The Boss’s Role in a High-Performing, Self-Managing Team

Welcome to your new team. The Team you have been given is brilliant – self-reliant, and successful. You are the guy in charge. Congratulations. But they are so brilliant that they don’t seem to need a manager… they don’t even need a leader…. so what is your role as the “Guy in Charge”?

I’ve been there. Here is my advice:

1. You do not manage a High-performing team, they self-manage.
But you do have management tasks:
·        Yes they mostly self-manage, but despite how it sounds, self-management doesn’t just happen. Some stuff needs to be scheduled or organised. For example - Schedule their planning sessions and facilitate the meetings. As a facilitator you are independent – you don’t get a vote. If you (rather than a team member) facilitate, this frees the individual team members to advance their views without concern that the team member who is facilitator is pushing the team in a particular direction. Similarly, schedule and facilitate the Retrospective and other meetings.
·        Find out what they need (ask them). Get it.
·        Find out what their impediments are (ask them). Fix it.

2. You do not lead a High Performance team – once they know where they are going, they will decide how to get there.
But you do have leadership tasks:
·        Set the tone. A high-performance team is positive. If the guy in charge is snarling at everyone, the tone of a team can decline quickly. Smile, greet everybody cheerfully in the morning, and speak about everybody with respect.
·        Set the direction. Yes, once they know where they are going, they don’t need you to lead them. But they NEED TO KNOW WHERE THEY ARE GOING! Place a clear vision in everybody’s head at the outset, and keep it there. This vision is not about requirements, it is about the intent behind the requirements. Your team should be able to answer questions about the intent: Why is this project good? Who is going to benefit? How? What is the business need?
·        Continuously improve the team’s working processes, tools and environment. Retrospectives and impediments should provide signposts towards making the project better and making life easier for everyone. Watch for the opportunities and act on them.
·        Continuously improve the team. Cross training, in-house training, mentoring (formal and informal). Make it happen.


3. So if you don’t manage them, and you don’t lead them…. What do you do with a high performance team?

You unleash them.
You have an unleashing role and it is this:

1. Motivate your team. At the outset place a picture in their head about why they want to do this. What is in it for them? Why is this project cool? Often it is just about being part of a great team that really rocks. If so, make sure the fact that your team rocks gets recognised – both within the team and externally. Then set them free. Make sure they know they are free.... but that is a story for another day.
2. Be a decision maker when your team needs a decision. How to decide (adapted from the Cynefin framework):

• If it’s simple, trust the manual
• If it’s complicated, trust the experts on your team 
• If it’s complex, trust the team’s experiments
• If it’s chaotic, trust yourself. Stay calm, but unleash hell if that is what it takes to bring things back from the brink. Then buy your team some breathing space and put them back in charge.