Roles rule
#wk1
We started the Leadwise Practical Self Management training with a bang. A two hour online session with the complete group. Introducing the course and each other. Main topic for this week is ‘Roles’. With Paul Messer from Percolab as special guest, thanks for that.
Retrospective
Within Incentro Rotterdam we are using Roles in the teams (or cells, as we call them). Because of the same reasons Percolab and other successful examples are using them. So I had a little bit of a head start. And still I learned a lot. The main three things are described below:
1. You always have a role
Everywhere you are, you have a role. In every group composition. At home, with friends and at work. At work there are different group compositions as well. Your self managed team within the company, at the client side. We also have taskforces, groups of employees with the same type of role or interest. But the collaboration within these taskforces are harder. And I learned this week why. Because we did not define the roles within that taskforce. So that’s the first thing to start with, next week.
2. The importance of Role 0
One of the most important things I’ve learned was the definition of Role 0. The role that everybody in the company has. This is the role where every responsibility is described, a normal employee has. It makes thing clear. And thus, collaborating a lot easier.
One of the things I’ve learned is that giving feedback is very important. Always, but especially in a self managed organisation. Without a clear role description (responsibilities) you cannot give feedback on his/her professional role. And it probably gets personal. Having all the other roles defined, but missing the role 0, still leaves a blind spot.
3. The resemblance
For Incentro Rotterdam I created a workshop to determine the roles. First, the purpose of the team must be very clear. And after that, in a pressure cooker session the roles are listed and described. We are using the canvas below. I must say, a lot of resemblance with the cards Percolabs used. The thing I am missing are the metrics, not quite the same as Quarterly Goal.
From my perspective
The process
Just like ‘normal working life’, the start was a little bit messy :). How to collaborate, who does what, when to meet? Thanks to Rasmus we soon created roles for this week. So we knew what to do. Josh joined us a day later and started right a way.
We (actually Rasmus did) created an awesome imaginary company, called Best Water. And we decided to create as many roles as possible. And collaborate on defining the roles mission, responsibilities and metrics. Especially the metrics part of the roles, is pretty hard.
Some other thoughts about this week:
- why starting with roles, if you’re not sure how to define the purpose (& BHAG)? You are not able to determine how the roles contribute to that purpose.
- It’s all about creating new companies self managed (just like Percolabs started). I would love to learn best practices in turning existing companies into self organising companies.
- How do you handle the ‘stress’ of all those roles on the teammembers? It can be a lot of different roles and where to focus on?
Team assignments: Best Water
Summary in form of a presentation:
Conclusion
I love the personal touch of the course already. We are sharing our knowledge, inspiring and collaborating with each other. I learned a lot and can’t wait for next week(s). Thanks.
