5 Critical Skills for Autonomous Teams

What you need to be autonomous

Zappos gave self-managing organizations and the whole concept of Holacracy a lousy name, but I wouldn’t throw away the baby with the bathwater. Self-managing organizations and autonomous teams aren’t all bad or a recipe for disaster. There’s a lot to learn from this failed attempt to create a self-managing organization.

The biggest lesson by far, to me that is, is that the need for autonomy doesn’t replace the need for leadership. Human leadership.

Before everything else, an employee is human—with feelings, highs, and lows. People need a strong leader who can help them achieve their goals. They don’t want to be managed, but they want to be led, with leadership replacing management.

You manage a system, you lead self-thinking people.  And they, in turn, choose to follow. Or not.

Like a beehive without a queen bee, an organization without a leader creates chaos. It Is the autonomy that is at fault; it’s a lack of shared vision and direction that is at fault.

Most bees are required to be autonomous in a beehive. They leave the hive searching for nectar without anyone telling them where to fly or when to return. Then, they know their role and when they are ready to return, all while serving the queen. They are autonomous in their daily operations, yet when the queen bee dies, the first thing they do is select a new one. You can’t be autonomous without a leader or some rules.

Rules or no rules? That is the question!

Rules are often viewed as why people are not responsible, proactive or autonomous. You don’t have the authority to use a different tool, even though it costs the organization dearly money and time, because it is not company policy. Also, you aren’t to buy extra memory for your computer, even though it means you are wasting valuable time and being unproductive because it’s not this year’s year. You lose out on offering to the new talent. You’ve been veered because your recruitment process is too heavy, and the rules stop you from bending it. You’ll lose out on the significant gains rather than make small changes.

But rules aren’t. They make us feel safe; without feeling safe, we can’t be productive. But rules must make sense, be questioned and adapted continuously, and grow organically with the company.

Amateur or Master Chef?

Following a recipe book guarantees that even an amateur can create the most delicious meal. You don’t need to know the cooking science to create a masterpiece. All you need to do is follow the recipe step-by-step.

A master chef, on the other hand, not only intimately knows the rules and science of cooking but has also mastered all the technical skills. He has also proven that he can work at high speed and in very stressful environments.

Similarly, processes and procedures enable us to be more repeatable in our actions, repeatedly producing the same high-quality results—by choice, not by chance. Processes and procedures are intended to be standardized lessons learned, preventing us from making the same mistakes.

Having the proper rules in place, therefore, makes us more productive. The problem lies in how rules are being enforced. Rules enforced by top management are bound to be viewed negatively by employees who do not feel they are in control of their results.

Science has proven that people are happy when they feel they have control over a situation. Thus, not involving employees in creating their own rules is stressful and demotivating. The result is a peaceful rebellion, with people following the rules and taking no responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

For rules — and autonomy — to work, the people who must follow the rules must participate in creating the rules. You also need the following five critical skills to build an autonomous team:

Trust and respect

When you have people who trust and respect each other, it is impossible to allow them to make their own decisions, knowing that if something falls outside their comfort levels, they will ask for help.

Good communication skills

When teams don’t communicate effectively, it’s tough to trust them or for them to trust each other. Autonomy requires people to be able to express their needs, explain and defend their viewpoints, and give and receive feedback from colleagues.

Strong relationships

Relationships go hand in hand with communication. Communication enables discussions, while relationships ensure you talk to the right people to get the results.

For a team or organization to be autonomous, it needs clearly defined relationships with defined go-to people for different issues. That means you need to know each team member’s strengths and weaknesses—technically and personally.

You need to know the go-to person and be confident in consulting them. Authority and decision-making rules also need to be defined.

Clear vision and requirements

Relationships and communication don’t help you get closer to them without a target or goal to work towards. An autonomous team needs to be clear on what they are working toward. There should be no ambiguity or disagreement.

High confidence, low arrogance

Confidence is the key to autonomy. Each team member must know what to do, who to ask for help or support, and how to do their work. When you don’t know the answers, you need the confidence to ask for help and the humility to offer assistance.

In essence, when you have clarity of roles, respect, and trusting relationships, you have autonomy.

Conclusion

Autonomous teams do not mean everyone decides what they want to do, but It also doesn’t mean they don’t need to. Autonomy is much more complex than that, requiring shared values and strong leadership. The skills needed to be autonomous can not be learned by attending a course or reading a book. The skills required, among other things, are trust, respect, communication, and humility.

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