What is an Autonomous Team?
An autonomous team is a group of individuals who have the freedom to manage their own work and working practices with minimal supervision. This type of team is self-managed, meaning that team members are responsible for making decisions, setting their own goals, and determining how to achieve them.
Autonomous teams are often used in business management to increase employee engagement, motivation, and productivity. By giving team members the autonomy to make their own decisions, organisations can foster a culture of creativity, innovation, and accountability.
5 tactics to develop role autonomy and engage employees in change.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that organisations must be agile. Rapid change is sometimes necessary. It’s likely to continue to be so on an even greater scale in the future. This brings us to managing change.
A statistic that is often quoted is that 70% of organisational change projects fail. To improve the success of change management projects, it is essential for employees to be engaged in the change. Role autonomy is key to this. Why? Because autonomy empowers people in self-determination and creation – and people tend not to destroy what they create. Role autonomy significantly enhances employee motivation, as it empowers individuals to take ownership of their work and contribute meaningfully to organisational change.
What is autonomy anyway?
Workplace autonomy can be defined in many ways, but it boils down to empowering employees to shape their working environment and their working practices in ways that most suit them.
Of all common human traits, perhaps the one that compels us to find the easiest solution – ways to work smarter rather than harder – is the strongest. It drives invention and innovation. This thirst for creating easier lives has given us the desire to create everything we take for granted today, from the wheel to the world wide web.
Role autonomy allows people to thrive
The days of controlling, carrot-and-stick leadership are long gone. If you want your team to change, leaders must guide and inspire. Give them the tools to do their job, and allow them to design how they do it. Explain the results you need, give them guidance, and then allow them to finesse how they work. Contrary to how some managers think, your people want to do the best work they can – and they probably know more about the work they do than their managers.
As Jack Welch (who as CEO of General Electric during the last two decades of the 20th century steered it through a period of colossal change) advised, “Place the best people for the best opportunities and to properly distribute the monies to the right places. That’s all. Communicate your ideas, distribute the resources and get out of the way.”
In short, providing autonomy to people in the workplace provides the environment and incentive in which they will thrive. This translates into good news for the organisation, especially in times of change. To truly thrive, it is essential to create psychological safety, where employees feel safe to express their ideas and take risks without fear of ridicule or punishment. You give people the power to become involved in the change. This gives them the power to create the change. This level of engagement is key in strategies for overcoming resistance to change.
Autonomy is a tool of teamwork
Providing team autonomy within roles is not giving a carte blanche to individuals to do as they please. They must still be guided in what they do. The change process will have defined milestones and goals, and expected outcomes. Providing autonomy allows people to change lanes while staying on the same course.
Autonomy at work should be used as a tool to encourage collaboration. It is not about working on your own. It’s about understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, identifying help needed, and using the strength of the team to produce meaningful results.
The benefits of autonomy in teams for job satisfaction
People who are given the power of self-determination are generally happier, more highly motivated, and more loyal than those under authoritarian control. Autonomy creates the environment in which employee engagement flourishes. Autonomy in the workplace leads to higher job satisfaction as employees feel more fulfilled and motivated.
Happier, more motivated employees are less likely to leave and more likely to work toward collective goals. This increased motivation and job satisfaction directly contribute to higher employee retention rates. Other benefits include:
- More motivation to learn and develop
- Improved productivity
- Greater affinity with organisational culture
- Increased self-value
- Greater collaboration
- Improved creativity and innovation
- Enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving abilities
How to Create an Autonomous Team
Creating an autonomous team requires a deliberate and structured approach. Here are the steps to follow:
Step 1: Communicate Your Overall Vision
Communicating your overall vision to your team is essential in creating an autonomous team. This involves sharing your organisation’s goals, values, and mission with your team members.
By doing so, you will help them understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture and empower them to make decisions that align with your organisation’s objectives. Make sure to provide clear guidelines and expectations while also giving your team the freedom to decide how to achieve their goals.
Step 2: Hire People Who Can Work Autonomously
Hiring people who can work autonomously is crucial in creating an autonomous team. Look for individuals who are self-motivated, disciplined, and able to work independently. These individuals should be able to make decisions, solve problems, and take ownership of their work.
When hiring, look for candidates who have a track record of working autonomously and who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.
Step 3: Train Your Team to Be Autonomous
Training your team to be autonomous involves providing them with the skills and knowledge they need to make decisions and take ownership of their work. This includes training on decision-making, problem-solving, and communication. You should also provide your team with the tools and resources they need to work autonomously, such as project management software and collaboration tools.
By investing in your team’s professional development, you will empower them to work autonomously and make decisions that align with your organisation’s goals.
Delivering the benefits of role autonomy, employee engagement, and employee retention
Autonomy in the workplace doesn’’t just happen by setting out guidelines and saying, ‘get on with it’’.
Autonomy is a cultural trait. It must be instilled by clear leadership, and inspired by people-centric management. Autonomy in the workplace fosters skill development as employees are encouraged to take on new challenges and responsibilities. Here are five tactics to encourage autonomy in your teams.
1. Provide clear boundaries of autonomy
Enable employees to develop their decision-making skills by providing clear boundaries of autonomy in which they can operate. For example, in a call center you may give customer service agents the autonomy to make decisions to a value of, say, $100 without the need to refer to a manager.
2. Support your people in their efforts
Don’t leave your people without guidance. Support them as they transition into autonomous mode. Supporting your employees helps create a positive environment where they feel valued and empowered. Ensure that autonomy is provided within process and procedural limitations, and back these up with structured handbooks, manuals, and cooperative supervision.
3. Develop outcome-oriented not task-based targets
To empower people to develop work processes and procedures that deliver improved results and higher productivity, move away from task-based targets and focus on autonomous work. Instead, help people to focus on outcomes. You want 1,000 widgets made each hour? Ask your operatives how they could deliver this.
4. Understand that mistakes will happen – and learn from them
To err is human. People will make mistakes. It is not the mistake that defines us, it is how we react to it. Develop a culture in which informed risk-taking is acceptable, and in which mistakes and what is learned from them are shared.
5. Trust your people
We may have saved the most important tactic until last. Autonomy can only exist in an environment in which people are trusted. Without trust, managers will feel the need to control. Without trust, employees will not act autonomously.
Team leaders play a crucial role in building this trust by providing the right balance of guidance and freedom.
At the core of trust is how you communicate – and this includes building trust in globally remote teams. Learn to listen to your employees and act on the feedback you receive. They are the ones who are most affected by change. Autonomous employees will help you affect successful change, because they are the ones who will be responsible for determining their own success.
To learn more about creating a change-ready organisation, connect with Primeast today.
