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@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> > > > _______________________________________________ > OSList mailing list > To post send emails to OSList@lists.openspacetech.org > To unsubscribe send an email to oslist-le...@lists.openspacetech.org > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org > Past archives can be viewed here: > http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org > --
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