Pattern #3
Autonomy
An autonomous team is one that is wholly and independently capable of performing its work.
The production of foie gras is a controversial topic. Traditionally, duck or geese are force fed (“gavage”) for two weeks in order to enlarge their liver, which is then harvested and used for paté, mousse, confit or other culinary artifacts. It may be delicious, but the brief lives of those fowl are undeniably constrained and sad, if not horrifying. Still, if you want the unique quality (and market value) of foie gras, it’s the only way.
Or is it? In 2011, NPR’s This American Life ran a story about Dan Barber—renowned creator of Blue Hill Farm, a farm-to-table mecca in upstate New York— seeking out Eduardo Sousa, a Spanish farmer who produces gavage-free foie gras. The secret? Freedom. Geese who are truly free—not fenced in, free to come and go as they please, free to eat what they choose—gorge themselves.
“They have to believe they are free.
If they don’t believe they are free…
if food is brought to them…
if there is fencing…
they don’t feel wild.”
– Eduardo Sousa
Easy enough? Perhaps. But what makes it so difficult for most producers to fathom is that there can’t be a hint of control asserted. Not to protect them from predators (Sousa loses 20–30% of his geese a year), not to prevent them from leaving, not to turn their livers yellow (which indicates high fat content and has traditionally commanded greater prices on the market).
How is this a lesson in patterns of work? Consider the plight of the employees and the teams, from whom the corporation, in the person of the manager, is trying to extract the most value. The traditional assumption is that the teams need to be poked and prodded—managed through deadlines and, sometimes, incentives—in order to deliver on ideas over which they feel little or no ownership. As a result, the vast majority of new initiatives (be they products, campaigns, or even new processes) are depressingly uncreative…and often fail. The teams charged with undertaking them are largely uninspired. The individual producers are unmotivated. The work lacks spark and is deeply flawed.
Alternately, teams that are empowered—groups of equals doing their own research, generating their own insights, sizing their own tasks, describing their own commitments—are remarkably productive, passionate about what they are doing, and motivated to deliver greater and greater value. They are autonomous; they are free; constrained only by the simplest of social contracts with the corporation (“I work and I am paid”), creative briefs that frame the problems they are trying to solve, and guidance in the form of constructive feedback. In these configurations, the individual producers are fueled by a natural desire to be creative, an authentic commitment to their team, and a delight in their shared achievements and increasing productivity. Simply put—they are happy, and they produce the most valuable work.
Easy enough? Perhaps. But the temptation to manage, to direct, to command, runs deep in the modern corporation and traps abound. Redirecting a team, for example, is an exercise fraught with potential mis-steps. A failed project may be a short-term disappointment but a team robbed of their spirit of autonomy is a much greater long-term loss. The work to build such teams is no small matter and requires the commitment of a servant leader whose greatest challenges lie in removing the blockers—within him or herself, within individuals on the team, within the operational structure of the corporation—to letting the team do it themselves.