The importance of commitment in self-managed organizations: social contract and colleague letter of understanding

Photo by Mark Duffel on Unsplash

After having approached the definition of the role structures (role labels, purpose, accountabilities and key performance indicators) for a full organization last week, the next step in our journey was to define a social contract: the way a team/department or even the full organization is working together.

Being a big believer in the power of high performing teams, as defined by John Katzenbach in “The Wisdoms of Teams”, 1993, and more currently, 2018, through agile, like described by Stephen Denning in “The Age of Agile”, I would chose this question (by Mabel Wah in the SmallVille’s article) to define a social contract:

What are the principles we want to define to start working with each other and reach the higher performance on our own?

A social contract “sets the expectations while accommodating the individual work preferences of team members”.

In a group of three, we co-created the following list, through an individual brainstorming followed, by a constructive conversation and collaborative consolidation:

• Know what matters to each of us., i.e., be sufficiently related to one another that we have a sense of the passion and humanity in one another and ourselves.
• Be transparent
• Speak openly and honestly
• Show respect and compassion
• Keep our word
• Be vulnerable and honest
• Co-create with patience, trust, vulnerability and honesty
• Respect the learning speeds of one another
• Be coachable
• Respect the opinions of others
• Commit to continuous feedback and improvement (learning from the past and improve for the future)
• Be open to diverse ideas and consider disagreement an opportunity to build better and new ideas
• Help each other towards a common goal in an effective way
• Use communication as a tool to contribute to one another
• Share all the knowledge, ideas and individual learnings with the group
• Have a process for reviewing what’s working and not working
• Have an honest intention to be on time for the meetings and meet deadlines
• Be open and curious about the work we do together
• Have fun during the process
• Consider humor as an energizing aspect of the team

You can also see a video of this Social Contract here.

Mabel Wah in the same article includes some of the benefits of having a social contract:

1. Clear guidelines around what is acceptable
2. Individual work styles are accommodated, e.g. start and finish times
3. Set expectations around team behaviour and work quality
4. Increased team commitment and cohesion
5. Collaborative work leading to high performance
6. Higher team morale
7. Performance improvements by team self-correction
8. Efficient handover of tasks between team members
9. Reduced fear within the teams, increased pride from achievements
10. Greater enjoyment from work, deeper adoption of agility
11. Increased product quality, reduced costs
12. Shared sense of identity
13. Elimination of the perceived need to use the guillotine

Additionally to the Social Contract, a peer-to-peer agreement could be defined. Doug Kirkpatrick calls it Colleague Accountability Agreement (CAA) in his book ‘Beyond Empowerment: the age of the self-managed organization’. The Morning Star company calls it “Colleague Letter of Understanding”. It is an accountabilities and performance contract with each of the colleagues you are working with, who expect something from you at any point. It consists of: general accountabilities regarding vision, mission and principles, the individual accountabilities with each colleague, general obligations, key performance indicators (or steppingstones to perfect performance), time committed to accomplish the mission, list of colleagues.

This is my proposal for a CLOU in the company I defined with my team last week:

Colleague Letter of Understanding — Product inventory

I agree to commit with “MYPET”’s vision, mission and principles, wholeheartedly, as well as with my Individual Mission.

MYPET Vision: Help pets integrate more into our lives

My Individual Mission:

• To keep an updated and clear inventory of the products available in the warehouse and the catalogue for the web
• To identify any anomaly or risk and search for a solution (individually or collectively)
• To guarantee the quality and quantity in the goods received
• To keep stocks so that there is a balance between inventory costs and products available

I agree to be accountable for all the tasks defined in my role that can be periodically updated according to the needs.

I assume ownership for the following business processes: product inventory and catalog

I agree to perform towards the steppingstones defined here:

• Inventory costs=0 (production just in time)
• Availability= 100%

I agree to answer my colleagues’ messages (from Sales and suppliers) within 1 day

I agree to develop myself and share the learning with others

I agree to communicate or voice any risk that could threaten the vision, mission and principles in the organization and the process of product inventory

I agree to work with transparency, continuous improvement and effectiveness

I agree to notify without delay any of my colleagues of any perceived legal, product or human safety risk, abuse of authority or harassment

If I decide to stop my services at MYPET I will announce it 3 months in advance and guarantee the continuity of my performance in that period

Finally, here I include my Personal Mission Statement regarding “The Practical Self Management Intensive”:

1) As an individual, why are you here?

I am here to learn from coaches, from other’s experiences, from co-working, from practical cases

I am here to share my experiences, my knowledge

I am here to connect with like-minded people

2) What does a great experience look like for me as a participant?

A great experience would be:

• Learn to overcome the hurdles from people who have gone through real self-management implementation experiences
• Co-create valuable work with the team
• Exchange openly real challenges
• Get feedback on the work done both participants, coaches and experts
• Keep the contact with participants, helping each other, after this course

3) How does my participation support the mission of this project?

• Sharing my previous knowledge and my experience
• Learning in order to guide and advice others
• Writing about the take-aways from this project

4) What support do I need to ensure I achieve my personal participation mission?

• Direct access with people who have gone through real self-management implementation experiences
• Challenging projects that go through the key concepts in self-management
• Different perspectives from people around the globe with different backgrounds
• People with energy, availability and creativity in the team
• Value from coaches