Meer met minder management: loslaten

The topic of this article highly correlates with Fire all the managers of Gary Klein. It describes examples of Dutch organisations that introduced new forms of organisations. A form, without any managers.

The authors of the article states that this new form of organisation in centred around professionals. Professionals have the expertise and experience managers lack. In essence they say: as a management you have to let go. Decisions, ownership and initiatives should be at the heart of the professional, not a management layer.

Characteristics of this form of organisation the authors recognise:

• Lower cost of transactions
• Structure of team is essential step.
  • Think of size and purpose
• Responsibilities of a team
  • A team can have a strategic-tactical-operational responsibility or less elements.
• Teamwork is an art and as such requires support for the teams

The results of letting go are:

• Professionals feel owner of the work. They raise questions concerning the formal ownership in some cases.
• Traditional management tasks move from vertical to horizontal.
  • As an example. Reviews are done by peers instead of a manager.
  • Division of tasks is done in the team, by the members self
• More then just saving costs
  • Way of working is more fitting for this day and age
• Informal control; coaches without any Responsibilities
  • New roles popup like teamcoaches. These roles form a special piece of the puzzle. Caution has to be exercised that these roles do not become the new form of manager.
  • Preferable these roles are temporary.
• Managers are less important, but in some case they arise again.
  • Could be in three roles:
    • Formal ownership of the organisation
    • Point of contact for the outside world (boundary spanner)
    • Facilitation of teams so that they can organise their work, especially when teams are not functioning well.
• Support staff is essential for good self-management of teams.
  • e.g. financial advisors for the teams.
• Fault tolerance is an important issue for the supporters
  • Teams deserve autonomy, which means making their own faults. As coach or supporter it is hard to let teams make their mistake

The road to self-steering teams:

• Self-steering is designed
• Half-implementing is not implementing
• Radical change (big-bang) is required.
• Requires persistence and letting go of top management
• Technology can help, but is not required

[debruijn2014neworg] Bruijn, H., & Voort, H. (2014). Nieuwerwets organiseren (1ste ed.). Koninklijke Van Gorcum.