Owners Not Groaners

I was talking with a leader the other day about the power of inclusion and empowerment. It was a specific example where a group of follower bees quickly turned into leader bees when they:

• Got it that they were being asked to make recommendations, pitch, and implement a plan VERSUS being asked for input then waiting to see what "leadership" comes up with.
• Turned on their sense of ownership and turned off their need to express their concerns, doubts, or fears.
• Felt they were being recognized at the experts and that their opinions and thoughts mattered.
• Were handed the reigns. Really empowered, not fake empowerment.

I know this is all basic stuff, but it is basic stuff we do not practice enough. How many times during the day do you have the opportunity to create OWNERS or GROANERS? As a manager, I would say that you have several chances every day to impact how people look at their work. I am thinking about all the big and small things we do on a daily basis.

Want more OWNERS than GROANERS? Here is a simple filter you can use before you make decisions, requests, or determine who will do what and the roles people will play. Basically, keep asking yourself these questions:

1. Does this build or damage trust?
2. Am I demonstrating appropriate empowerment? Who should lead this (often it should not be you)?
3. Does my request/decision make people feel like they are being parented?
4. Am I engaging people in solving important business problems? (Not just token engagement)

And really, I would look at people in nonhierarchical terms. You have a collection of resources -  people with hearts and minds -  who want to do great work. Be their partner. Support them. Don't try to be their mother or father. This will backfire on you in a heartbeat (it already is - groaners only work at half steam).

I really enjoy my work, but sometimes I realize that I am being brought in to be the surrogate leader for a time to augment the owner versus groaner equation. The hope is that something good might rub off and more great work will get done. I wonder if people are really noticing the right things?

Not to stray off the topic, but as I get older and more experienced, I am beginning to question whether much of what we call OD is really just the leadership and management stuff that we are not cultivating and reinforcing within our leadership teams. Sure OD serves a function and can make a contribution, but how much of what we do is surrogate leadership? And if this is the case, how do we get some of this back into leadership?

One way, I guess, is to hire excellent applied OD types (as distinct from highly theoretical types) to manage functions and build the organization with similar skills.

OK, this is going too far from the topic.

Back to the point: Owners or groaners - you choose several times per day. Everything you do adds to or subtracts from the owner versus groaner equation.

Comments

[Adrian Savage]

Lisa,

Part of the problem lies, I believe, in the common peception that leadership=control. To stay "in control," leaders are almost forced to take personal charge of everything important, reducing their staff to childlike followers.

If we could change people's ideas so they see leadership as providing direction, it would be easier. The person organizing the direction to be followed (I say organizing, becuse the leader doesn't have to provide all the direction personally) can then delegate implementation fully to others -- creating owners, as you say in your post.

One of the basic principles of Slow Leadership is taking the time needed to be clear about direction. When you rush around in a frenzy of haste, the natural temptation is to do everything yourself. It feels as if it will take too long to explain to others; and you don't quite trust them to meet your deadlines, either. But time spent now clarifying direction, and explaining it concisely to others, usually means far more time saved later, because all those other people can assist you in reaching your goal. The old adage "Many Hands Make Light Work" only works if those hands know how best to help.

Adrian Savage is a writer, speaker and founder of the "Slow Leadership" movement, dedicated to restoring the full pleasure and flavor to the task of leading any group of people.
http://www.slowleadership.org
http://www.adriansavage.com

[Lisa Haneberg]

Adrian - I agree that this is a fundamental problem and it is a self perpetuating one. Yes, we want leaders who are comfortable making a decision and can show strength and assertiveness - but not ALL of the time or even MOST of the time, and we don't want leaders who are control freaks. It was Socrates who felt that true wisdom begins only when we see and know our own ignorance. Leaders who assume they know more than they do and are comfortable making decisions about things they know $%@# about are dangerous to the organization and surely breed GROANERS.

[laurence haughton]

Actually I found in the research for "It's Not The Big that Eat the Small... It's the FAST that Eat the Slow" that letting go of decision-making controls and using guiding principles to direct teams to make their own decisions actually speeds a business way up.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Laurence - Letting go of decision making controls seems to be the most difficult for many leaders, especially those prone to being control freaks. But when they do, they see things in a whole new way and begin to see what real owners can do.

[Dave Nicolette]

The topic of owners vs groaners is very relevant to the growth of Agile development practices. A key principle of XP, and IMO of Agile development in general, is the notion of collective ownership combined with individual accountability. Management practices that encourage a sense of ownership among team members should be preferred over traditional management styles. Adrian's observation that many people think leadership=control is right on the mark.

Adrian and Laurence raise another interesting point, even if indirectly. They are talking about leadership. In reality, most project managers are not leaders, but managers. A leader understands a problem in context and motivates others to take ownership of it and solve it. A manager tracks a team's progress against a predefined set of procedural steps. For Agile development teams, I see the role of the project manager as concerned with motivating and enabling the team members, providing them with the tools and resources they need to get the job done, and running interference with the rest of the organization so that team members are not bogged down or discouraged with administrivia. This is very different from the PM's role on traditional projects. It is closer to leadership than to management.

Enablement is key to success with Agile projects. Assuming you have the right sort of people on board in the first place, you have to understand leadership != control, believe it, and live it. An example I like to give is the US military exercise known as Millennium Challenge 02. IMO it dramatically illustrates the power of real enablement and the myth that leadership=control. See http://www.davenicolette.net/agile/index.blog?entry_id=1311190

[Lisa Haneberg]

Dave:

Thanks for the information, perspective and link. I do think that creating ownership takes some leadership and that even project managers must be good leaders. Work is so complex and personal - effective technique alone is not enough.

[laurence haughton]

Dave is right. I am (always) directly and indirectly talking about leadership.

It's about job security actually. Any manager can be replaced or eliminated (and many are). No company (though) can afford to lose any leaders. And if you can "lead" instead of just manage a team at any level... you are in the high demand.

The proof is in the interivews I did for my book on driving the follow through and making sure that half of all projects stop failing at your company.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Laurence - I love the way you said this - "It's about job security actually. Any manager can be replaced or eliminated (and many are). No company (though) can afford to lose any leaders." I could not agree more, even though I also see a shortage of solid management skills.