Self-organizing teams
I work in a young consulting company that specializes in issues of personal effectiveness. Unlike many other companies that are taking and trying to use ready-made equipment, we have developed our own methodology and our own concept, which is called Energy Management. The concept of Energy Management itself will be the subject of the next article, and today we will address efficiency issues from the point of view of organizing teams, giving as an example two well-known companies that were already mentioned in Habré, and which, like us, did not take ready development patterns, did something different from scratch. In the following articles I plan to talk directly about our concept of Energy Management, and its fundamental differences from Time Management.
In almost any artificial system, when a certain complexity is reached, properties characteristic of living systems begin to manifest themselves. One of these properties is self-organization. The manifestation of this property is the first sign that evolutionary changes begin in the system. For a long time it was believed that only living systems are capable of evolution, but it soon turned out that these processes are common to all complexly organized systems. Business as a system here is no exception. Moreover, due to the high intensity and speed of the processes, business has become one of the structures where the speed of both evolutionary and revolutionary processes is extremely high.
Any development is a consequence of the need to create a more energy efficient structure that could most fully use the resources of the present time. Understanding the principles of organizing such systems is extremely important for modern business, because it allows not only to understand, but also to actively influence the processes that take place, which allow reaching a new level of interaction of elements both within the organization itself and with consumers and competitors in the market.
Until the mid-50s of the 20th century, the cybernetic approach prevailed. The essence of the approach was to ensure that any system is a collection of information and energy flows, between which feedback is organized. However, such a system, despite its apparent consistency, is far from ideal. So any element action requires the activation of an information channel to provide feedback between the receiving and executing element.
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The costs of maintaining information flows are also extremely significant, and at each level noise is added to the data. The costs of maintaining such a system in the living state grow in proportion to the number of nodes in the system itself. In modern business, such structures are not so common, but still, they can be found in the state. sector, as well as large monopolistic companies. Such a system can be presented in the form of a “manager-manager-manager-manager ... manager-executive” scheme.
The development of the concept of a cybernetic approach led to the understanding that it is necessary not only to eliminate redundancy, but also to reduce the costs of organizing information flows. Such an approach includes two rationalization strategies: 1. Removal of unnecessary and duplicate nodes from the system 2. Delegation of decision-making from a control element to an element performing.
One of the successful examples of the implementation of these two methods is the company 37signals, which allowed itself to abandon the vertical structure of business organization and create the most flat structure in which there are no managers, but only performers. Thus, the career growth of each employee is not reduced to the transition from the executor to the role of leader, but to the expansion of his competence within the framework of his position. So the designer can grow into a great designer, but not an art director, and the system administrator will not be able to become the head of the technical department. This system is very beautiful in the concept of "equal among equals".
On the one hand, this approach encourages everyone to expand their professional skills, on the other hand, eliminates competition for the right to manage the entire system at once. However, it is important to note that such a system cannot be idealized, and it can be far from effective for everyone.
So with the increase in turnover, the company 37signals was faced with the need to expand the staff, and when the staff amounted to more than 20 people, there was a natural need to coordinate the actions of the team. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to create an administrative and managerial layer, a scheme was developed, according to which each of the employees in his group alternately occupied the role of a manager and assumed coordination of actions, and a week later it was replaced by another. Thus, the eternal problem was eliminated with the manager not understanding the problems of subordinates and vice versa. All decisions are swinging development strategies of the company and the projects being carried out were taken by the CEO of the company.
Naturally, the system, when the overwhelming majority are engaged in work, and not control over the work of other people, is extremely effective. So the company 37signals during its existence managed to reach a multi-million dollar profit and produce a number of extremely successful products.
The optimal result for most companies lies somewhere in between. If you completely give up control and give everyone the opportunity to choose directions of movement, then it may not be very easy to achieve your goals. However, this concept is not without exception. So Valve raised the idea of ​​not coordinating from above in the Absolute. All company employees were given the opportunity to unite within the company purely in their own interests. In such a system, only those projects that collected the most employees around themselves survived. And who will say that the company is not successful? Now Valve earns in terms of one employee more than Google, Amazon or Microsoft.
The approaches used in these two companies are synergistic, and significantly deviate from goal-setting, which is provided for in the cybernetic approach, and development strategies implemented through it. If the cybernetic approach implies the existence of a certain ultimate goal, the achievement of which the system should come through through self-organization, then synergetic considers the process of self-organization, as a consequence of the development of cooperation of elements within the system itself.
In the first case, the goals and sets the control unit of the system, the second approach for the most part is anarchic and implies the most direct influence of each element on the policies of the life of the entire system. Synergy in itself is primarily the science of the interaction of elements, in which the elements are organized in such a way as to mutually complement each other and produce a more stable system than the system that could be built on simple principles of subordination.
The introduction of a synergistic campaign on the one hand solves the problem of motivation because there is no need to artificially lure people into work, and on the other hand cultivates leadership in people. The latter is extremely important. only within the framework of leadership can the concept of freedom of choice and responsibility for one’s choice be realized.
In a synergistic team, each of the performers turns into a creator. This allows you to create the most stable and flexible team capable of working with minimal costs and effectively implement innovative concepts. In modern business, the phenomenon of self-organization is not just an important, but extremely significant competitive advantage; therefore, more and more companies are trying to move away from linear management towards the concept of self-organizing teams.
Video from the last conference on personal effectiveness.
upd: added video link
In almost any artificial system, when a certain complexity is reached, properties characteristic of living systems begin to manifest themselves. One of these properties is self-organization. The manifestation of this property is the first sign that evolutionary changes begin in the system. For a long time it was believed that only living systems are capable of evolution, but it soon turned out that these processes are common to all complexly organized systems. Business as a system here is no exception. Moreover, due to the high intensity and speed of the processes, business has become one of the structures where the speed of both evolutionary and revolutionary processes is extremely high.
Any development is a consequence of the need to create a more energy efficient structure that could most fully use the resources of the present time. Understanding the principles of organizing such systems is extremely important for modern business, because it allows not only to understand, but also to actively influence the processes that take place, which allow reaching a new level of interaction of elements both within the organization itself and with consumers and competitors in the market.
Until the mid-50s of the 20th century, the cybernetic approach prevailed. The essence of the approach was to ensure that any system is a collection of information and energy flows, between which feedback is organized. However, such a system, despite its apparent consistency, is far from ideal. So any element action requires the activation of an information channel to provide feedback between the receiving and executing element.
')
The costs of maintaining information flows are also extremely significant, and at each level noise is added to the data. The costs of maintaining such a system in the living state grow in proportion to the number of nodes in the system itself. In modern business, such structures are not so common, but still, they can be found in the state. sector, as well as large monopolistic companies. Such a system can be presented in the form of a “manager-manager-manager-manager ... manager-executive” scheme.
The development of the concept of a cybernetic approach led to the understanding that it is necessary not only to eliminate redundancy, but also to reduce the costs of organizing information flows. Such an approach includes two rationalization strategies: 1. Removal of unnecessary and duplicate nodes from the system 2. Delegation of decision-making from a control element to an element performing.
One of the successful examples of the implementation of these two methods is the company 37signals, which allowed itself to abandon the vertical structure of business organization and create the most flat structure in which there are no managers, but only performers. Thus, the career growth of each employee is not reduced to the transition from the executor to the role of leader, but to the expansion of his competence within the framework of his position. So the designer can grow into a great designer, but not an art director, and the system administrator will not be able to become the head of the technical department. This system is very beautiful in the concept of "equal among equals".
On the one hand, this approach encourages everyone to expand their professional skills, on the other hand, eliminates competition for the right to manage the entire system at once. However, it is important to note that such a system cannot be idealized, and it can be far from effective for everyone.
So with the increase in turnover, the company 37signals was faced with the need to expand the staff, and when the staff amounted to more than 20 people, there was a natural need to coordinate the actions of the team. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to create an administrative and managerial layer, a scheme was developed, according to which each of the employees in his group alternately occupied the role of a manager and assumed coordination of actions, and a week later it was replaced by another. Thus, the eternal problem was eliminated with the manager not understanding the problems of subordinates and vice versa. All decisions are swinging development strategies of the company and the projects being carried out were taken by the CEO of the company.
Naturally, the system, when the overwhelming majority are engaged in work, and not control over the work of other people, is extremely effective. So the company 37signals during its existence managed to reach a multi-million dollar profit and produce a number of extremely successful products.
The optimal result for most companies lies somewhere in between. If you completely give up control and give everyone the opportunity to choose directions of movement, then it may not be very easy to achieve your goals. However, this concept is not without exception. So Valve raised the idea of ​​not coordinating from above in the Absolute. All company employees were given the opportunity to unite within the company purely in their own interests. In such a system, only those projects that collected the most employees around themselves survived. And who will say that the company is not successful? Now Valve earns in terms of one employee more than Google, Amazon or Microsoft.
The approaches used in these two companies are synergistic, and significantly deviate from goal-setting, which is provided for in the cybernetic approach, and development strategies implemented through it. If the cybernetic approach implies the existence of a certain ultimate goal, the achievement of which the system should come through through self-organization, then synergetic considers the process of self-organization, as a consequence of the development of cooperation of elements within the system itself.
In the first case, the goals and sets the control unit of the system, the second approach for the most part is anarchic and implies the most direct influence of each element on the policies of the life of the entire system. Synergy in itself is primarily the science of the interaction of elements, in which the elements are organized in such a way as to mutually complement each other and produce a more stable system than the system that could be built on simple principles of subordination.
The introduction of a synergistic campaign on the one hand solves the problem of motivation because there is no need to artificially lure people into work, and on the other hand cultivates leadership in people. The latter is extremely important. only within the framework of leadership can the concept of freedom of choice and responsibility for one’s choice be realized.
In a synergistic team, each of the performers turns into a creator. This allows you to create the most stable and flexible team capable of working with minimal costs and effectively implement innovative concepts. In modern business, the phenomenon of self-organization is not just an important, but extremely significant competitive advantage; therefore, more and more companies are trying to move away from linear management towards the concept of self-organizing teams.
Video from the last conference on personal effectiveness.
upd: added video link
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/148048/
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