When people have clear instructions and expectations it is true that they get to feel very safe and secure in what they do. Often though they are left frustrated that the decision makers are not instructing them to do the things they see need doing. The biggest problems I see with traditional command and control management structures is the inefficiency, poor quality, and lost productivity that results – the people in charge are often not involved enough in the actual work to make the best decisions, and the people doing the work don’t feel enough ownership to do more than the instructions strictly asked for. 

While it seems easy enough to just tell people to become more self-managing/self-leading, I hope you can appreciate the irony in that approach. Although it unfortunately doesn’t stop many business leaders from doing just that. I also hear from people I work with that the idea of taking the reins, so-to-speak, at work is kind of scary and often it’s a daunting challenge to know where to begin.

So, ever the pragmatist, this is my attempt to describe a supportive process that might just help people get started with a little more confidence and little less fear. What follows is something I use myself, and which I find to be successful. My definition of success here includes satisfying the business, my direct manager, my team, and myself. We are not built to function very well as independent entities over time – we need the safety and security of the team/tribe/family to operate at our best. So these are the outcomes I offer:

• Freeing you to operate with greater autonomy and creativity

• Promoting clear communication in both directions

• Allowing your manager the opportunity to provide any guidance and support needed

The process isn’t complicated or ambiguous. It requires a simple change of language and that you adopt a mindset to consider your options and choose the best course you can.

I originally referred to this as ‘Intention-based management’, but please don’t take that to mean that this is a technique that a ‘manager’ should use in order to ‘manage’ others. But once I processed what I was saying and the reactions it was eliciting, I realized that it is intention-based leadership. The idea is more about an individual’s ability to self-manage their contributions and increase their ability to operate with autonomy. It is a way to partner with those around you more productively.

You as an Individual

Unless you’re at the top of the chain in every area of your life you can put this 4 step strategy to good use!

Step 1 – Intention

We tend towards 2 common approaches to getting work done:

• Wait to receive instructions – do nothing different until they arrive

• Think of a possible option and ask for permission to implement it

Both create bottlenecks, decreasing your efficiency by slowing you down, and decreasing your managers efficiency by requiring them to be alert and responsive to your needs (or lose productivity as a result).

The third alternative you can adopt is to consider all options, select the one you think offers the best return on investment, and adopt an intention to make that happen.

You should understand what options you considered and discarded and be able to explain why your preferred choice mattered most to you. It’s ok if others may not have made the same choice. It’s your right to make your own judgement and hold your own opinion. 

So far all perfectly safe and reasonable

Step 2 – Language

In order to stay safe, and honor your commitment to work well with others, you need to make what you intend to do clear and unambiguous. This is unbelievably easy. It starts with the words “I intend to”.

By changing the nature of the language you use from “Is it ok if I…?,” or “Can I…?,” you are removing the requirement for others to respond. By stating what you intend to do, you have created a flow in which there is no obstacle to you following through with it. The other person still has the option to respond, and by the nature of their position, the obligation to inquire further into your intended actions if they are unsure of anything. This person can also offer guidance and support if they see an opportunity to provide value.

It’s good practice to provide a short explanation to give the context for your decision, and this will often resolve any need for further clarity. 

You do need to accompany your statement of intent with a clear time window before you go ahead. Be transparent and be reasonable.

Step 3 – Commitment

This is perhaps the hardest step because you have to commit to doing what you intended. Don’t check back in with a statement like “I’m going ahead now”, or “Hope it’s ok if…”. Trust your judgement and follow the process.

Step 4 – Evaluation 

Consider how well you stuck to your statement of intention. Did you do something other than what you said? Did you do more or less than your language promised? 

You might need to change your plan in order to be successful or avoid disaster. It’s ok. What’s important is that you learn from that. It could be that you need more experience in planning out your actions. It could be that you need to break the task down into more steps and commit to one part at a time so that you have better information to take into the next.

Consider the outcome. Was the action you chose a successful one, did it deliver what you intended?

More often than not the outcomes to anything interesting are not either complete success or utter failure, but rather somewhere in between, or a mixture of small successes and failures. 

Embrace failure and learn from it. I’m serious. You can usually learn more from what goes wrong than what goes right. When everything works you are just getting a confirmation that the known path is valid. When things fail you are challenged to look deeper, to understand how you need to adapt to be successful.

Some notes and an example

Notes

The language you use matters. I can’t stress this enough. If you want to communicate your intentions clearly you must use the right words!

This may not work like a well-oiled machine the first time you try it out. You may give far too much information up front if you’re feeling unsure. Your leaders might not understand your approach and may miss the window in which to inquire. That’s ok. There are ways to make it easier, and it doesn’t take a lot of practice to get it working smoothly.

If the communication is too verbose, you just created a learning opportunity for both yourself and others. It’s never a bad thing to figure out a better way of working, and you will strengthen your relationship in the process.

If leadership doesn’t respond, and the outcome isn’t ideal, then there is learning there also. From your side you can allow a slightly longer response window before you go ahead. For the others, if you have acted as intended they will really understand the process and are unlikely to miss their window again. Start small, and any less than stellar outcome is not going to be that bad.

Another useful note may be to think about how easily your actions can be reversed if they go wrong. Most of what we do can easily be undone. And the likely worst case is that we lose a few days of effort in the process. The easier it is to reverse the better. When the consequences are harder to back out of you really need to be more cautious.

These may not be the only hiccups, but they are common ones. Ultimately, this requires that we are open, honest, willing to show commitment, and willing to participate in building trust and excellence. If those aren’t things we want then we have much bigger problems!

An example

Problem: There are problems with the build pipeline for the project I’m working on. The builds are unreliable, often failing multiple times with no understandable reason. Team members are having to re-submit pull requests over and over to get work in. No one has ownership and everyone feels like there is just too much work to be done for anyone to take the time out to fix this right now. I can see that the time being wasted might add up to a whole person over the course of a week, so I know solving this will make us more efficient, even if it slows us down to look at it.

Action: I drop the following note in chat to my manager:

“The problem people keep complaining about with the builds isn’t being solved and looking at the extra time I’m losing in my pull requests and re-reviewing the pull requests of others I think it adds up to a significant loss of productivity for the team. It’s also bad for team morale so I’ve decided to take ownership of it. I did think about whether there is someone better qualified but having asked around no-one seems to have any ideas. I intend to start working on this tomorrow after I complete my current work item. I’ll invite the team to collaborate as we might solve it faster with more than 1 brain. I intend to keep the team informed in daily stand-up so you will know where I am until I solve this. If I need help from  outside the team I’ll go talk to anyone I need.”

Action: The next morning I’ve completed my current work item, so as planned I start looking at identifying and resolving build issues. I let the team know at stand-up that this will be my focus, I invite anyone that wants to collaborate or who might have ideas to meet separately. I start solving the problem.

You as a Leader (not a Manager)

Inviting intention

All of this requires individuals to want to start their self-leadership journey, and to be brave enough to embrace the idea that this approach will be supported by the leadership in the organisation they work in.

If you’re reading this as a current leader, then there’s an opportunity for you to help your team members in adopting this. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Make this the focus of a team meeting. Talk about how this could fit the context of some real work. Change your language to invite team members to become more intentional.

Ask questions that invite statements of intent, like:

• “What are you planning on doing right now?”

• “What do you recommend we do next?”

• “What do you want to do here?”

You will often hear a team member ask you if something is ok for something you are quite happy to say “yes” on. Instead of that permission granting response, try something like “Tell me what you intend to do (now/next)”. Again, language matters!

Do this often enough and it will feel natural. Your team members will start to operate more effectively as they understand that you are not there to control what they do, but rather enable them to do what they think is right and support them in figuring out how to get there.

Setting context

One of the best ways to support your team and to build some confidence in their developing self-leadership potential is by setting appropriate context.

As a leader  you should be doing these things on a regular basis:

• Explain your role: As a leader you are not here to be ‘in charge’, but to take care of the people in your charge. Don’t aim to spend any time figuring out how to make people better. Because people are not problems, they will unfortunately never ‘solve’ the way a nice well-behaved problem does. You will enjoy life more if you understand that your role is to help people discover what ‘better’ looks like for them, and how they might get there. Your team members need to hear this from you.

• Talk about the goals for the team/project/product, and how they connect to the business. Make sure everyone in the team can see that common goal and connect to it in a way that is meaningful to them.

Don’t make the mistake of saying something once and expecting it to stick. People need to hear new things several times, and reinforcing context is never wasted effort.

I Dare You!

I read this back, and I’m not seeing the holes in my logic. I know this works because I use it all the time. It makes people happy, because it makes everyone more productive. It reduces barriers to change. It creates transparency and builds trust. It just feels right when you do it.

So I dare you. I double-dare you! Take charge of your life, enable others to take charge of theirs. Be intentional!

Learn more about the work that we do and the programs that we offer. Set up a call to start planning how you want to change the culture of your organization.

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About the Author:

KYLE RICHARDSON

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