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Employee Freedom, A New "Old" Paradigm

Guest post by: Larry Mandelberg

Article Overview: In 1994 Jim Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote Flight of the buffalo which focuses on learning to let employees lead. In 2009 Brian Carney and Isaac Getz wrote Freedom, Inc. which focuses on how to free your employees and let them lead your business to higher productivity, profits and growth. These are two examples of books that explain why a "flat organization" is better and how to build or transform an organization with it. As Gen-Y begins to take over leadership in the majority of American business, these concepts of employee empowerment, self-management and flat structure will be their demand. They care more about work-life balance than money, and they just might be able to salvage the mess we boomers have made of things. Success in the 21st century demands employers embrace this new "old" paradigm.

Employee Freedom, A New "Old" Paradigm

An emerging business model quietly appeared on the scene back in 2008 in the form of a new entity - The Self-Management Institute.

The Self-Management Institute (SMI) was founded by Chris Rufer, founder and owner of The Morning Star Company based in Woodland. For Rufer, the self-management model arose out of his desire to "pursue my own activities and by default that allows other people to pursue their activities."

The idea of the boss letting staff pursue their activities almost sounds like letting people do whatever they want, which would lead to anarchy. People aren't allowed to do whatever they want, however they are encouraged to define certain aspects of their job and how they are going to fulfill the related obligations. They do this in what Morningstar calls their CLOU, which stands for Colleague Letter of Understanding.

Self-management is not entirely about freedom; it's more about pushing authority and responsibility down to the lowest levels of the organization where the people doing the work can impact the work environment in real time.

When I asked Paul Green, one of the executives at Morning Star, how the company made sure the basic tasks were taken care of, he said "A lot of the things that have to be done are very visible. When something's not happening, somebody jumps in to make sure it happens."

"There is no person formally dedicated to doing that. It happens because people are engaged and feel a sense of responsibility. People don't ever say ‘That isn't my job, and I don't care.'"

Similar to the Code of Ethics mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley back in 2002, Morning Star has a document of Colleague Principles. Each employee, or colleague, is expected to commit to this list of eight obligations.

The Colleague Principles document is similar to a set of organizational values with elements that include teamwork, personal responsibility and tolerance. Item 5, Direct Communication and Resolution of Conflicts, has six bullet points that clearly define what direct communication and conflict are and how to deal with them.

Flying Buffalo



This self-management concept is certainly not new. James Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote and published their book Flight of the Buffalo in 1993. The idea Belasco and Stayer put forth in their book is that organizations become difficult to manage and lose their ability to be flexible as they grow. Most of why the loss occurs has to do with the need to have control and predictability. Without a great deal of structure, or rules, the organization may be more nimble and flexible, but it also loses a certain aspect of controllability.

By giving an appropriate amount of authority to the employees of an organization, you give them the opportunity to make decisions in the field real time and to act as a leader in their own specific area of responsibility.

One example from their book talks about a time the CEO was giving a tour of his companies' campus to a business associate. As they were walking around the grounds outside, they came across a gardener raking up leaves with a rake that had lost all but three of its tines.

When the CEO asked the gardener why he didn't have a better rake, the man said he didn't have the authority to purchase a new one. When the gardener told his manager about the rake, and the manager told him to do the best he could with the equipment he had.

Had the gardener been given the authority to replace his rake, he would have saved a substantial amount of time and the grounds would have looked better.

How Does This Apply To Me?



The concept of self-management and letting employees lead is an idea whose time has come. Many of today's workers have grown up with technology and they know how to use it. They don't understand the need to be in an office at specific times when they can work from home.

They want to be told what to do and when it needs to be done. They believe they should be able to do their work at 3am in a coffee shop if they want to.

There are a handful of key points to remember If you want to start exploring this new model of self-management.

• If you have trained your staff to think like you and make decisions the way you would make them, you can't expect them to be free of your influence overnight. Give them time to stretch their wings.
• As long as people see you as a problem solver, they'll bring you all their problems to solve. Recognize your role is not solving problems, it's providing the resources to solve problems to others.
• It requires a shift in culture to go from ‘I am responsible' to ‘I am able to respond effectively and appropriately.' The ability to make decisions will not arrive overnight.
• The best person to be responsible for the job is the person doing the job.

In the not too distant future, the self-management model will be the norm, not the exception. The sooner you decide to understand it and see if it can be a benefit to your organization, the sooner you will move from surviving to thriving.

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Article Tags: belasco, boomers, brian carney, employee empowerment, flat organization, flat structure, flight of the buffalo, freedom inc, isaac getz, leadership, paradigm, productivity, ralph stayer



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