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brentlowe.com Leadership passing the baton

Founders: How to build shared responsibility and accountability in your team

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Your anxiety is building as fast as your team is growing. Good leaders always know what each member of their team is working on.

Or do they?

At first your team was 3 people, then 7… then 12… 18… 26. Soon it will be in the 40s. Monthly payroll has ballooned. Work is getting done. Things are moving fast forward. But is it enough?

You wonder about the team’s ROI. You worry excellent performance is going unnoticed. Someone on the team must need extra support but you aren’t sure who.

Answering these questions was easy when lunch for the team was a one or two pizza affair. Now? Not so much.

If you’ve opted for a traditional management style, endless books and blogs exist to help answer these questions. Performance Management. Quarterly meetings. Stack-ranking. Development plans. But what if, instead, you’ve chosen the bolder, braver path of nurturing a system of shared responsibility and accountability… of leading together? Then what?

By choosing to lead together, we are also choosing…

…to build a culture based on transparency, trust and agency. Without these elements, we cannot lead together.

…to believe people are fundamentally good and aim to do great work. The alternative is to believe people generally put themselves first, prioritizing personal gain over what’s best for the team.

…to practice working through the messiness of complex problems and relationship dynamics as a way of enhancing our “being human” skills. In doing so, we replace the adult-child relationships of traditional hierarchies. Instead, we build a strong foundation of healthy adult-to-adult interactions.

By moving away from traditional management practices we are not choosing chaos. Nor are we choosing subpar individual contributions or poor team performance. Quite the opposite. When done well, your team will thrive.

One big question still remains. How exactly do we lead together without leveraging the old systems so familiar to us? And how do we silence the voice in our head telling us that–as a leader–we need to know more… be more on top of things?

Leading together is not a subtle change… it’s a paradigm shift. We’re doing more sensing and responding rather than predicting and controlling. Here are four common challenges you may face and what to try instead.

Common Leadership Response: Put in place time consuming performance management tools.

Consider instead: Building a culture of transparency and trust.

Transparency

“If you want people to make the same decisions that you would make, but in a more scalable way, you have to give them the same information you have.”

– Keith Rabois

When leading together, transparency is critical. Tools like Kanban boards, daily stand ups and asynchronous check-ins replace manager oversight. Build a culture of working out loud–making visible otherwise hidden work. Likewise acknowledge information shared by others to close the loop. Need more transparency? Experiment with boosting the flow of critical information throughout the business. Share your need for more transparency and invite ideas from others.

As a leader, increase how often you communicate (and re-communicate) your team’s purpose, values and objectives. You’ll need to do this much more often than you think. See Why Being mocked by my team should be a leadership priority.

Trust

“Trust, but verify,” is a saying made popular by Ronald Reagan during the Cold War. It was a fair statement given the context. As a standard leadership practice, its most often detrimental. It breaks rather than builds trust. When transparency gets done well, verification is a natural outcome.

The team at The TrustedAdvisor provides an equation as a measure of trust. When trust lacks, reflect on what’s out of balance. Credibility, reliability, intimacy or self-orientation?

Common Leadership Response: Consolidate decision making and direction giving with a small number of trusted leaders.

Consider instead: Taking a closer look at your team’s structure & processes.

Structure

To an outsider, a lead together organization can appear chaotic. Gone are the org charts of the past replaced by collections of roles. When we move away from management structures, chaos is a risk. Three alternatives to the traditional hierarchy exist. Parallel teams are small, independent, self-contained teams that resemble each other. Webs of individual contracting consist of specialized teams that agree to deliver on commitments to other teams. Nested teams are collections of sub-teams (usually called circles) each with a purpose aligned with–and supporting–the circle in which its nested.

Whatever structure your team chooses, everyone needs to understand how the structure works. Who is accountable for what? Who’s leading on the delivery of any given team, purpose, project or commitment? Who’s supporting? How will decisions get made? Is your team clear? If you’re not sure, ask.

Process

When things don’t go well, start by being hard on the process, not the people. Assume that, if another person or group was put in the same system using the same processes, results would be the same. What processes–or lack thereof–are leading to the current results? Does everyone understand the process? Complete a retrospective to uncover areas for improvement. Prototype something new.

Common Leadership Response: Push the concern off to another day or replace team members.

Consider instead: Building a development culture and providing individuals with agency.

Deliberate Development

Do you have an expectation that everyone on your team–yourself included–is in constant development mode? Do you see learning opportunities everywhere you turn? Deliberately Developmental Organizations (DDOs) focus on developing the capacities of all team members. They use the culture and operations of the business as a classroom. In these organizations developmental principles are ever present in the day-to-day. An example principle could be: “It’s okay to make a mistake here, but unacceptable not to identify, analyze and learn from it”; or “Everyone on our team always has a stated development goal that gets worked daily.”

Peer development triads offer a simple way of working on our own development. A group of three commit to supporting each other’s development. The process begins with a round of the question “What are you noticing in the system?” to de-personalize feedback loops and practice scanning the broader environment as a team. In a second round, each person shares one thing they’ve been working on improving. The individual then shares what they have been trying and asks the other participants for ideas or advice. Doing so illuminates opportunities not yet seen.

Agency

To enhance our skills of “being human” while building healthy adult-to-adult relationships, we each need agency. Agency is the opportunity to act for oneself. In the words of Simon Wakeman, managing director at UK-based digital agency Deeson, “If you try to be a very directive leader [and take agency away], you can break the system very quickly. But there are times when you have to be directive because you need to stop something from going off the cliff.” As leaders, we can fall into the trap of taking agency away with every pothole. When a team hits a pothole, it learns. When it drives off a cliff, it dies.

Common Leadership Response: Stepping in and taking over.

Consider instead: Modelling the identification of tensions and the taking of radical responsibility.

Tensions

In leading together we’re called upon to strengthen our ability to sense tensions. As leaders we are familiar with how traditional management structures work. When problems arise, it’s easy to slip into autopilot, moving into solution mode. We are much less skilled at acknowledging and naming the tension messages our bodies are sending us. Next time you find yourself concerned about the performance of a colleague or team, start by asking yourself, “What specifically is my tension?” Is it frustration? Anger? Worry? Sadness? Fear? Discomfort? Start with the tension, not with a solution.

Radical Responsibility

Leading together requires everyone to step into a mindset of radical responsibility. As a leader in your team, you likely do this with ease. When it comes to building a culture of radical responsibility, many of our colleagues suffer from learned helplessness–a real or perceived lack of control. Leaders can inadvertently keep their colleagues trapped in a self-perpetuating pattern of deflecting responsibility. Step one is helping those individuals state and document their responsibilities.

Calling out your colleagues when they have not met their responsibilities is hard. Doing so is at the heart of radical responsibility. When we’re part of a team that is building trust, we are much more reluctant to be perceived as tough by demanding our peers keep commitments. Developing a practice of accountability partnerships helps. In a team without a boss, encourage everyone to invite another team member to be an accountability partner… and to practice having the tough conversations when necessary.

Does this sound hard? Leading together requires intention and effort. Sure, traditional management approaches are easier. They’ve been around for eons. They’re sterile, clean cut and super-efficient, aren’t they? So why are 85% of employees in those systems are disengaged? Because traditional management systems are not catalysts for developing self-managing, flexible and divergent thinkers.

Building shared responsibility and accountability in your team can be messy, but ultimately beautiful – with measurable business benefits. Thinking differently and pushing boundaries got you this far, didn’t it? Why not take the next bold step with your team and lead together.

download a free chapter of lead together

I help Founder CEOs of companies between 5 and 40 people who are experiencing early-stage success and ready to scale – especially those wanting to build shared responsibility and accountability within their team.

Click here to get your free copy of the 5 principles and 6 leadership roles for scaling a sustainable, prosperous company.

blue river

Move away from toxic hierarchy for good by Going Horizontal.

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It all started as an experiment.

“Our goal was to experiment radically, to find new ways of being and working together.”

Samantha Slade — a force-of-nature with a background in cultural anthropology and education — co-founded Percolab, an international co-creation and co-design firm in 2007. “We were a group of social scientists and business people. The idea was to create a lab, explore future ways of working, and put a theoretical framework around it.” And so they did. Percolab has expanded internationally and kick-started a movement to change the way businesses organize.

Slade’s book Going Horizontal — Creating a Non-Hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time (BK Publishers) boldly makes the case that “hierarchy in organizations is obsolete” and presents 7 concrete practices to help organizations flatten their structures. She tours the world, providing practical training sessions to help businesses large and small, emerging or established, industrial or high-tech to reimagine how they work together.

“We need to unlearn behaviours to reconnect with healthy habits.”

If we think about our personal relationships, they are equal, adult-to-adult partnerships. We don’t let friends tell us what to do and if they try, the friendship becomes strained. “In our personal lives we know how to show up in egalitarian ways,” says Slade. “For some reason in the work realm we pick up hierarchical structures left over from the industrial era.” This vertical culture puts the boss at the top, responsible for solving problems and making decisions (like a parent) and the employee accepting these decisions unquestioningly (like a child). It becomes difficult for team members to work to their full potential, who instead find themselves feeling trapped.

“Let’s create more collaborative, conscious humans who can show up fully.”

If you want your team to show up inspired and enlivened, ask yourself ‘how am I showing up in my personal leadership?’ Examine your own vertical habits. Slade says there are non-hierarchical practices you can start integrating into your personal or professional life today. “You can develop your skills quietly until you find ease and nuance. You don’t need to tell anyone or ask anyone’s permission.” For example, there is nothing to stop you from asking your team to give you feedback. “What do you appreciate about how I did that? How could I amplify that?” Start rewiring the way you interact with your team.

“Deep transformations come from small practices.”

Micro practices are integral to Slade’s work with clients because they are simple to learn and can be applied by anyone in an organization. “They are inclusive to anybody and everybody who may be feeling that the way things are isn’t working.”

Checking In

How do you show up for meetings? Once everyone is seated, do you jump right into the agenda? Next time, try checking in with each person at the table and asking how they feel about the task at hand. Invite everyone to share their feelings about the project and witness each other, without discussion. “This surfaces the team’s emotions and brings rich information into the group,” says Slade. “The meeting will be more on task, more relevant and more in flow.” The meeting room becomes a safe space to share and disengaged members are invited to join.

Team

Collective time

Slade contrasts team meetings with the discussion you might have with a group of friends while planning a holiday. Everyone shares ideas, offers to take on tasks. There is energy and excitement. How do you invite that energy into your next team meeting? “Try inviting anyone at the table to put a point on the agenda,” says Slade. “This micro practice sets a completely different tone from the moment the meeting begins.” Invite each person to assign one of four categories to their agenda item: 1. Information — you listen to me, 2. Feedback — I listen to you, 3. Co-create — we all do something together, 4. Propose — we all make a decision together. Each team member self-attributes a set amount of time to get through their item and becomes accountable for running it through. “This small switch changes everything,” says Slade. “The meeting becomes collective time where everyone is empowered to contribute. I find people start showing up kindly and caring for one another, even sharing some of their time with someone else’s agenda item if something pertinent is going on. It really creates a feeling of mutual support and solidarity among the group.”

“But we’ve never done that before…”

About now you are probably picturing the nay-sayer at the table. We can all picture someone from our work environment who resists change and who is comfortable with the status quo. Slade recommends first trying out these micro practices in “safe spaces at work where there is trust and wiggle room.” Maybe it is with a smaller team, or with a group where trust already exists. “Once you have lived it and felt the value, you won’t show up the same way when you face that nay-sayer,” says Slade. “You will totally own it and will be totally confident in the impact the change can have.” As your skills are rewired you can take them into more high-powered situations.

Adding a barista won’t fix it.

Internationally, up to 85% of people don’t show up engaged with their work. There is a groundswell of freelance workers who don’t want to work in the traditional setting. College graduates won’t commit to traditional organizations. This is a systemic issue that is not going away. “The current way we set up and run our organizations will not carry us through,” says Slade. “As humans our default is to operate as a community, it is in our nature. We want to be respected as equals and that is difficult when one person acts as the boss of the community.” To make matters worse, there are not many models out there. As one of Slade’s emerging and rapidly growing clients expressed: “If we don’t go intentionally and with care we will end up with a hierarchical modality by default.”

More collaboration

Applying these simple micro systems yields meaningful, transformational change. Clients come to Slade because they want to plan strategies differently. What they often discover is that much of their team is not working to its full potential. When they are invited to collaborate, a new energy is unleashed into the organization. “They learn to work collaboratively and efficiently in an enlivening way that can carry them forward. It doesn’t feel like a compromise, there is courage and strength in the work and it is no longer getting diluted,” says Slade.

Practice in a safe space.

Samantha Slade and her colleagues regularly guide highly practical, immersive training sessions on these micro systems. In these sessions, participants have the opportunity to practice and hone their skills. “The specific practices will be decided by the participants,” says Slade. “Individuals will even say who they would like to have facilitate each practice by inviting others or stepping up themselves. So much power will be given over to the participants.” You will leave with a shared vocabulary of the 7 domains of practice: Purpose, Meetings, Decision Making, Transparency, Autonomy, Learning & Development, Conflict and Relationship. The training is a safe space where all will be comfortable trying out new things without judgment. “They will leave having shared a collective experience and feeling the shift that this makes.”Find an upcoming session here. This blog has been written by my good friend Sue Wakefield. Thanks Sue!

inside story 2

The Inside Story of Berlin’s Self-Managed Tree-Planting Search Engine

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Ben & Jerry’s, Etsy, Patagonia, Ecosia… wait… who?

For every celebrated purpose-driven business, there are thousands of companies working hard to do their part with little fanfare. Ecosia is one of those companies.

On a recent trip to Berlin, I journeyed into the heart of the city and to a nondescript collection of buildings with a small Ecosia sign street-side. Few who travel the cobblestone street would have any idea that within the labyrinth of offices sits a unique social enterprise responsible for planting close to 18 million trees. Ecosia runs a web search engine founded by CEO Christian Kroll eight years ago. The company now powers over 175 million web searches every month, dedicating 80% of its profits to supporting tree planting programs.

My goal in meeting with Christian and his colleague Philip Baumann is to pull back the curtain and see how this purpose-driven company operates. How exactly do Ecosia’s 24 team members prosper while balancing business realities with a strong purpose motive?

As you might expect, Ecosia’s office has an earthy, casual feel. My first reaction upon arriving: “Who wouldn’t want to work here?” After a quick tour we settle around the company’s ping pong table and invest time getting to know each other.

Christian’s story starts in university. While completing his studies in business administration, he was disappointed to learn most people saw profit-making as the only valid objective for a business. As his schooling came to an end, he decided he wanted to do something more meaningful with his energy and embarked on a year-long trip exploring the world. During his travels he learned about the important role of trees in our planet’s survival. He returned from his adventure and started Ecosia in December 2009.

Since Christian’s only business experience comes from leading Ecosia, he’s learning as he goes. He is open about his leadership journey and his aim to serve the team in a way that avoids a rigid management approach while also preventing the company from devolving into chaos.

Our 90-minute conversation spanned a long-list of topics. Here are my biggest take-aways:

Self-Management: For the most part Ecosia operates using a self-management philosophy, prioritizing principles over rules. What, exactly, is self-management? Every day the Ecosia team works to further define their own answer to this question. Rather than being a destination, they see self-management more like a way of being. They’ve come to learn that operating in this way requires a certain level of maturity to embrace heightened levels of responsibility.

Christian’s Role as Leader: Christian sees his role as being similar to a sports coach. He aims to serve his team without unnecessarily stepping into the game. To help distribute authority throughout the organization, Ecosia relies on governance records to make things explicit. Christian is honest in saying, “In some circumstances I just don’t know how to coach so I end up telling people what to do.”

Decision-Making: Ecosia is continuing to mature their use of the Advice Process for decision-making. Through their experimentation with the process, they’ve come to appreciate the importance of being clear on decision ownership. Still, they find they drift into consensus mode too frequently and often the team just wants someone with adequate authority to make a decision.

Recruiting: Recruiting at Ecosia is not democratic. Each hiring decision has an owner who has ultimate responsibility. After a candidate interviews at Ecosia, the team holds a quick stand-up meeting where everyone is invited to share their thoughts and feelings about the candidate. Tuning into their gut is encouraged. It’s OK for participants to ramble on as a way of sorting through their thoughts.

A Cool Perk: Every member of the Ecosia team has the opportunity to travel to one of Ecosia’s tree planting projects. It’s an opportunity to keep the social enterprise aspects of Ecosia’s work present for everyone.

To learn more about Ecosia and other companies experimenting with different ways of working, check out Reinventing Scale-Ups: Radical Ideas for Growing Companies available on Amazon.