkit aim is to support leaders that are interested in starting to implement a flat structure in their team or company. This is just one exercise suggestion for the starting process and can be changed according to the leader’s understanding of their group dynamic.
First, it is important to make clear some principles that could be followed when implementing a flat structure. The follow suggested principles are not rules and they do not restrict other principles to be added or changed. It is just an indication of good practices according to this project’s research. It is vital that these principles are agreeable to the team and changed if necessary.
Leader’s role
The first thing that needs to be taken in consideration is the leader’s role in a flat structure. The role of a leader is redefined and it is the leader’s responsibility to embrace it and to make the team aware of the change.
The difference between a traditional leader and a self-managed team coach/leader
It is neither a supervisory authority role, nor the person the employees will report to. It is the person that will support the group in an advisory process, coaching and mentoring people. Individuals are accountable for their responsibilities and the leader is not there to make decisions.
What is a leader in a self-managed team?
Typically the leader is responsible for:
· Developing and maintaining the team culture;
· Coaching and mentoring the team members;
· Implementing and championing self-management;
· Re-designing the company or group structure accordingly
· Maintaining or adjusting workflow (structure);
All of which are aimed at making the self-managed dynamic perform, even within a company that works in a different way, and also to align the team within the company.
The leader will also facilitate the connection between the business and the group. Keeping others updated about what’s happening is vital, (for instance financial problems, business strategy changes, new clients, loss of clients, etc.) and being flexible to change their job description according to what the group expects from a leader. Always the focus is to maintain a self-managed team so the leader will not be overloaded with responsibility and the decision making process.
Toolkit Feedback and Future Improvements
It was not possible to test this toolkit since any company was open to spend time and effort in an experimental model. The backup strategy was to ask for feedback from researchers and leaders so I could improve the toolkit.
The main feedback received was in the principles’ section. GL (a leader that already has implemented a flat structure) thought that the principles suggested should not be seen as rules but just as an indication. To him, the principles need to come from the team and not from an external perspective.
“I think principles need to come from within the team […] As a toolkit, I think we can give indications but I think the team need to create and own the way they work” — GL, Leader of a flat structure
An organisational consultancy founder also helped to improve the principles’ section. For each indicated principle, he suggested to include the reasons why each one was fundamental. Additionally, he indicated the importance of having a culture of responsibility & freedom in self-managed teams, such as the Netflix culture (Hastings, 2009). This is a way increase people’s ownership and getting things done. According to him, “‘it’s your job’ even if it’s not it is because if it needs to get done, it’s your job.”
JF also missed the ownership aspect in the toolkit. For her, it is important to understand how ownership can work for each individual in a self-managed team dynamic. She suggested an ownership rotation as a possible solution. In this case, each team member would be a project manager at some point. This topic seems to be an opportunity for future studies and can be added to this toolkit in order to better support leaders in the change process.
All of the feedbacks asked for a more visual toolkit. Due to graphic design skills limitations, that was not possible to implement for this publication but can be an opportunity for future improvements. A solution could be to build a more interactive platform where each section could be explored according to user’s interest, avoiding too much text.
After reading the full article, SP thought the recommendation and toolkit was a good solution to start implementing a flat structure and any improvement on the content was suggested.
“I could definitely use it as a starting point for implementing a flat structure”. — SP, Head of Marketing
