Peer to Peer Responsibility without Peer to Peer Authority
As better ways of working grows in popularity, so too does the appeal of “peer-based systems”. Rather than employees being evaluated and held accountable by managers, they would do it for one another. Instead of HR having to solve conflicts, individuals could work through their own problems. Rather than a whole team being necessary to fairly decide compensation, individuals could decide their own pay at the discretion of those they work most closely with. There are countless benefits of having peers handing things on their own — between one another — rather than everything coming down from upper management. It can increase cooperation and collaboration between teams and individuals, create greater trust and transparency, and helps alleviate micromanagement and favoritism. In addition, it can take a lot of weight off the shoulders of management who no longer have to solve every little squabble while giving each employee more autonomy and responsibility for their own challenges.
Unfortunately, it rarely works that well in practice and instead, usually turns out looking like the following all-too-common scenario:
I am the janitor and maintenance person at a large school. It’s my job to clean and fix everything and I’m literally the only one who has the tools to do the job. Unfortunately, I have to clean so many tiny spills all over the school that I barely have time to fix the huge and important things. So, in an effort to free up my time and give more responsibility and autonomy to the students, I tell everyone they need to start cleaning up their own messes.
So, a spill happens. Some students come to me to let me know about it, but I respond with, “It’s not my job to clean up spills anymore. You can do it.” They try, the mess gets worse, and they come back to me again to take care of it. I get more frustrated and begin venting to my coworkers about how the students won’t just clean up their own spills and they don’t want the extra responsibility.
Finally, someone points out to me that I still have the only key to the janitor’s closet where all the cleaning supplies are stored. I explain that I still need to be in charge of that stuff because the students can’t be trusted and/or I still need the power to clean up the messes I think are important in the way I think is best.
The problems presented in this hypothetical scenario are very real and very common problems in many of today’s organizations. There are many different things we can pull from the above example. Maybe the students didn’t want to clean up spills. Perhaps they were never taught how to clean properly. It could be that the janitor has many more decades of experience and the students wouldn’t have as much knowledge and thus shouldn’t be able to make the final call. Of course, there are a host of reasons why implementing peer-based processes can and do fail. In my experience, the lack of success in this endeavor is almost exclusively because of the same universal mistake which boils down to a single cause-and-effect:
Responsibility cannot exist without authority.
It is not uncommon for companies to say they want employees to take more responsibility. Alas, more often than not, those same companies completely contradict themselves by refusing to give employees the authority necessary to take on that extra responsibility. Here are just some of the common examples I have seen firsthand:
- “Everyone is a protector of the culture.” — Only HR can enforce culture violations,
- “We utilize peer-to-peer conflict resolution.” — Managers are the only ones who can officially resolve a conflict,
- “Nobody needs to ask permission to make a purchase.” — All purchases require credit cards which only managers have,
- “Anyone can come into the office whenever they like.” — Only managers have keys to the building and it is only unlocked 9–5.
These are all cases of not walking the walk and talking the talk. It not only means the desired change will never come to fruition, but it will confuse and increase tension between employees. Think about a time you were doing your job and got in trouble for something you had no control over. Or maybe you wanted to go above-and-beyond but literally didn’t have that option based on permissions, policies, or otherwise. If you tell someone to do something without giving them the means to do it, they will either be bewildered and waste time trying to solve a puzzle or will think less of you for being nonsensical and selfishly inefficient. The simplest way to address the problem is this:
If you want someone to do something, no matter how minor, make sure they have the resources necessary to do that thing without permission or approval from someone else.
If someone else needs to make the final call, just have that other person do the work. If an outcome is beyond someone’s control, don’t hold them responsible for that outcome. If Person A can’t complete their work until Person B is done, Person A should never get in trouble so long as Person B has yet to complete their part. Whether it’s a customer service representative who was only doing what they were told to do or an organizational change team whose every idea is shut down by HR, people get in trouble every day over things they were responsible for yet had no authority to actually complete that work.
Before you go, I do want to call one thing out.
My message here is not to immediately give everyone far more authority than they have currently and distribute the power throughout your organization. Do I think that’s the ideal direction every company should head toward? Absolutely. I also think it’s a better way to treat people and the pros vastly outweigh the cons. However, there are a lot of risks involved with such a change if you don’t know a safe, convenient, reliable way to make that transition and plenty of things could go wrong. So, how do you successfully transition to a peer-to-peer model?
You need to ask yourself which is more important to you as the current decision-maker: employees’ responsibility or managers’ authority.
You surely want your employees to take on more responsibility, but how much control are you comfortable giving up? It’s completely natural to be scared by the idea of Billy suddenly being given the keys to the building. There’s a million “What if’s” that lead to disaster, but there are just as many “What if’s” where things turn out great. Cast aside all the hypothetical scenarios — where you can’t possibly know if the end result is good or bad — and be honest with yourself about where you and your company are at currently. Despite what you’ve likely been told, there’s no wrong answer. It’s okay to want to keep control. I can promise if you try to give up control but you aren’t ready for that decision, it will only make things worse in spite of your best efforts.
However, you also need to accept the fact that holding onto control for your own safety and security also has the effect of your employees being unable to take on extra responsibility, solve problems faster, and innovate more often. Ultimately, it’s a decision you need to make for yourself, but I am fully confident you will see the many benefits of choosing to give people the authority they need to be more responsible.
Paul Walker for Holaspirit
by Paul Walker,
Employee Experience Consultant at Theory Why Consulting, LLC
