Introduction
“My role is that of a catalyst”, wrote Ricardo Semler in Maverick, “I try to create an environment in which others make decisions”[1]. Semler’s statement may appear simplistic when considering the deep changes that turned the Brazilian machine manufacturer Semco into a pioneer of entrepreneurial self-organisation: from decreasing the number of management roles, to empowering local decision makers, and the transparency of all relevant business data up through employee profit sharing.
For me, Semco´s evolution is one of the most spectacular examples in the history of self-organisation. It seems to be a worthy opening for my new book, which includes many sensational stories. Semler’s catalyst statement emphasizes three core elements of self-organising enterprises. First, it emphasizes the importance of the environment, or context, in which the work occurs. Second, it emphasizes the role of decision making through which we continuously re-organise ourselves. And third, it emphasizes that the decisions are made by the subject matter experts instead of their superiors.
The changes in Semler’s own role over the course of the company’s history are similarly spectacular. After many years as CEO, he withdrew himself from the daily business of Semco. “Now I am just another counsellor. But my job hasn’t changed. I try to make things happen, like a catalyst.”[2]
It’s interesting that Semler affiliated his management and counsellor role with the same metaphor. On the one hand, this double metaphor contains, like brackets, an important period in Semco’s evolution. On the other hand, Semler himself merges two areas that are the focus of this book. Management and coaching are seen as essential services for successful business development. Both services are necessary for developing a work system that is as agile as possible to respond to the rapidly changing market. I believe self-organisation is the foundation of this kind of entrepreneurial responsivity. If we are not able to create a supportive environment, encourage people to manage themselves within clear boundaries, and trust that they will do their best, achieving success will be extremely difficult.
Many companies dream of business agility, but this is impossible to achieve without self-organisation. Clever concepts and management rhetoric are not enough. It needs profound understanding, flexible forms of interaction, and enough stamina for the long journey of incremental improvement. Luckily, self-organisation today is no longer rocket science. There are enough enterprises that we can learn from to find our own way. Semco is only one example of such an enterprise, and you will learn about many others in this book.
The question remains as to why management and coaching should play an important role in self-organising enterprises. What exactly do managers need to do to create such an enterprise? What should the coaches concentrate on to inspire this creation? And which unique opportunities result from combining leadership and coaching?
I answer these questions in the four parts of this book. Part I deals with a concept of management that can cope with the challenges of the agile world. I attempt to dispel some myths about agility and self-organisation. After that, I will refer to several topics from my last book, Leading Self-Organising Teams [3], and will show you, among other things, how such teams can continue to grow.
In Part II of this book, I go beyond the individual teams and methods to examine enterprise-wide self-organisation. To achieve this, we can refer to eight design principles, and each will be examined in their own chapter:
- Customer First
- Visual Work Management
- Fast Feedback Loops
- Customized Decisions
- Bold Experiments
- Lean Organisational Structure
- Distributed Management
- Continuous Training
A broad spectrum of practical examples from various industries, contexts and countries should help you to pursue your own change initiative without having to rely on standardized frameworks.
Part III of the book explains why I view coaching as a core skill for such initiatives. First, I will give a solid definition of coaching: What is coaching? What distinguishes this kind of professional help from other forms of support? And what does it have to do with self-organisation? In addition, I introduce four types of support that now belong to the daily business of self-organising enterprises: peer consulting, peer feedback, and coaching managers as well as managers as coaches. Real-life examples help to convey a practical understanding of these concepts.
In Part IV, I focus on the idea presented at the beginning of this foreword from Ricardo Semler. I have even dared to create a short manifesto for self-organising leadership in which I propose that management and coaching should go hand in hand. With regards to this special partnership, I outline a different way of leading and share some personal experiences.
Who can benefit from these four parts? The subtitle of the book, "Management and Coaching in the Agile World", focuses on two target groups. The first target group is line managers who want to create an agile enterprise and know, or at least have an idea, that they need self-organisation and a fresh understanding of management. The second target group is coaches who support such a transformation by using their specific subject matter expertise and process knowledge. It would be even better when a coach reads the management part of this book, just as a manager might dig deeper into the coaching part. Managers are playing an increased role as internal coaches and mentors, and the concept of a sparring partnership between managers and external coaches encourages out-of-the-box thinking.
Because this book advocates leadership at all levels, it has something to offer to many other members of the organisation as well—whether they be technicians, product managers, project leaders or human resources specialists. The distribution of management responsibilities that characterizes a self-organising enterprise, the delegation of decision-making authority, or the peer coaching and feedback are practices that everyone can benefit from.
Why should you keep reading? What do you get out of it? Essentially, you will learn how to take better care of your customers, give your employees a more satisfying work life and at the same time make a respectable profit. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Specifically, I will describe:
- How you, as a manager, can concentrate on the design of a work system that will be fit for the future. I'll show you how to establish such a system so autonomy is gradually expanded. To achieve this, you will need decision-making policies, fast feedback loops and a smart distribution of traditional management responsibilities.
- How you, as a coach, can help cultivate self-organisation by providing helpful impulses. A careful balance between expert and process coaching is as important as the ability to support, as well as challenge, the managers. For me, one of the obvious consequences of agile transformation is that managers themselves gain more coaching competencies.
- How you as a subject matter expert can create an open atmosphere with your colleagues, but also with management, and take full responsibility for those work areas for which you are accountable.
These three value propositions reinforce my argument that self-organising enterprises are a catalyst for leadership capabilities. However, not all employees are equal in a self-organising environment. If anything, the business value of self-organisation lies in the ability of not only respecting, but also deliberately utilising, the employees´ differences in experience, skill levels and personality. The agile coordination of these differences comprises the lifeblood of self-organisation.
Maybe all of this sounds familiar to you. If that is the case, I hope that insight (and not the devil) lies in the details. Even more, I hope the details in this book will help you with your own organisational design..
It won't surprise you that I didn't invent self-organisation. There are several pioneers that this book refers to. I would like to specifically mention the inspiring work of Brian M. Carney, Isaac Getz, Gary Hamel, Dominik Hammer, Stefan Kaduk, Frederic Laloux, Dirk Osmetz, Hans A. Wüthrich, and the Corporate Rebels Joost Minnaar and Pim de Morree.
Inspiration is also the keyword for the insights I got from the books of practitioners like Hermann Arnold, Corinna Baldauf, Timo Capriuoli, Alexander Gysinn, Klaus Hoppmann, Bodo Janssen, Detlef and Ulrich Lohmann, Tim Mois, Lee Ozley, Ricardo Semler, Rich Teerlink and Götz Werner.
A special thanks goes to all my partners from the various enterprises covered in this book: Sandra Altnow, Gerhard Andrey, Michael Beyer, Peter Hollenbeck, Katrin Dietze, Hans Gruber, Jutta Handlanger, Erich Harsch, Thijs Havenaar, Achim Hensen, Cliff Hazell, Holger Karcher, Marijke Kasius, Werner Kohl, Stef Lagomatis, Benno Löffler, Ulrich Lohmann, Sönke Martens, Markus Monka, Thu Pakasathanan, Matthias Patzak, Clemens Riedl, Arne Roock, Hartger Ruijs, Michael Rumpler, Peter Stämpfli, Frank Schlesinger, Alexander Schley, Markus Stelzmann, Eva Stöger, Nicole Tietz, Stefan Truthän, and Carina Visser.
I would also like to thank these brave people who worked through several versions of this book and significantly influenced it: my brother in agile arms Klaus Leopold, my editor Christa Preisendanz, my translator Jennifer Minnich, my dear friend and intellectual companion Georg Tillner, and last but not least Sabine Eybl, my business partner and love of my life.
I dedicate this book to our two daughters — with the hope that they´ll find more opportunities and less restrictions both in society in general and in the business environment in particular.