[OSList] "Building Self-Management Muscles"

[Kevin O'Brien via OSList]

Meant to say "that" story, referring to my Huff post piece!

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 9:59 AM, Kevin O'Brien <kevin at ktobrien.com> wrote:

> Thank You Christine! Suzanne Daigle was a big help in pulling this story
> out of me.
>
> Regarding your story about the non-profit, the issues of silos and lack of
> clarity are very interesting. I find myself wondering, is the problem a
> lack of self-management understanding, a lack of strength in using
> self-management, mis-communication, or maybe something else all together.
>
> I don't have any non-profit stories of my own but I have worked in teams
> of 150 people that were completely self-managed. One of those teams did go
> through a very large change in strategic direction and the issues of silos
> and clarity where certainly present. Even in teams where the principles and
> practices of self-management are deeply embedded, mis-communication can
> still reek havoc.
>
> Without sharing the details, I'll try to tell the story.
>
> A collection of individual product lines that were for many years or even
> decades all stand alone businesses with their own P&Ls and cross-functional
> teams were facing an issue of long term viability of each stand alone
> business. There was a need to do something different because the current
> direction was not sustainable. But how to shake up a collection of
> businesses that are all self-managed. It started by coming together around
> the issues and opportunities. Just like we do in Open Space. It some cases
> it became clear that some products or businesses needed to go. The
> challenge was how to make the change without sinking the whole ship alone
> with it. By involving people at all levels in the realities of the
> situation, it became clear to some business leaders that they needed to
> slow down and eventually close their business. It is hard when certain
> people who all like each other and have been working together for a long
> time have to face the realization that what they had is not going to last.
> But even when you all know that something needs to change, the path forward
> is still not clear. It would be easier to just put someone "in-charge" and
> have them sort it all out. But since you don't have that in
> self-management, you have to work through the issues together. It is tricky
> because for many people what was clear before about how the organization
> worked (in SM it is about knowing who to go to) is not so clear anymore.
> Some people band together into "silos" because they don't like what's going
> on. Some people are frustrated but understand the need for change and are
> willing to deal with the uncertainty. Some are championing the change and
> have the unique issue of needing to communicate. But communication can be
> very hard when you don't know how things are going to look in the future.
> So what do you do?
>
> What everyone on this list already knows. You just keep opening the space.
> One-on-one. In groups. Everymonth. Everyday The path forward will expose
> itself.
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Christine Whitney Sanchez via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
>> Nice job, Kevin!  Take a look, everyone...
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/great-work-cultures/building-self-management_b_7859320.html
>>
>> Yesterday, I had a conversation with one of my long-time clients, the COO
>> of a nonprofit org, who teaches nonprofit management at a couple of
>> universities.  In her organization, they have a team-based culture that
>> supports some self-managed teams and some teams with supervisors, depending
>> on their level of development according to some collectively created
>> criteria.
>>
>> She commented that in an organization with a relatively small number of
>> paid staff (70 FTEs, 55 Seasonal Staff, 2,000 volunteers) one of the
>> challenges of self-managed functional teams is how quickly they become
>> silos.  From her perspective, self-managed cross-functional teams tend to
>> spend too much time trying to understand what everyone does - these often
>> don’t feel like teams but more like gaggles of loosely connected colleagues
>> .
>>
>> I would love to hear stories from any of you in our global community
>> about successful self-managed teams in nonprofit orgs or in any type of org
>> with under 100 FTEs.
>>
>> Warm wishes from a toasty Phoenix evening,
>>
>> Christine
>>
>> Christine Whitney Sanchez, M.C.
>> Phoenix, AZ, USA • +1.480.759.0262
>> www.innovationpartners.com
>> www.christinewhitneysanchez.com
>>
>> Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/ChristineWhitneySanchez> | LinkedIn
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinewhitneysanchez> | Twitter
>> <https://twitter.com/CWhitneySanchez>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
>
>


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