Wednesday, March 15, 2017

3 Ways to Decentralize Management and Boost Productivity

By DUSTY WUNDERLICH
Founder and CEO, Bristlecone Holdings

Facilitating collaboration between departments such as engineering and marketing helps employees understand how their work assignments fit together in service of their audiences. Startup leaders can use the following strategies to create decentralized businesses:

1. Rethink structure.

Forget about traditional hierarchies, especially in the early days. There may come a time when a more traditional approach works for an organization, but the startup stage is not it. Hierarchy-induced stress has long been linked to heart disease, among other health issues, and it increases voluntary turnover by 50 percent.

So, avoid these stress-related pitfalls; organize employees into autonomous squads that can work across disciplines.

Foster a sense of equality by encouraging conversations among staff members of all experience levels. My company practices department shadowing, in which founders and executives learn what people are doing throughout the organization.

When the concierge receives visits from the COO, and the VP of marketing sits in with accounting, employees understand that we’re all part of the same team, pursuing shared objectives.

2. Create a team of "intrapreneurs."

Startup employees make the best intrapreneurs. Because they’re involved in so many areas of the business, they have unique views on what types of products will resonate with their markets. Google’s intrapreneurship program, for example, empowers team members to pursue their ideas without getting approval from their bosses.

They can partner with colleagues to explore concepts and potentially create new products for the company.

Cultivate a similar mentality by inviting employees to build new solutions and collaborate with their co-workers on ideas. Trust them to take initiative; don’t require them to get a manager’s green light before acting. Not only will this spur innovation even as the company leaves the startup stage, it will also inspire employee loyalty and enthusiasm.

3. Rally around a common goal.

Shared goals are a great way to bring people together and drive results. And while 75 percent of employers in one survey by Queens University in Charlotte, N.C., rated collaboration as “very important,” 39 percent of employees reported that their organizations didn't collaborate enough.

My own company decided to emphasize sales volume one year, and every department worked toward specific origination goals. Not only did each team's members want to perform the best, they didn’t want to let one another down. No one wanted to be the reason we fell short, so everyone worked harder to ensure we hit the target.

We also created opportunities for cross-collaboration, so different departments could gain insights into one another’s processes as we pursued the goal. People work together best when they understand what’s happening within each department and empathize with the unique constraints and pressures their colleagues experience.

A shared goal helped us foster more empathy and camaraderie between and among groups. We enjoyed our best sales year ever and saw an increase in proactive behavior throughout the company.

In sum, the flattened structure approach enables startups to run on all cylinders at all times. Employees can burn out when working in silos because they feel that the success of a particular project falls on them alone. Alternately, flat teams share responsibilities and energize one another through collaboration. The personal, innovative nature of holacratic startups makes them more agile and better equipped to take on their markets.

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