Week 33, 2022—Issue #217
Autonomy & Upside: Neither, Either, or Both… that is the Question.
Each week: three ideas to help you build better organizations. This week: three ideas on autonomy, upside, and the combination thereof.
Let’s pretend for a moment that you’ve hired me for a position in your organization. How might you best structure that role?
Maybe you’d give me autonomy to make my own decisions? Maybe you’d provide me with an upside or stake in the outcomes I create?
Would it be neither, either, or both?
That’s the question.
Let’s find an answer:
1. No autonomy or upside
Without autonomy in my work, I will quickly grow apathetic and disengaged. That’s if you’re lucky. The worst case is that I will burn out and leave organizational life entirely. As Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree write in Corporate Rebels, studies show people are more likely to burn out when they “have too little control over what happens in their workday.” It’s huge problem that is actually getting worse with time. That’s right, autonomy is actually on the decline! Adds Minnaar and Morree: “It seems we’re going back to the industrial era.”
2. Autonomy without upside
Without upside, autonomy can’t motivate me to re-engage or apply myself. But that shouldn’t surprise you. It’d be unfair to ask me to take on more responsibility without giving me a share in the outcome that I create. And don’t forget, I’ll need that upside to be within my sphere of influence. Writes Safi Bahcall in Loonshots: “I’m still amazed by how often large companies compensate junior or mid-level employees on company earnings. If your project can move earnings by no more than a tiny fraction of a percent, how does a company-earnings bonus motivate you?”
3. Autonomy and upside
Only by providing both autonomy and upside will you persuade me to go all in. Explains Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini in Humanocracy: “[U]pside and autonomy, taken individually, have little impact on attrition rates. However, in combination, they reduce turnover by more than half.” Note the emphasis. Just like autonomy without upside is unfair, “offering someone a chance for a bigger payout while denying them the right to make necessary decisions will produce frustration and resentment.” So I’ll need both, thank you very much. Adds Hamel and Zanini: “The combination of autonomy and upside fuels the entrepreneurial fervor.”
Autonomy is on the decline, and the companies that offer upside usually go about it the wrong way; making it too abstract and far removed from the individual to have staying power. The results are depressingly familiar: low engagement, high attrition, and endemic burnout.
The solution is radical decentralization; the breaking of monolithic structures down into loosely coupled teams with autonomy to make decisions and share in outcomes. This isn’t easy to do, but it can be done — just like at companies like Haier, Zappos, and others.
So if you want me to join and become a productive member of your organization, you best learn from these examples and provide me with autonomy and upside. Neither won’t do, and neither will either. The answer has to be both.
That’s all for this week.
Until next time: make it matter.
How can we build better organizations? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. Each week, I share some of what I’ve learned in a weekly newsletter called WorkMatters. Subscription is free. Back-issues are published to Medium after three months.
