Employee empowerment has the wind in its sails, but it also has certain limitations. Agency, however, goes much further in the development of your employees.

Empowerment

Definition of “Empowerment“
In the sphere of management and organizational theory, “empowerment” often refers loosely to processes for giving subordinates (or workers generally) greater discretion and resources: distributing control in order to better serve both customers and the interests of employing organizations.

Empowerment, according to Wikipedia

The concept of empowerment is not new, but I have mainly heard about it in the last 5 years. Companies, seeing that the command and control approach is equivalent to accompanying each employee towards the door one performance review at the time, changed their mind and began to think that giving more room for decisions and responsibilities to their employees could have a positive impact on their motivation and therefore their performance.

None of this is false. If we trust Daniel H. Pink’s works, intrinsic motivation is composed of three aspects: mastery, meaning, autonomy. It is this autonomy that is aimed at when a company or a manager take initiatives towards the empowerment of their employees.

The problem with empowerment

The great problem with empowerment is that this increase in discretion and decision-making power is granted to employees by a hierarchically superior force. A manager can choose to move forward with the empowerment of his employees, usually with the goal of increasing motivation, growth, and performance. Corporate empowerment is often an initiative of management, which is spread across various departments via a management and training structure.

That being said, what happens if a manager who is a big fan of empowerment leaves and is replaced by someone who is quite less benevolent? No more empowerment. The organization decides that it does not work? No more empowerment. The organization is bought by a multinational corporation that “does not believe in these things”? No more empowerment. And the fallout from these change of minds will be dangerous. One does not take back the freedom of motivated people without suffering the consequences.

In short, empowerment exists in a relationship of power. And the name says it. “I elect to give you more power.” I empower you. Captain David Marquet explains this problem very well in his book “Turn the Ship Around”, but through leader-follower relationships.

He argues that many leaders have the reflex of empowering their collaborators, but the consequence is that this further strengthens their own leader status, as well as the follower’s status. If the leader must be there, and must voluntarily and consciously confer more power to his followers, their empowerment is directly dependent on the will of the leader.

So, basically, empowerment consolidates, strengthens and maintains the status of followers of your peers, because they can not give themselves these powers. It will never turn them into natural leaders. Here lies the limit of the concept of empowerment in businesses.

Agency

Definition of “Agency”
In the social sciences and philosophy, agency is the faculty of action of a being; his ability to act on the world, things, beings, to transform or influence them. In sociology, agency is the capacity to act, as opposed to what the structure imposes.

Structure and Agency
In social sciences, there is an ongoing debate about the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behavior. Structures are sets of devices that influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. Agency is the ability of individuals to act independently of social structures and to freely make their own choice.

Agency and Structure and Agency, translated from French on Wikipedia

Agency is the ability of a person to make decisions and act on their free will, and to influence their immediate environment. It is more natural in some people, less in others, but it is something that one can work on and develop.

We can’t remove the agency of a person, unlike empowerment. You can certainly prevent someone from exercising agency, however, at our own peril, it would be like depriving a plant of air, water and sun. A person who takes a lot of initiatives and innovates shows agency. Limiting this person’s agency basically means turning him into a pawn, an executant.

Hierarchical and corporate structures are not always tolerant of people’s agency. As defined above, agency is the ability to act as opposed to a structure. But employees with a strong sense of agency will be those who stir good trouble. Those who question for the common good. Those who will go around or bend a few rules to create new ones, or bring value in a way no one would have ever imagined. Those who will take over part of the structure that does not work for them to improve or adapt it to their reality, resulting in the optimization of their team’s work and its efficiency. And all of this without asking permission.

Now, imagine an entire team that demonstrates an increased sense of agency, and that receives the research and development mandate in a company. The potential of such a team will be dangerous for the competition.

The advantages of agency according to GoPyrate

In our workshops, we like to tell the participants that we are there to help them develop their super powers. Because our goal is always to increase the agency of a team. The techniques taught are all meant to involve more the team in their own work as well as in business processes. 

This is also the reason why we push to use real cases that the team is (or has been) involved with. It helps ground the teachings their own realities. Every company is slightly different and, as trainers, we can’t cover every variant. But your own realities can. We don’t even adapt our teachings to your realities, but we help the team do it. That way they own what they learn a lot more, and their agency develops as their confidence with the material grows and as they can directly sees how all theses ideas relate to them in a very concrete fashion.

It’s all about growing their agency.

By capitalizing on agency development, teams become more autonomous, more engaged and more innovation-driven. They also learn to communicate more with management and become more involved with business goals instead of just executing orders.

You pay your experts quite a lot, better make sure that they can contribute to the best of their abilities.

Our training is very freeform. The first thing we’ll do will be a small retrospective: We look at what they tried so far and how did it go, what are the things that they’d like to improve at work, what are the greatest challenges. From that short session, we’ll have all the priorities of your team, and all the material we need to improve on what they learned as well as what new ideas to introduce.

That’s the key with our workshops : It’s all about you, your team, your company, your needs. 

It works well with engineers, but also with managers, salespeople, HR people, etc… Most of our clients are teams of managers.

Training a team takes time. In fact, it takes quite a lot of time outside the time we’re there. We’re just the tip of the iceberg. We aim to teach principles rather than hard techniques. We want people to understand how this work and what is the value for them, and then we let them experiment over weeks. That’s good for any company.

You need people that are curious, stimulated, and bent on improving. When the employees stop being alive, the company itself is moribund. Good training is stimulating and give them a jolt. 

If you’d like to know more about GoPyrate services, visit www.gopyrate.com

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

I could have titled this article The Destructive Potential of Leader-Follower Relationships, but sometimes I prefer to see the positive side of things, you know.

This article is based on the theory according to which people behave exactly the way they are treated. In short, if we treat people as leaders, they will behave like leaders. If we treat them as schoolchildren, they will behave as such as well.

At the time of writing this article, I am reading the book Remote: Office Not Required, a book about remote work, written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, founders of 37Signals. Here is an excerpt from this book:

People have an amazing ability to live down to low expectations. If you run your ship with the conviction that everyone’s a slacker, your employees will put all their ingenuity into proving you right. If you view those who work under you as capable adults who will push themselves to excel even when you’re not breathing down their necks, they’ll delight you in return.

Source : Remote : Office Not Required, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

After reading this excerpt, I challenged my memory to find situations that could help prove this theory. I found some, and they are good ones.

The Corporate Kindergarten

In 2006, I worked for a few months for a company that was… special. It did not turn out to be a great experience, to the point where you won’t find it on my LinkedIn profile or in my resume. In this company, employees were treated as kindergarten children. No kidding. Just like a daycare.

For example, every Friday afternoon we had a 30-minute period where everyone had to actively clean their desk. It was not an employee initiative, but a business initiative, and it was mandatory. They would come and watch over to make sure it was done. Each time, it reminded me of the end-of-year days at the primary school where we used to clean our desks for the class that would inherit them in September. But these Friday afternoons are anecdotal compared to what follows.

Every day at 3pm (yes, our work schedule was from 7am to 3pm, you see, because the boss was an early bird, so all his subjects had to be too), we had to pick up our belongings, and wait in line near the door.

And when the boss was satisfied with the way the chairs were placed, the overall look of the office and our attitude, we had the right to leave the office and go back home.

So you imagine the kind of environment all of this generated. Many pretended to go to the bathroom at 2:50PM so that they could leave earlier, and of course, those who stayed were paying the price. Others would make it a point, in a spirit of contradiction, of joining the queue a few minutes late just so that the boss would also have to wait for them before leaving.

This company was able to successfully turn a bunch of adults into 6-year-olds. People were putting more energy into not getting caught by the bosses than doing their job. Small conspiracies, gossip, and denunciations had become the daily life of this business. After 6 months, I was the one with the most seniority there, because most ended up leaving or being fired. I did not wait for my turn to come, and like a rat following his survival instinct, I left the ship before it sank deeper.

This company still exists to this day. They moved, and changed their business model, but they still exist. I’m not really curious to know how they pulled it off. They probably deserved their school children. I do not know if their higher management learned anything from this situation.

Turn the Ship Around

On the other hand, I would like to give you a short summary of the work of Captain David Marquet of the United States Navy. Captain Marquet wrote the book Turn the Ship Around, in which he recounts his first experience at the head of a submarine.

David Marquet had been studying the USS Olympia submarine for months ahead of his captaincy. He had studied all the pipes, cables, parts, he knew the files of his crew members by heart. He absolutely wanted to be a good captain.

Some time before his nomination as the captain of the USS Olympia, he received a call informing him that he would instead be the captain of the USS Santa Fe, a newer submarine, but very different from the Olympia. Oh yes, and by the way, the crew of the Sante Fe was the worst performing crew in the entire US Navy. Just a detail like that.

Mr. Marquet, with confidence and pride, accepted the challenge. He thought that he would be a good captain, and if he gives good orders everything will be fine. So he became captain of the Santa Fe. On his first outing, the crew ran some simulations, Captain Marquet gave orders, the crew executed them, everything was fine. This was repeated a few times, without pitfalls.

One day, Captain Marquet decides to simulate a crisis situation. The idea was to pretend that the nuclear reactor of the submarine had melted, and that they had to return to port using the emergency batteries. During this exercise, Captain Marquet decides to add a little stress to the situation. He gives the order to adjust the speed to 2/3.

—  Ahead 2/3, he orders to his second officer.

His second officer repeats the order aloud, so that all may hear it.

— Ahead 2/3!

 Nothing happens.

The captain walks towards the officer in charge of executing this order, and asks him what is wrong.

— 2/3 is not a setting that exists on the Santa Fe, captain.

Captain Marquet turns to his second officer.

— Were you aware of that?
— Hem, yes
— Why did you give the order then?
— Well … Because you told me to…

Oh. It was at this point that Captain Marquet realized that the system was optimized for his officers to do whatever he ordered, in a nuclear submarine of which he knew nothing about and that spent most of his time in deep waters… “This is how we die,” he thought.

It took no more for him to gather his crew, and announce that from now on, he would give no more orders. He was going to announce his intentions. In short, rather than saying what to do and how to do it, the captain began to express the results he wanted to achieve, and then let his crew find the optimal way to achieve these results.

Captain Marquet adopted and maintained a leader-leader relationship with his crew. This dynamic allowed his crew to give free rein to their agency, their expertise and their sense of initiative. Captain Marquet started treating his crew members as the leaders they naturally were.

Guess what happened?

At the next evaluation of the crew, they got results that were not commonplace: they received the best score in the history of the army, all countries combined.

In a submarine crew of about thirty members, one or two officers on average eventually climb the ladder to become captains themselves. This represents 3% to 6% of a crew. In the crew of Captain Marquet, nine officers finished their career as captains. One in three!

Captain Marquet had managed to turn a nuclear submarine into a leadership factory.

From that moment, captains and crews from other naval units began visiting the Santa Fe regularly to see what was happening there. When he retired from the navy, Captain Marquet became a speaker and an author, wishing to share his story in other areas where it could be useful.

Obviously, I have removed a lot of details from this story by summarizing it. All of this did not work the first time, and the crew had to do a lot of trials and errors before finding what worked for them. But the essential is there.

Now, just do it

It was while reading the book Turn the Ship Around that I decided to change my career path and to return to a management role. I wanted to apply these principles. And I confirm, it works very well with a motivated team that craves autonomy.

Today, leader-leader relationships is a topic I talk about in my conferences, and I reproduce this approach in work units from all walks of life with GoPyrate!. Besides, we are very comfortable to compare traditional management to “telling children what to do”, and modern management to “trusting adults”. The same goes for leadership.

The world of work has everything to gain by getting rid of the tired old dynamic where it’s commonplace to treat employees like schoolchildren, soulless executants, obedient cattle…

We harvest what we sow, and we deserve what we harvest …

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

When I was asked (with a little too much enthusiasm) to make a speech, I started by saying “My departure is not bad news”. And it’s true for several reasons:

• I felt that I had done what I had to do for my department.
• I felt that I was bringing less and less value, having pushed the autonomy of my teams to its peak.
• The projects I had that were parallel to my work contributed more to my motivation and my fulfillment. I just decided to focus on what was bringing me the most value.
• This job helped to establish my Purpose and Meaning in life. It would have been absolutely counterproductive not to go all the way.

Having to explain this made me think a lot…

My problems with the turnover rate

As a manager, I was boasting that our department had an excellent turnover rate. And my departure was going to increase it. Yet my departure, as I said before my colleagues, was good news.

That’s when my thinking started and I discovered several problems with the age-old concept of turnover rate.

The turnover rate is reactive

It’s a bit of the same problem that I’ve already denounced with exit interviews. Although the turnover rate may be an interesting metric for many, it has little meaning over a short period of time, and requires people to leave their job for this metric to “work”.

But this metric provides no context. It is only an observation after the fact.

The turnover rate suggests that change is not welcome

It’s well known that you get what you measure. In this case, we measure the whether or not people stay in the company. It seems, at first glance, to be the right thing.

That being said, is the company moving forward? Are people progressing in their work? Have people had promotions? We do not know. But we know how many people have stayed.

We want people to stay in office. It is the objective. And that brings me to my biggest problem.

The turnover rate does not ensure that people are thriving

If the goal is for people to stay in office, what do we do with people who are miserable but still stay? And for whose who do not like their work? Who have aspirations? We tie them to their chair and cross our fingers?

Too often, I’ve seen companies keep people in a role they did not like, because they “didn’t want to lose them”, and guess what happened? They lost them much earlier then they thought.

For me, stagnation means death. The death of motivation, the death of self-fulfillment, and personal development. I’m the kind of person whose role is changing extremely fast. I need it. Can a company that optimizes for a good turnover rate help me in my journey?

Or, will the company try to keep me in a role I do not like, hoping that I bring as much value?

The turnover rate will soon be irrelevant

I have once stayed 8 years in the same company. Twenty years ago it was commonplace, nowadays, especially in IT, it’s almost unthinkable. And the trend will continue, and spread to other business domains.

People are increasingly looking for meaning in their work, and are now willing to make many sacrifices to fulfill their daily lives. Labor relations are expected to be shorter, or in another format. Companies that are very good (I will not even talk about companies of dubious morality) may have turnover rates of 60% in a few years, and it will be commonplace.

The question to ask is: are people leaving because of us businesses? Or do they leave because they no longer need us, to do things bigger than they could do with us?

When we’ll get there, I think the turnover rate will become irrelevant. People will grow, find meaning and achieve their dreams. The questions that companies will have to ask themselves will be:

• People who leave to do greater things, are they doing it in spite of us, or with us?
• How did we contribute to the emancipation of these people?
• Will these people be willing to refer people, or even find those who could replace them? Or have we broken this relationship by holding them back or preventing them from fulfulling their dreams?

In summary: Have we created an ambassador?

So I propose the emancipation rate

If I want to pretend to cultivate the awesomeness of people, I can not just keep people in office. I absolutely do not think this is beneficial. People with career aspirations will not all be able to develop in their role forever.

Isn’t it our job, we, the companies and their representatives, to make sure that our valued employees grow and thrive? Even if it’s in spite of us and our needs?

I know a ton and a half of companies that would rather have miserable employees in their jobs rather than help them grow, even if it could mean they might find work elsewhere. But I refuse their reality.

I sincerely believe that a happy person elsewhere is better than a miserable person who stays in office.

I sincerely believe that it is the duty of every manager and every company to raise people beyond their potential and their motivation to the risk of seeing them leave.

Will my recent departure bring a shadow on the company as it increases the turnover rate? I am one of those people who used his role as a stepping stone to accomplish important things for myself, for others, and for the world of work. I’m still talking about Marine Press saying “We”. I am still an ambassador for this company, I still refer candidates. It’s still my baby. I have elected myself as an ambassador for them. 

If I count myself among those who were under my responsibility, my emancipation rate is 75%. 75% of the people on my team who voluntarily left did it to flourish in other projects, and no longer needed the company for this to happen.

It’s a much more interesting metric for me. It proves that the company has done its part for happiness and fulfillment at work.

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

That does not suit me. I decided to do the opposite, and put humans in the heart of my hiring process. In short, I wanted to create a way of hiring that is primarily centered on the candidate.

Recently, I met a lot of people in interviews at Marine Press. And I took these opportunities to refine my approach. And it works very well so far. People who are interested REALLY are interested, and not just for the money.

We are a medium-sized company and have salaries suitable for a medium-sized company. But for candidates, their motivation to work with us is highly intrinsic, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for. People want to work here to satisfy their need for creativity, autonomy, innovation, accountability and meaning.

So, what did I find out, and how did I manage that? I would be remiss if I didn’t share my discoveries with you. 

1. The first contact in person

Not always obvious, I know. As of now, we are dealing with a headhunter who sends us candidates, and they are all very interesting. So we set interviews directly with them.

I know it would be more difficult and really different if we had to sort resumes ourselves. But the feedback I got is: we are rarities to want to meet people directly. Those who do business with a headhunter, after meeting with him, must go through a phone interview with the company, an interview with a recruiter, and then a technical interview or an interview with the manager.

With us, they meet the managers right away. It’s really appreciated by the candidates. Much less waste of time, and an immediate human contact.

2. I start by defusing formality

After the candidate arrived, the first thing I do, while showing them around the office, is usually to explain to them that this meeting is absolutely informal.

In general, I say that while pointing at my t-shirt that’s usually sporting one or another pop-culture item. Today is a Transformers t-shirt. Those lucky meet me while I’m wearing my Bob-Ross-painting-the-galaxy t-shirt.

Very quickly, I start to see the relief. Shoulders sag, jaws relax. We are not very corporate. We aren’t obsessed about our image, we are obsessed only by people, their potential and the value they can bring us.

3. I manage expectations in terms of interview performance

In our temporary office, we have tables, chairs, sofas. I let them choose what they prefer, and I explain to them how this will go:

• This is an informal, two-way discussion
• We do not want to know if candidates are good at being interviewed, we want to find people with whom we want to work, and who want to work with us
• There are no good or bad answers to our questions. We only want honest answers, and we are committed to giving equally honest answers
• It’s not just about what they can do for us, but what we can do for them and their career.

The level of comfort increases, and that’s when I start hearing stuff like “wow”.

4. It’s not about a position

One of my biggest frustrations back when I was on the candidates’ chair was when I was shown a box and then asked “Are you a cube? Jump in the box!” 

My interviews are not based on a position. At the moment, all my teams need help. We do not bias our interviews by having one particular team in mind. We reiterate the objective: We want to find a good developer with whom we want to work. In our interview, this is the goal.

So the first discussion is not about a particular position. It’s about the candidate. I ask them “Where are you going in life? What are your aspirations? What makes you vibrate?”. The discussion begins just like that. People First.

5. We talk at least as much about culture as we talk about products or technology

Candidates are all very interested in the “what”, of course, since they will be directly involved in the products. I give them an overview of our 3 products, I answer their questions when I can (I am a people manager more than a technical manager) and then we talk about the “how and why”.

I first explain the mindset of our department which encourages ownership, how teams are self-organized, how we include teams in decision-making as best we can, especially for decisions that will have a big impact on their work. It’s not always possible, but it’s our ideal.

I can see a sparkle in their eyes after this discussion. Most candidates did not work in this kind of environment.

The interview also contains a more technological portion, which is covered by a fellow technical manager. In this part, they have discussions about the candidate’s knowledge and interests. There are a few questions and answers, and the opportunity to discuss everything they are passionate about.

6. Our “People First” policy makes the difference.

What is refreshing is that if many are already interested when I tell them about the culture of our department, it is in the small details that they are downright astonished.

Our Group Insurance Plans and Group RRSPs are the most common. When they ask questions about vacations, holidays and all that, they are quickly taken aback by the answers. Here are some concrete examples of recurring questions, and my answers.

Q: How many sick days a year do you have?

A: How many days are you sick in a year? If you are sick, do not come and contaminate others. And even if we gave you a number, say 5, are you going to just be sick just 5 days? We decide to trust you on this. Sick = rest. If you are sick 29 days in 2 months, we will come to see you and ask you if everything is fine:)

Q: How are vacations managed?

A: It will not affect your managers if you are on vacation, but it will affect your team. So if the team is comfortable with the holidays, it is automatically approved. If the team is uncomfortable, it is their responsibility to find a contingency plan. When the team has a plan, the holidays are automatically approved.

I also add that if the person has two weeks of vacation, and that she finds the deal of the century for a trip to her dream destination that would last 21 days, that she take the deal, and we have will arrange well with the rest. We are not here to break people’s dreams!

Q: What is the work schedule?

A: Everyone is expected to work about 40 hours a week. We are not here to control your whereabouts and calculate 40 hours to the minute. We are results oriented. Everything we do, we do it so that our product is delivered on time and with quality. You have the latitude to do what you think is the right thing to do to achieve that goal.

And also, talking about trust, we do not fill time sheets. It is only done on sick days or holidays. The time that is worked is taken for granted. People do not have a relationship of trust with a computer software, but have one with their team and their manager. It’s easy to abuse a system without having the least scruple… but abusing the trust of your colleagues is different. People really appreciate this, and wish to be worthy of that trust.

We do not force overtime, teams volunteer for this because they care about delivering on time. There are good chances, however, that a manager will ask you when you expect to take some time off when you work overtime too often.

Basically, we stand out by our products (which, for a change, are not related to finance or insurance), but especially by all these trivial things of everyday life that very often end up stuck in heavy bureaucratic processes elsewhere. But in our workplace, they simply have to pass the test of critical judgment. “Ask your team.“

Being told that they deserve trust from day one, that they will be listened to when they have something to say, and that we will consider their whole context when they need to take vacations and days off makes all the difference.

7. They meet their future colleagues

It has not been done often enough for my taste, but recently, we organize a meeting between the candidates (sometimes the same day, sometimes during a second interview) and representatives of our teams who volunteered.

Our colleagues will be those who will live 40 hours a week with the person who will be hired, and we want them to give us the GO for hiring.

Their role in this meeting is to determine if the candidate will be able to help them, and will flourish in our technological environment. They do this by presenting our products in a concrete way (while I have only talked about them), and by finding what makes the candidate’s eyes sparkle. And most importantly, the part that interests me a lot recently, trying to evaluate the potential of the person.

Having the opportunity to talk to the developers with whom they would work (and this without supervision, my colleagues know that transparency goes without saying) is really welcome.

8. My commitment to candidates

The title of my LinkedIn profile is “I cultivate people’s awesomeness“. It’s true both at work and outside work. No one can cultivate the awesomeness of people by only creating short-term relationships.

One of my biggest frustrations in the recruiting world is seeing how many candidates end up falling into oblivion. Single use candidates. They were interesting, and all of a sudden, because of a “mismatch“, because of certain expectations or needs that do not suit the company or the candidate, they suddenly become disposable. “Thank you for your time, we will never speak again“.

I reject this reality and substitute my own. 

My message is the same for my colleagues as for my candidates: I will do what I can to help them achieve their aspirations, even if that means they will work somewhere else than at Marine Press. Fulfilled people are is better than miserable people, and we’d rather have happy people in our company, or anywhere else. With the candidates, if we can not help them flourish (or if they can not help us flourish as a business), this offer always holds.

Whether it’s by coaching them on their LinkedIn networking, putting them in touch with other recruiters, giving them tips for interviews, I offer them my help. As long as it stays within the laws and contractual agreements that I might have (for example, if they were referred to me by a headhunter, I can not refer them to other companies or recruiters myself ).

This is my added value, and it is something that I would like to see spread elsewhere in the company, and in the Montreal market.

In conclusion, here is what they said

At the end of the interview, I ask them how they experienced this. Most are unequivocal: they have never experienced such a humane interview. They do not feel scrutinized from head to toe, we do not just ask them questions while ticking checkboxes.

All of them, without exception, told me that they were getting tired of being mechanically approached by recruiters who, very often, only care about their metrics and their hiring goals. They are tired of feeling like cattle that we just walk from one pen to another.

All, without exception, were delighted to be treated as humans, and see their aspirations as much as their experience considered.

All, without exception, were stunned not to be forced into an interview process that’s optimized for the company, but absolutely not for them.

One person told me something important: “I go to an interview to find a great company to work for, and I feel like you are working for your employees and even for candidates.“

And this, my friends, is how we create ambassadors.

When speaking of all this to one of my fellow developers who likes to participate in the hiring process, we came to this conclusion: “For a human interview, one only has to be human…”.

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

“Do you have a minute?”

Who did not experience this situation? A boss or an HR representative wants to talk to us, and asks, “Do you have a minute?” as he heads towards a conference room or an office.

Aren’t these the worst 30 seconds of our life? “What have I done wrong, what will he tell me, I will have to update my resumé“. There’s a lot going on in someone’s mind between this question and the moment they sit on the chair.

And in the end, he just wanted to know how you were doing.

The reflexes of the world of work

The reflexes of the world of work have corrupted the manager-employee relationships. So many people are met by their boss only to receive bad news or “constructive criticism”. It’s now a reflex. My boss wants to talk to me, it can only be bad.

Except that…

Not all work environments are like that. Where I work, managers care about their people. It’s my job to care for them. My title (which I myself chose) is People Manager. My role is to create an environment where everyone can be at their best. And by that, I don’t mean “making the most out of them”. I mean them being at their natural best.

In short, I make sure that everyone:

• Are satisfied with their work
• Are motivated by their work
• Feel in control of their work
• Are going in the direction they wish to go 

To this end, I asked everyone what they need to be at their best. I know their criteria of success on topics such as culture, the work itself, the physical work environment, and working conditions. In short, what they need is known to me, and it’s my job to make sure they have what they need, or that they can get it themselves. It is a common understanding that we have.

And despite that…

Guilty of caring for people

A few days later, our Human Resources Director meets with the same colleague. 

“HR. Oh oh! What’s happening?”

Our HR Director wanted to make sure he was doing well, after a month with us. She wanted to ask him how the onboarding process was, and how it was going to the colleagues.

It was the first time in her life he was asked something like that after a month of work. It was the first time someone from HR was doing a follow-up with him.

But how did this happen?

We are at the point where we have to announce our intentions in advance when we want to talk to someone we care about.

We are at the point where a gesture of good will and caring for someone causes a reaction of fear and anxiety.

“Do you have a minute” is now the trigger of a Pavlovian reflex of fear at work. A corporative and organizational post-traumatic stress disorder.

I’m not trying to find who’s guilty. I’m looking for solutions. It’s our job, your job, benevolent managers, to break this.

What are you ready to do to fix this?

Managers of this world, it is your job to destroy this anti-pattern.

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

As Society 5.0 is on the horizon, a fresh batch of upheavals will strike most organizations as emerging technologies, market dynamics and people’s relationship with work will change. 

This means that, yet again, organizations will have to face Change. It means a lot of power plays will happen, a lot of money will be spent (and often wasted), a lot of people will be stressed and a lot of company will fail their changes in a way that will cost them far more than just money. 

Just talk about Change in your organization and you’ll see the fear in the look of the people around you. “Not AGAIN.” 

We see Change as something big, put in motion as events. Each requires solid change management skills to build a strong strategy, communicate it appropriately, deliver the plan, manage expectations and manage for resistance to change. All of these things are difficult and the bigger the changes, the more difficult they are. 

Big changes will always be stressful. It will be difficult for humans who have evolved stress to improve their survivability during unexpected and uncertain events. It will be difficult for organizations built like machines: precise, ordered and predictable. The more you add stress, the more the resistance and the higher the chances something breaks. 

So how to approach those big Change events to execute them successfully? 

Don’t. 

Lean experts have been advocating for creating a culture of continuous improvement, of constant small changes. This is great, as it creates a culture of constant dynamism. For people, those changes are not violent, events or big enough to put them in danger. For organizations, it requires a reorganization into a living, dynamic structure, much closer to a natural ecosystem. 

But that the theory. “In the real world, it doesn’t work like that Maurice.” Big changes often end up not working or paying off as intended. Companies either aren’t Lean or have adopted parts of a Lean model. Old habits die hard, and they still manage their changes from a central authority. I have met my fair share of Lean change experts who will spend months analyzing change impacts, devising change management plans and creating communication plans for the rollout of those changes. Or of companies that ask for continuous improvements and innovation, and yet stifle any attempts of locally modifying behaviors and dynamics that haven’t been decided/designed/approved by a central authority. Where’s the Lean in that? 

Just asking for companies to allow their divisions, like teams, to innovate without interference, or even better with their full support, is wishful thinking. Why? Because until those companies changes, anyone initiating those changes will be at risk and will face resistance. In Jack: Straight from the Gut, Jack Welch describes his attempts at bringing change to General Electric, as a CEO, akin to starting a war and throwing grenades. If it’s that difficult when you are in charge, imagine when you are just a cog in the machine. 

Sure, teams can achieve a limited form of continuous improvement. As long as it doesn’t rattle the rest of the organization, it can work well. But it is limited. It can be so much more than that. And if we want to evolve a company to adapt to the emerging world of Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0, it’s a situation we need to address. 

To understand the underlying problem bringing changes in companies, one that becomes clear when we use a bit of system theory and learn how complex systems work. 

Explaining the problem

We’re going to do a bit of theory now, so please bear with me. 

One standard model of complex systems is the hierarchical model, where specialized systems of varying complexities nested within one another. Like companies. 

One of the most frequent problems with hierarchical systems is that the healthy dynamics between the hierarchical levels becomes skewed. 

Hierarchies evolve from bottom to top, from the lowest level to the highest, from the cell to the whole organism. The lower you go in a hierarchy, the faster the evolution rate. Those lower levels are the front line of the complex hierarchical system and as such have to respond a lot more precise and specialized stimuli.

The highest-level system, like the brain or the board of directors, still has a critical role to play: it must give a general direction, a purpose, to this evolution. Without it, lower systems will evolve fast in often unpredictable, and undesirable, directions. Like cancer. The higher-level system parses vast quantities of information coming from all the sub-systems, but that information is more straightforward, higher-level, already digested into something less complicated. 

Both high-level and low-level systems have their precise roles. The common mistake is to give too much power to one or the other. 

In a company, the most common issue is too much power taken by upper management. They know where they want to company to go and request departments and teams to execute their plans to get there. But that kind of centralized power comes at the loss of most of the information that should be gathered and processed by the teams. The team’s focus becomes execution rather than intelligence and adaptation. Information only trickles up within the system rather than flow and is usually ignored until it can’t be anymore. Innovation is stifled, hurting the capacity of the entire organization to adapt to change. 

On the other hand, not enough guidance form the upper management and the various teams will only react to their own, immediate situation. This will cause a significant loss of cohesion and productivity across the entire company. We don’t see this situation as often as too much control from management, as it requires a decentralized, self-organizing model, like Holacracy, which is still rare. 

The principle remains similar for governments. Too much control at the top and you create a totalitarian regime, replacing natural adaptability, innovation, and evolution by whatever is deemed the priority of the moment by the government. Too little regulations and you get tax avoidance (which prevent the delivery of shared services), monopolies concentrating common resources (such as money) in few hands, crime and other similar system-related problems. More often than not, governments strive for a balance but end up with too much and too little at once: constraints who end up benefitting large conglomerate while killing small businesses, help for specific slices of the population that ends up trapping them in a situation where they need that help, over or under-reacting to a challenge because they focus on the wrong reasons (such as an upcoming election), etc. This situation is a result of addressing symptoms without understanding the underlying system. 

Fixing the imbalance

If we fix that power imbalance, not with a single patchwork but with a change of internal dynamics to align how the company works with how a complex hierarchical system works, then we can hope of creating an organization that is a dynamic system under constant evolution and improvement. 

My favorite model to remedy to this power balance is based on an approach described by Dave Gray in his book The Connected Company. He calls it podularity. It is a model, not a framework or a complete, complex solution. To make it work for you, you need to fiddle with it a bit, you need to keep communications going, and you need to keep it alive and evolving. For organizations that adopt a Lean mindset, this is right up their alley. 

In this model, management establishes goals, constraints, and resources into sandboxes. Teams are wholly self-organizing but attached to a sandbox. Teams get their resources from the sandbox but must contribute information and effort toward the goal as well as respecting the constraints. The system is very alive as the sandboxes will evolve, with their resources and constraints adjusted based on the information contributed by all the teams attached, while still aiming for the goal determined by management. Teams who don’t follow the rules of their sandbox can’t draw resources from it and will need to attach to a more appropriate sandbox or starve and be eliminated by the system. The beauty of this model is that it is self-correcting and the power distribution between higher and lower systems stays in balance through the sandbox. It makes for a very organic model and can be scaled to apply to a government level.

One of the strengths of the model is that it is possible the to progressively introduce it within an organization. Start with the groups that are ready and willing. Make sure their sandbox includes everything both they and you need to give them their independence. Then let them deliver results and improve the system. Make sure their successes and challenges are well communicated across the organization, so other groups can open their minds to it and start thinking how it can work for them. 

I often talk about decentralized organizations. Well, this is it. 

Just like adequately working complex hierarchical systems, the higher systems set high-level goals and constraints. Lower-level systems must work within these guidelines but can evolve fast to adapt to their changing environment. They can also influence the guidelines to make sure they are kept relevant. The entire complex system will slowly adjust and evolve as a result of all the small local changes, slowly modifying the dynamic of the whole organization. The entire dynamic feel more natural, reducing stress across the whole system as the scale of actions, decisions, and consequences is vastly reduced. Autonomy and reduced scale allow for experimentations, leading to innovation and adaptability. 

It does require a will for the central authority to let go of its power and redefine its role. This kind of transformation starts with the top, not as a big change management plan, but rather as a will to let go. The hardest changes in the culture of an organization rarely come from the team, but instead, it comes from the organization’s leaders. A desire for change and a willingness to do what it takes are two very different things. 

If you want to know more

While using this model isn’t overly complicated or difficult, it helps to know what you are doing. 

I recommend reading Dave Gray’s The connected Company. Not only is the decentralized model outline there, but the whole book is a fascinating read, showing us clearly why companies need to evolve their habits, as the old ways won’t work anymore. 

I’m involved with two companies that can advise and support you if you are interested in evolving your organization toward such a model. 

Octant organizes seminars and retreats, both privates and open to the public. Decentralized model is a subject we often cover. 

If you want to adopt this model and require training or coaching for your organization, get in touch and I’ll hook you up.

Maurice Lefebvre

I am a futurist, system thinker and organizational transformation expert, dedicated to easing our transition into Society 5.0. I am available as a speaker through the think tank Hivernité (www.hivernite.ca) as well as a trainer and organizational coach through Moabi Formations (www.moabiformation.com).

www.hivernite.ca

This practical guide, comprised of one essential rule and 5 fun categories will show you all the tips and tricks you need to keep in mind. Be ready to become the most controlling, intractable, and maybe even the most bloodthirsty of all the managers in your company.

So grab your pen, your notebook, your post-it notes. Your turnover rate had better watch out!

Relevant testimonials

“The Practical guide to becoming a terrible manager is an example of modern documentation for all organizations. I shall make it an official training document in my ministry.”

Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary, Ministry of Magic

“The capacity to oppress your peers isn’t innate to everyone. But there’s a way to become the top dog! The Practical guide to becoming a terrible manager will definitely help you put some teeth in your career very quickly.”

Ramsay Bolton, of house Bolton, amateur tyrant

The fundamental rule

Let’s start with the basic rule, shall we? The pillar, the foundation of bad management. All that you do needs to be thought out, planned and prepared to fulfill this rule. If this guide was a Ted Talk, I’d repeat it 182 times to make sure that you’ll remember it. It’s that important.

What is this ultimate rule? The foundation? The cornerstone of management? The secret sauce that makes the burger a success? It resides in strengthening your position of authority.

All the decisions you make, all that you say, all that you communicate, express, transpire must contribute to strengthening your position of authority. Otherwise, how will work your way up the ranks? How can you expect to betray the CEO or the president of the company and take his place? Brutus had it all figured out.

1. Your management style

Your management style is the equivalent of a sub-pillar, the concrete from which the foundation is made… the slices of pickles that bring out all the taste in the secret burger sauce. Broadly speaking, the reflexes you live by.

1.1 Beat the world record of tolerating the intolerable

Something’s definitely wrong? Your employees are complaining about the behavior of one of your minions? People are in psychological distress? The system to optimize harassment and bullying that you put in place isn’t unanimously adopted?

The solution is quite simple. Don’t lift a finger. Tolerate this situation as long as possible. Wait for at least one quarter of your team to resign, then fire those who were complaining, if any of them remain.

With this approach, you will strengthen your position of authority by sending a clear message that you’re the boss. You could very well solve these difficult situations, but you elect not to, and this is the proof that you assert control over your employees’ lives and professional aspirations (in this order).

1.2 Divide and rule

A classic! It worked wonderfully for good old Julius Caesar, why wouldn’t it be good for you as well? Even Loki applied this formula in The Avengers. But, well, Loki kind of underestimated The Hulk.

If you don’t work with The Hulk, it’ll be easy. You need to strengthen your position of authority by turning people against one another. And since the end justifies the means, all the means are good: promises, manipulation, lies, rumours. You can even use this to leverage the toxicity in your workplace. We’ll talk about this in the next chapter.

1.3 Enforce insurmountable limitations

Here, you want to strengthen your position of authority by imposing a working framework that’s absolutely inflexible. No exceptions.

This means that everyone has a title and a job description that were designed specifically for them to be controlled. People are hired to do one thing, and one thing only. Anyone failing to follow this rule must be severely reprimanded. Refreshing, isn’t it?

In short, to each their own. We’ll see later how to leverage this rule to prevent people from progressing professionally. I know! Exciting!

1.4 Don’t you dare being adaptable

Adapting to your employees? Do not make this beginner’s mistake. It’s their job to subject themselves to the rules. See that word? Subject? Let’s find out what the dictionary has to say about it:

Subject, noun

One that is placed under authority or control: such as

a : a vassal
b (1) : one subject to a monarch and governed by the monarch’s law
(2) : one who lives in the territory of, enjoys the protection of, and owes allegiance to a sovereign power or state

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

What if there is no rule in particular for one situation? Easy peasy : create a brand new one. Strengthen your position of authority by stating that you treat everyone fairly and equally, but treat them differently by ensuring it serves your own interests. As long as the word subject applies to them in some way.

2. Your work environment

Your work environment is the territory you need to take over. Do this by meticulously, strategically and regularly sprinkling drops of your urine in every possible corner. Unless, of course, you prefer the good old pillory so that everyone can witness the state of your latest victim and understand their place in the hierarchy.

2.1 Objective: zero transparency

Transparency. It has become somewhat fashionable recently.  Another fad we have to get rid of, thanks to millennials. Your time to shine has come, as you need to bring opacity back in all this transparent nonsense.

Transparency is dangerous. You say something, and not only do people dare listen to you, some will even believe what you say. No. Transparency gives them way too many opportunities to do their work for the good reasons, and they could end up understanding the reality of the organization.

And what next? Knowing the necessary information to work properly, or understanding your business domain is not a fundamental right, as far as I know.

Strengthen your position of authority by being as opaque as you can. Keep them in total obscurity, and they will need you to guide them. And we all know that guiding people means controlling people.

2.2 Juggle with organizational values

The most incredible thing about organizational values is that employees are completely satisfied with having a list of words printed on the wall. All you need to do is ensure that corporate values are represented by really vague words that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

Require every employee to know those values by heart, and strengthen your position of authority by referring to those values only during your manipulation sessions with them.

Here’s a little trio of values that really works mostly everywhere:

• Innovation
• Transparency (lol)
• Collaboration

A few conditions are required for this trio to become a success: don’t leave any room for initiative, monopolize all the information in your department, and decide with whom, when, how, and why people need to collaborate by coercion.

2.3 Be excited by toxicity

What’s fun with corporate toxicity is that you don’t need to invest in a hazmat suit in order to survive. You only need to spill your own toxic waste in the work environment.

The important is to contribute. As long as you contribute, you’ll be safe and you’ll thrive. Create opportunities to strengthen your position of authority by encouraging competition among colleagues, starting rumours, laughing at sexist jokes, talking behind people’s back. And, of course, meet with other managers regularly to laugh at what employees are going through.

The ultimate pleasure is when a very indispensable employee says and does terrible things. Reward him regularly and publicly. This way, people will understand that performance is more important than living together at work or in society.

2.4 Fear, your greatest ally

Fear will always be your greatest ally. Ensure that contracts are as restricting as possible so that people are afraid to leave. You want to be the one to decide who stays and who leaves, remember?

Treat yourself and strengthen your position of authority by installing a comprehensive set of fear-enabling reflexes: no right to fail, no right to be late, no right to miss work. Go further and help people excel by allowing uncertainty to creep in. Tell them that the department is overstaffed and 2 or 3 people might have to leave. But always repeat that you are a family (who cares if it’s dysfunctional, no one has the right to call the Direction of Youth Protection).

Ever feel mischievous? Let them know that you’re thinking of installing a software that would allow you to access all their private discussions. It’ll be the funniest thing, especially if you already have access to their private discussions.

You like what you’re reading?
Book us for a conference on this topic!

3. Teams and processes

I won’t mince words or tolerate political correctness here. Teams and processes are euphemisms for exploited workers and your way to control them.

3.1 Dictate all processes

You’re the boss, so you need to dictate how people work. It doesn’t matter if you’re an expert or not. And since you’re not the one to execute the work, you simply have much more time to find more efficient ways to control your ressources.

The most efficient way to achieve this is to implement (and by this we mean impose) a process that’s absolutely impossible to follow by anyone. Make sure it’s totally inflexible, and that it won’t ever take into account any of your employees’ needs.

And most of all, strengthen your position of authority by educating your servants about how following processes is far more important than delivering any kind of product or service. Otherwise, they could bring value to the organization, which would deeply hurt your control freak manager image.

3.2 Make sure you know everything at all times

There’s a reason we dictate processes. You want to know everything at all times so that you can reprimand people punctually and on the spot. By knowing everything every second, you’ll be able to take credit for everything your team (miraculously) does well. Even before they know it themselves!

You want to know stuff even sooner? Strengthen your position of authority by granting a bonus to one or two snitches who can provide you with all the facts. And when this measure spreads in every department, you can say it was your idea!

3.3 Set your team up to fail

After generously volunteering to unilaterally implement processes for your troops, it will be a piece of cake (and such a pleasure) to set them all up to fail. As processes are optimized for your control and not to facilitate their work, nobody will succeed. They will all fail majestically.

Now’s the time to act! Invest a lot of time in scolding them at will, which is a pretty awesome way to strengthen your position of authority. And to make it even funnier, don’t forget to demand reports and spreadsheets as often as possible, and demolish publicly the poor messenger presenting it.

3.4 Make your team accountable, now that they can only fail

If you want to have interesting stories to tell other decision-makers during the upcoming Meetups, you can DICTATE processes AND make your team accountable! Hilarious! They have to follow YOUR process and it’s THEIR FAULT if they fail! You can even put this as an accomplishment on your LinkedIn profile.

Make sure to stay quite passive-aggressive with their performance, and leverage point 2.4 of this guide: remind them that the team is overstaffed.

Strengthen your position of authority by making this as clear as possible: Successes? Thanks to your processes! Failure? They go straight in people’s files for the next annual performance review. And don’t hesitate to publicly  turn down any ideas to improve those processes.

3.5 Initiatives? FINISHiatives!

Employees who undertake initiatives are a threat. First of all, that’s YOUR job, not theirs. They also represent a huge risk. They could aspire to improve their work environment, which represents an affront to your position of authority.

In such a case, you need to find a way to turn the situation to your advantage. Two options are possible when an underling draws a target on his own back by undertaking initiatives:

• If some initiatives are successful, you should have had these ideas. Take credit for these ideas, implement them without including the people who had them. Reprimand them to make an example out of them.
• If some initiatives fail, it’s because the ideas didn’t come from you. Reprimand the people who had this idea to make an example out of them.

4. Motivation

Money, rewards, bonuses, punishment, promises of promotion, threats of dismissal. AND NOTHING ELSE.

4.1 Swear by Theory X

I don’t really need to get into details on this topic. Since writing this guide means working, I’ll do as less as I can and simply copy what’s on Wikipedia. The difference is that whatever Wikipedia refers to as assumptions, we’ll call them facts.

Facts about Theory X
(source: Wikipedia. I’m not kidding, I didn’t invent anything.)

• This management style assumes that the typical worker has little ambition, avoids responsibility, and is individual-goal oriented.
• In general, Theory X style managers believe their employees are less intelligent, lazier, and work solely for a sustainable income.
• Management believes employees’ work is based on their own self-interest.
• Managers who believe employees operate in this manner are more likely to use rewards or punishments as motivation.
• Due to these assumptions, Theory X concludes the typical workforce operates more efficiently under a hands-on approach to management.
• Theory X managers believe all actions should be traceable to the individual responsible. This allows the individual to receive either a direct reward or a reprimand, depending on the outcome’s positive or negative nature.
• This managerial style is more effective when used in a workforce that is not essentially motivated to perform.

Strengthen your position of authority by telling your colleagues the plain truth: being threatened so that they work harder is normal and it is their destiny. Forever.

4.2 Get rid of motivated people

In every organization, there is always a couple of bad apples in the bunch that try to contaminate their colleagues with their intrinsic motivation. As we could see in Theory X above, any kind of motivation that isn’t driven by reward or fear is not natural.

Leverage this heresy and strengthen your position of authority by getting rid of these disturbed people who can only be of impure blood. Kick them out of your department by turning their weapons against them. Intrinsic motivation preachers keep suggesting unholy ideas reminiscent of the conspiracy theories about Earth being round. According to them, motivation is a mixture of autonomy, mastery and purpose.

So, simply strike at the heart of the problem by removing autonomy at all levels, refuse any training request, and keep repeating as often as you can that the only purpose of their work is to fill the bank accounts of the company’s owners and investors, and nothing else.

4.3 Make good use of the carrot and the stick

Rewards for all of those who work more than 60 hours, punishment for all of those who are late, take breaks, ask for a day off, have a family.

And if you feel like creating a new movement in the organization, you could strengthen your position of authority by taking this chapter literally. Only reward people with carrots, and beat them with the stick if they work less than the 75 weekly hours that are necessary for you to ever consider a possible and hypothetical annual salary adjustment. Also, remember that a salary adjustment can be on the downward side.

5. Career

I know. One could have thought that we’d be talking about YOUR career since this is what really counts. But no, we’ll be talking about a fairy tale that was born out of mass hysteria: the career of your underlings.

5.1 Hear them out. But, like, that’s it.

You’re a manager, you can’t avoid it. People will insist to waste your precious time with nonsense such as their aspirations, their professional growth, their career development, opportunities for advancement. They’ve got some nerve, right? If they want opportunities for advancement, they should have become managers!

So once you’re annual 1-on-1 meeting with them is almost over, whatever happens when your brain comes back online, your first words must be “I hear what you’re saying”. The rest matters not. You heard them, nothing forces you to process the information, or even remember it.

Of course, they will probably interrupt your important work a few months later to ask if there is any news about their request. When this happens, say “it’s on the top of the pile”.

Strengthen your position of authority by dragging it out as long as possible. The possibility that you might one day consider imagining the eventuality of promoting them, they should be motivated enough to provide a better performance in the long run.

5.2 Chain your employees to their chair

If your employee starts insisting more and more, and ends up weeping in your office, it might be the time to announce the decision that you took as soon as they were hired.

“We considered your request. But you benefit more to the company (and myself) by staying in your current position”. And for a more dramatic effect, don’t hesitate to add “It was a business decision”. Boom!

As if this wasn’t strengthening your position of authority enough, you can even consider taking this chapter literally, and actually chain them to their chair. Chains and adult diapers are an excellent investment in your resources.

5.3 There’s a job opening? Start a reality office game!

Imagine that suddenly, there is a new job opening that’s coveted by two of your current employees. Difficult decision? NOT AT ALL! It’s an opportunity to have fun!

Here’s the concept of a reality office game. Meet both candidates separately, and tell them both exactly this: you’ll consider their interest in the position, but you have an especially good feeling about the other candidate and you’ll think about it for a while. And leave things exactly like that for a while. For a month or two.

Both employees will willingly take over the work left by the opening, just to show their devotion and interest! The work will get done by itself! You’re a genius! Film them while they are completely overworked, and document this. Give them challenges, problems that are impossible to solve, and witness how they fight like the devil just to be the chosen one.

If the situation can’t go on any longer and the opening needs to be filled at all costs, strengthen your position of authority by hiring someone not from within the company who will become your minion. That should put them back in their place, which is on their chair, where they belong. That’ll teach them to be hopeful.

Afterword

This is where I announce that I’m done spilling my sarcasm and cynicism. Of course, I greatly exaggerated all the situations in this guide to make it funny. I hope it allowed some of you to have a good laugh (or to let off some steam) following some situations you might have been through.

Know that ALL the situations depicted in this guide were inspired by REAL situations that I witnessed directly or indirectly.

In reality, you don’t have to master all the theory of this guide to become a terrible manager. It’s much easier than that, and that’s the danger. You only have to choose 2 or 3 points from this guide, and apply it with a lot of passion.

Did you recognize a former (or current) manager in this absurd guide? Let me know!

Stay tuned for a book inspired by this guide in 2019

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

A good part of my career’s antifragility resides, amongst other things, in the strength of my network. Mostly thanks to LinkedIn.

There are at least a few thousand articles on the topic of online networking. The good thing about this is that it allows readers to try multiple things and do short and controlled experiments, which is something one must master in order to become antifragile. The bad thing is, well, there are so many tips and hints everywhere, and some of them contradict one another.

So I’m not speaking as a LinkedIn expert. I’m speaking as someone who had no network a few years back, and who now has a very strong network, and all of this without being an expert. I experimented, I kept what worked, and discarded what didn’t.

How do I know it worked? Not necessarily because of the number of people in my network, but because the number of random people who would reach for me and say things such as “Your profile is so inspiring! How would anyone not want to work with someone like you?“

So, here is what worked for me.

1. Surround yourself with people who believe what you believe

While adding recruiters will definitely help you in case of a catastrophe, it isn’t enough to become some kind of influencer. Unless you are in the recruitment field, that is. You must find people who connect with your values. My first tip is to join some LinkedIn groups that are dedicated to the topics that relate to what you do (or what you want to do), and start discussions.

When someone replies, send them an invitation to join your network, with a nice presentation message. That’s a good way to do it. After you added someone, LinkedIn will also suggest other similar profiles that you can choose to add. 

Maintaining your network is a lot like leadership, hygiene and working out. It’s not something you do once or twice a year. Take a few minutes every day to do this. You will see a great difference after a few months.

2. Impressing people is not enough – inspire them!

Something that you need to remember is that your LinkedIn profile isn’t your résumé.

A while ago, most of my LinkedIn profile was a listing of my past experiences, and for sure, it was impressing people. It was somewhat efficient, but I thought it was missing something. A human touch. It was too cold, too strategic, too “this is what they want to hear”.

I then deleted everything and started over, and used my profile to tell people not about where I’m from, but where I’m going. I stopped talking mostly about my past experiences. I still kept the job history of course but I focused on what I learned from them rather than the responsibilities I had. I rewrote my whole profile by keeping my objectives, my why, in mind. My passion, my vocation, my why. And you’ll see that my summary contains a very nice Golden Circle (Why, How, What), inspired by Simon Sinek‘s work.

It was a game changer. Not only did people start writing to let me know of how inspiring my profile was, but they started asking for help and tips to improve their own profile. Sometimes they write just to let me know they wish we’d work together one day. I was impressed at how much a human touch could make a difference.

If you want more insights on how to improve your LinkedIn summary, I highly recommend downloading Jena Viviano‘s Ultimate LinkedIn Summary Template. It’s free, and as a bonus, you’ll see my face in it, as Jena displayed my own summary as one of her multiple examples.

3. Find content that supports what you believe, and share it

Nowadays, I’m really into organizational culture, humanization of workplaces, modern leadership and such. This is my niche, and everything I share supports my beliefs in these fields. People who are also interested in these topics, and believe what I believe, love it and share my content as well.

There are many ways to gather relevant content on a given topic. Medium.com is an incredible source of articles. You can also create Google alerts on any kind of combination of words and it will notify you when related content is indexed. And just as I stated above, LinkedIn Groups will also come very handy to discover new content.

For sharing the content you found and like, I suggest using a tool such as Social Pilot or Buffer to organize the content you want to share on social media. These tools can automatically post for you at any day and time you deem the best. Very handy for when you’re busy working!

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4. Become an everyman’s leader on LinkedIn

An everyman’s leader is someone who helps as soon as there is an opportunity to help. You’ll find plenty of those on LinkedIn. I try to be this guy. In my case, half the time, it’s just people who reach for me and want to have a cup of coffee with me to get to know me. I’m always happy to oblige! It also creates more opportunities to help.

One very easy way to help someone it to introduce them to someone else who might help them more efficiently than you could. Both these people will remember how they met, and they’ll remember you.

It’s important to never ask for anything in return. If you do something for someone else only to ask something back, you’re doing this for the wrong reasons, and you’re certainly not being a leader. And by helping others for the sake of helping others, know that in the eventuality that you might desperately need something, your network will be there to pay it back to you.

For more information on everyman’s leaders, and other leadership roles, read this article by my friend Maurice Lefebvre: Of the 3 Leader Roles, Which One Are You Perfect For?

5. Engage with people

Recently, I figured that asking questions on LinkedIn was bringing me a lot of likes, comments and views. Not that I care really for those: comments, likes and views are less important than helping people or generating discussions, but it’s a good metric of success.

I simply figured that by asking questions, I was creating new opportunities to help people. And it does.

Also, observe what’s happening in your network. Read the comments on other people’s posts. There are tons of people there that could benefit from knowing something (or someone) you know. Don’t wait for people to ask. Reach for them directly!

In conclusion

This quote is one of the most important about networking, and there’s a very good leadership dimension to it that I really like:

The true value of networking doesn’t come from how many people we can meet but rather how many people we can introduce to others.

– Simon Sinek

Help others, and do it because it’s the right thing to do. This habit is not a networking habit, but a leadership habit, so it’s a pretty good one to adopt! People will eventually reach directly for you. That will be the first indication that your network is getting pretty strong!

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

It was a wonderful experience, the audience was incredible and we got a lot of feedback. To my surprise, we were applauded twice during our talk. Quite destabilizing, but I guess it meant we were saying or doing something important!

I would like to leverage this amazing experience by sharing the content we presented. In this post, you will find all the topics we talked about.

Contextual setting

Olivier Fortier

Author of this post. Having experienced lots of pain points in my career, I once decided that I wouldn’t be a victim anymore. I’d use my pain points to propel myself. And my biggest pain point was that only in very few companies are people taken care of properly. Fixing this became my vocation.

Today, I’m an empowering manager at Marine Press, and I spend a lot of time and energy on inspiring my network to adopt a more human approach at work. The rest of the time? I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

I write about my adventures, experiments and reflections on this blog, Primos Populi. Which means as you have probably guessed, “People First” in Google Translate language. 🙂

Marc Roussy

Marc is a developer specialized in cloud. He’s been working for Marine Press for close to a year, and he was able to witness the transformation of his department. He’s been in the software development for 15 years, was active in 5 different industries, and survived multiple management styles.

For Marc, Marine Press is an environment where he can thrive and work on what he loves. When he was approached by Olivier to speak at Spark the Change, he was delighted to have the opportunity to share the way his department evolved.

Marine Press of Canada

Marine Press is a company that develops products that facilitate maritime navigation, from the ship’s deck to the office that manages fleets. Our headquarters are in Montreal, and we also have offices in Singapour, and soon, Japan.

One must know that the maritime world is slightly reluctant to new technologies, which are adopted a bit slower than other transport domains. This reality gives us the opportunity to more than just developing products: we build technological solutions to help introduce the maritime world in the 21st century.

Before: Marine Press, a little over one year ago

One big team

At the time, the Products and Technology department of Marine Press had only one big team. I’ll use a quite obvious pun, everyone was in the same boat. The team was composed of developers, quality assurance expert, data and Geographic Information System experts, design

and User Interface / Experience designers, product managers… You can imagine it was quite a challenge.

It was quite hard to coordinate anything and take decisions unanimously. It was also quite difficult to put oneself forward in such a big group, as one’s contribution was quite diluted and hard to measure. The size of the team would make it subject to misunderstandings, as the complexity in communication can be quite exponential.

In a team of two people, there is only one direct connection. In a team of 5 people, there are 10 connection possibilities. In a team of 12, there are 66 connection possibilities. It’s important to understand that all those connection possibilities are open doors to misunderstandings and miscommunications. This is why the easy “2 pizzas” rule is interesting to determine the proper team size. If you can’t feed your team with 2 pizzas, the team might be too big. With 2 large pizzas, you can feed between 5 and 7 people.

I encourage you to read about the Metcalfe law, which explains the concept of network effects more in-depth.

Traditional titles

This big structure was reinforced by traditional titles as well as the hierarchy they go with. We used to have junior, intermediate and senior developers, technical leads, architects, etc. Such a structure was greatly limiting the possibility to innovate. As one could expect, a good idea had to climb the ladder to get an approval, and the decision had to climb down. It wasn’t unusual for an idea to die in the middle of this process.

Since a lot of people had to give their input in the decision-making process, it was heavier and slower and didn’t encourage anyone to make decisions. In fact, this system was optimized so that people would ask for the permission to do their job (which is taking initiatives and making decisions).

The hierarchy in this environment would also create the Gorilla in the room syndrome. Have you ever talked with a team, and asked them a question, only to see all the heads turning towards someone in particular? That’s the Gorilla in the room syndrome. It’s the perception that people aren’t entitled to an opinion when some kind of “lead” is in the place, so they turn to this person immediately rather than use their judgement or initiative.

A traditional management approach

Nothing surprising here: the management approach was quite traditional. The decisions were taken at the top, and the action happened at the bottom, and everything had to go through many hierarchical levels created by the traditional titles.

And employees? They’d wait for someone to give them something to work on, just like nestlings waiting for their mom to feed them (and also, they didn’t know how to fly by themselves either). People were told what to you, why to do it, when to do it and how to do it.

In short, everything relied on people’s attitude of subordination.

Low level of ownership

Of course, by being told what to do and how to do it, people would quickly become disconnected. When no one feels responsible, why would anyone long for taking new responsibilities? For a developer, it’s quite difficult: it’s like being perceived as a coding machine, or a code monkey.

Since initiatives were limited, people’s interest was also limited, as well as their engagement. This environment wasn’t creating many opportunities for ambitious people and go-getters.

The first round of initiatives: The first steps towards an environment of increased ownership

Please note that Marc and I arrived at Marine Press during this phase. A series of initiatives were taken to foster an environment where people would be comfortable taking more ownership. Hiring me as a technical manager who is more focused on people rather than technologies was some kind of statement: we want to change to help you grow, not to tell you how to work. Here are these initiatives.

Creation of squads

If a team is traditionally a group of people of the same expertise, a squad regroups multidisciplinary people of various skills who are working towards a common goal. This concept was made popular by the Spotify Model, that a lot of companies try to reproduce (and I would suggest to find what is it from this model that works for them, and come up with their own formula).

We created one squad per product, and also support squads, that are of service to the product squads. To this day, we have 3 product squads and a total of 8 squads.

The number one quality of a squad is that it’s self-organized and autonomous. Squad members have all the necessary authority to take the necessary decisions. No one tells a squad how to organize their work. It’s their responsibility to create, optimize and maintain these processes. Moreover, product squads are in part owner of their product, meaning that the squad is a stakeholder of its product, in collaboration with other groups in the organization. In sum, they are actors in the life cycle of their products. Not victims.

Contrary to a big team (where everyone is on the same boat), squads have more in common with a navy carrier group. While all ships are going in the same direction, each ship has its own crew, can go at a different speed, use different tools and technologies, and correct their course without putting the entire fleet in jeopardy. Each vessel can have precise objectives that support the fleet goals. It goes without saying that it’s a much more interesting and much less fragile strike force. If for a reason or another, a squad was to disappear, the rest of the fleet could continue their voyage.

Self-organization of squads

It’s worth spending some time discussing the concept of self-organization. First of all, working as small entities leaves much more flexibility for the squads. No need to ask 27 people every time a decision needs to be taken, as there are between 5 and 9 people in squads. There are no one size fits none processes either, as squads are responsible for their own processes. Self-organization also leaves some room to inter-squad negotiations and collaboration.

Self-organization also allows for collaborators to diversify as well as optimize the value they bring to the organization. Squads are 100% responsible for the product they deliver. They are composed of people who have all the necessary skills to deliver the product. The squad members don’t have a fixed role with fixed tasks. Everyone is responsible for the delivery, and we expect that they will do everything that is necessary to deliver. Which means that they will sometimes have to do things outside of their field of expertise.

One of the main benefits of squads is that they are living, breathing organisms that evolve and grow. They can be created organically to answer to a new need. And a squad could also dissolve if obsolete, and be reborn under another format without putting the organization in danger.

A system that leverages ownership

Since a squad is part owner of its product, each squad member has the possibility to put forward their passion when making decisions, while having a real impact on our business domain. As squads participate in making decisions, squad members do the work because they decided what had to be done because they believe in their product, and volunteer to do their work, rather than doing it “because we were told to do so”.

It goes without saying that work that’s done voluntarily and with pleasure as one takes ownership of it is generally done better and is of greater quality.

Titles give way to roles

Rather than using traditional titles, Marine Press started leveraging people’s role. The difference is significant. While a title is static, fixed in time and is very much linked to the infamous job description, a role is much more organic, evolutive and voluntary. Someone’s role is determined by their interest, their capacity to bring unique value. When we say someone does something “because they believe it has to be done”, that’s their role taking shape.

Here’s a concrete example: I manage developers. Nothing in my job description says I need to talk about organizational culture, or that I need to create a work environment that’s psychologically safe. No one asked me to treat others as leaders rather than followers. I do it because this is what I believe in, and it has to be done. It’s the same for all of us: everyone can forge their role in our department, as long as it’s relevant and needed.

We also flattened hierarchy to a certain extent in squads. All squad members are developers, in the sense that they develop a product. It doesn’t matter much if they have the experience of a junior or of a senior. Everyone’s advice is considered equally. It’s the relevance of what is communicated that matter here, not rank.

Leveraging roles also created something rather incredible. Entitled leadership (that’s determined by one’s position of power) made way to people’s natural leadership. Everyone’s leadership started emerging naturally.

We could witness the birth of different styles of leadership that we didn’t know existed among our colleagues. There is some technical leadership, which is expected in our domain. Product-oriented leadership emerged for a few people as well, who happened to have an increased interest towards our products and their evolution. And, finally, we could see social leadership emerge, as a few people started showing how much they care for their squadmates and other colleagues, and now try ensuring we have a more sane and safe work environment. They really do care about people’s happiness.

What we believe: The theories behind what we’re set to accomplish

The initiatives above took place before Marc and Olivier started working at Marine Press. For our presentation, we wanted to crystallize the principles behind these initiatives. In short, what do we believe in?

Innovation in management

Have you heard of the Peter Principle? In short, it’s the theory according to which, in a closed system, everyone who gets promoted will eventually end up being incompetent. Meaning, they will all end up in positions in which they won’t be good because these positions require skills they simply don’t have.

And an incompetent person will stay in this position forever, as they won’t be able to get promoted since they are lacking the skills to make it happen.

In a context closer to me, a good developer will certainly be promoted to senior developer, and eventually to tech lead, maybe even director! But oh wait, being a director, you need to take care of people and you don’t know how? “I got here because I’m good at coding, so I’m just going to tell them how to code!” would be a quite popular answer to this equation. And the answer is wrong. That not how you help people grow.

To counteract its Peter Principle, Marine Press decided to hire me since I’m a manager who takes care of people, rather than being one who tells them how to code.

Marc, for example, declared during our speech that for the first time in his life, he was having no technical discussion with his manager. All the time we spend together is entirely focused on Marc, his ambitions, his aspirations and his potential. Last winter, after I asked him “What would you like to improve?”, Marc answered “I’d like to be better at speaking in front of people”. And a few months later, we were speaking at Spark the Change Montreal in front of many dozens of people.

Back to innovation in management now. One must know that I’ve never had any formal training on the topic. I ended up as a manager almost by chance. I always managed people “the way I needed to be managed earlier in my career”, rather than simply reproduce the patterns of traditional management. I like to compare my work with making experiences on human beings, in a safe and sane environment, and with curiosity while keeping the focus on people’s well-being. Something works? Keep doing it. It doesn’t work? Stop it…

Making people awesome

It’s the first guiding principle of Modern Agile, a more recent and refined of Agile that is less centred on technologies. Making people awesome. This not only means investing energy in making employees better employees but also making your boss a better boss, making clients better clients, making candidates in interviews better candidates.

It is simply the idea according to which it is our duty to help people grow, no matter their role. People are the heart and blood of a company. We might as well take care of them.

Making psychological safety a prerequisite

It is the second guiding principle of Modern Agile, which I keep very close to my heart. What do we mean by psychological safety? It’s the possibility to say “I don’t know”, “I need help”, “I screwed up”, “I was wrong” without fearing for our safety or our job. The idea is to put the emphasis on the lessons learned rather than blame for the problem.

How can we make the whole company gain from the mistake we made, or by asking for help?

Please note that we are still careful and try not to make mistakes, but not because we are scared of making them.

Lowering the center of gravity of the decision-making process

That’s a long subtitle, but the words carry a lot of meaning. I adopted this expression after seeing it on some website, and I thought it was so powerful and relevant that I made it my own. Sorry for the person who used it first!

I base this principle on to fundamental beliefs that I have :

1. People who are the closest to a problem are best suited to resolve it
2. People who will live with the impacts of a decision should, at best, make the decision, at worst, be included in making the decision.

This makes a huge difference in the work environment. If people don’t end up doing what they said they would do, you can imagine there is a big difference between “Hey, what did you guys decide again? You’re not doing it” and “Hey, what did I tell you again? You’re not doing it”.

What strengthens this belief further is that for people to put their brain together and make a decision for themselves, they actually need to care for their team and the company. By never giving your people the opportunity to make decisions, you give them an excellent reason not to care about their work. And I’m weighing my words here. We can’t underestimate the power of the disengagement that will ensue when someone thinks “Nobody listens to me anyway”, or “They never ask what we think anyway”.

I’ll conclude this topic by quoting the former president or Starbucks :

“The person who sweeps the floor should choose the broom”.

– Howard Behar

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Now: What did we do to apply these concepts in which we believe?

We had to take a few actions to apply all these concepts in our day-to-day. Here are the initiatives that were taken to concretely put these principles into action.

A squad of managers working for employees

I could write a very very long paragraph here, which would say the same thing as a post I already wrote in the past. It was the post that started it all, and that made us apply as speakers for Spark the Change. I invite you to read this post titled Turning the Tides – A Squad of Managers with Employees as Stakeholders, which covers everything we talked about in this portion of our speech.

Our employee handbook

We were 2-3 managers discussing in a room when one of us asked: “Hey do we need an employee handbook?”. The rest of us cringed. There was an unanimity of prejudices towards employee handbooks. Since we like to challenge our reflexes, we made a list of the prejudices we had :

• Employee handbooks generally focus on what you’re not allowed to do
• People read it once, and it ends its life at the bottom of a drawer and people do what they feel like anyway
• When someone actually takes it out of the drawer, it’ll often to prove someone else wrong. “See? It says you’re not allowed to!”

We didn’t go much further since we were doing pretty much alright without an employee handbook so far. Right after I left the room, the first thing I see is this poster that I put up on the wall a few months back. The poster says this :

You have the right to

• Take a decision you think is the right decision to make.
• Start something that needs to be started.
• Ask for help whenever you want it.
• Help others whenever you can (even if they don’t ask for it).
• Take time off to do something that inspires, excites and energizes you.

“Here’s our employee handbook right there”.

Only positive things. The incarnation of common sense, coupled with our faith in people’s judgement. We had a few more printed and displayed them for everyone to see in the office. If you’d like to buy one of these posters published by Simon Sinek, you can download it on Gumroad by giving any amount of money you think it is worth.

The Wall of Enlightenment

Non, we didn’t start a sect! Here again, I’ll reduce the length of the present post by referring you to an article where everything has already been explained: Making Psychological Safety a Prerequisite in the Workplace.

It is important to note that even if the environment is safe, not everyone is comfortable sharing on the wall, and we’re good with this. It certainly isn’t mandatory. Also, I knew it was a success when our CEO came here and put his own epic fail on this wall.

Hack-a-thon

A concept that gaining in popularity. It is a gathering of developers where everyone works non-stop for 1 or 2 days on a product or a project of their choice. It is generally an excuse to lock yourself in a dark room with your headset on and eat a lot of pizza.

Marine Press had its own hack-a-thon, and the only directive was that the project or product had to be related to the maritime industry. Almost everyone was interested in participating, and it created an amazing opportunity to work with colleagues we didn’t work with before. For the organizations, this has an interesting potential as people could create innovative products that the company could eventually sell.

Innovation Fridays

Inspired by Google’s approach, people can invest their Friday afternoons on anything they want, as long as it brings business value to the company.

This could be, for instance, fixing non-prioritized bugs, learning new technologies, optimizing code. The results are pretty interesting, because those improvements are pretty insignificant individually, but taken as a whole, they have a much more interesting impact.

Hiring process

When the time came to find new colleagues, we elected to renew our approach. In the past, we were selecting developers mostly based on their technical skills, and we neglected way too often other soft skills. Not taking attitude into account cause us some problems. This time, we decided to meet the challenge and hire for both attitude and expertise. We simply adopted the following mindset: we are looking for people we’d like to work with, not code monkeys.

To that end, we had to decentralize the hiring process. Our colleague in HR is very often overwhelmed with work, so she was happy to delegate. Since developers will spend 40h/week with this new colleague, it only makes sense that they choose who to hire. So, we agreed that developers should sort the candidates, tell me who to contact, and would run the interviews. I would only have a role in the first contact with candidates, just to measure their interest and understand their aspirations and see if our paths are meant to cross. Other than that, I would simply book the interviews.

Candidates had to do a technical exercise at home, in their own environment where they are comfortable and relaxed. They would decide when to send us the solution. Simply the opposite of those stressful tests made in an office you don’t know with hardware and software that you didn’t configure yourself. We are trying to reproduce what really happens when we work. Yes, it includes having access to Google. The idea is to understand how the candidate thinks, not if they are able to come up with the right results.

Having suffered from interview processes that are less and less human, I was categorical: our hiring process must be more human than most hiring processes, and I think we were able to do a pretty good job. It gave an interesting push to our employer brand as well. Some candidates what were not selected liked the hiring process so much that they referred some of their friends to us. We created ambassadors for Marine Press just by interviewing people. I’m still impressed by this unexpected consequence.

You can still an example of the job opportunities we are using on the Marine Press website.

What can you do?

This part is meant for managers, directors, decision makers, leaders. What can you do to concretely create an environment of ownership in your department or organization? The Roman poet Ennius said: “The good is mostly in the absence of bad“. Rather than changing all your organization at once and risking everything to try and find the best solution, start by changing a few bad habits that harm or reduce ownership. You will see that it is much easier, less risky, and it pays off more quickly. Here are a few tips and tricks.

Learn to let go of control

There are people who really love control. Not only controlling people, but also information. Knowing everything at all times. Putting in place processes for control. Some companies even hire people to control other people. How much do you think this costs? Control is much more expensive in terms of money and morale than trust.

Trust doesn’t cost a penny. On the other hand, control can cost you your people’s trust. Control creates limitations. Trust removes them and allows people to go further. Just like leadership, painting or athletics, trust isn’t something you learn in one day. It needs to be practiced every day. Start today!

Try to be less and less useful

I know, scary, right? Managers very often end up being silos, and at the same time, indispensable. I wrote a quite detailed post on this topic: Being Indispensable is Dangerous; Make Yourself Essential. But start with your immediate environment. You’re a manager and everything has to go through you? You are a risk to your team and to your company!

If it’s the case, your value is determined by how much it would cost if you left. Is it really the value you want to have? Don’t you want to be recognized by the value you actually bring to the organization?

By working on your team’s autonomy, you will be less useful to them. You will be able to work on tasks that bring more value while your team is in action. You will even be able to take your vacations without stressing out. And let’s be honest: as a manager, if the members of your team can make decisions by themselves, without you, it means they are autonomous. It also means that you succeeded.

Remove limitations

I wasn’t the only one to say it at Spark the Change: 100% of rules exist because of 4-5% of dissidents. Are you ready to penalize 100% of your colleagues for 4-5% of dissidents who will probably end-up removing themselves from the equation? I’m not.

Rather than using the old ball and chain on your colleagues, give them a springboard! Opportunities to innovate, to be creative and bring unmatched value to the organization are very often blocked by limitations. It is a very common antipattern to see organizations brag about innovation and creativity, only to adopt limitations that will kill any hope of innovation way before it can emerge.

If you want to learn to let go of control, as I suggested above, it also means letting go of limitations. Companies hire people who have extraordinary skills, and the first thing they do it restrict them. Let’s trust people’s judgement. And don’t forget: people focus on what we talk about. If you only talk about what’s possible, it will stick in their imagination. If you only talk about what’s not allowed, that’s the only thing they will think of.

Do not treat your employees like children

This may sound obvious when I say it. But I can swear to you, it’s not that obvious. When someone is treated in a certain way, they are encouraged to follow this pattern and act accordingly. Do you want to work with leaders? Treat people like leaders. You will see a difference very quickly. A leader who treats people like followers will get followers. For my part, I prefer to treat people like leaders. One thing is certain: every person you hire is an adult. Treat them like responsible adults.

While I was speaking, I had a quick trip down the memory lane, and I remembered a very good example of this. In 2006, I worked for a company that was treating us like kids. It was a real kindergarten. When the day was over and it was time to go, we had to line up next to the door, and at 4 PM sharp (and not one second before) we would receive the permission to leave. What do you think was happening? Every day, people were acting like children: they’d find ways to flee earlier. They would pretend to go to the bathroom 5 minutes before the end of the day to leave earlier. This company was reaping exactly what they kept sowing. I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t stay in that place for very long…

3 key takeaways

If you had to remember 3 things from our speech, we would like them to be this :

1. People are the heart and blood of organizations. What would your company do without its people? Keep your heart healthy: take care of your people!
2. Trusting our colleagues costs much less and is much more fruitful than control
3. Don’t give your people a reason not to care about their job

And now, please imagine how it would be if ALL your colleagues, from the janitor to the CEO, profoundly loved their job and really wanted to be there every day. Can you visualize it? It’s up to you now!

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com

The traditional way to manage people is easily identifiable. In a traditional context, people are generally called “resources” just like chairs and printers would be. Sometimes, they are referred to as “assets” and even “human capital”. If they are assets, why don’t we sell them to get some money and increase stability? Oh, you can’t and shouldn’t sell people? Well, the benevolent leader believes that we shouldn’t treat people like objects of numbers.

Now that we defined what a benevolent leader is, let’s dig a little deeper discuss the benefits and disadvantages of benevolent leadership.

The benefits of benevolent leadership

The benevolent leader is appreciated

For leaders who don’t care much about power and prefer to be appreciated by being of service to others, this is the main advantage.

We all had, in one job or another, a boss who was feared by everyone. How was that going for you? Did you ever invite him for a drink? Did you ever tell him about your awesome weekend? Would you have gone to him if you needed help with a personal problem? Asking these questions is pretty much answering them. The benevolent leader will experience these things. He isn’t feared. People trust him.

Employees love their job

Let’s be honest here: 80% of people who resign actually leave their manager. It happens less to benevolent managers. Without surprise, people enjoy being treated as human beings in their workplace. They like that how they feel and what they aspire to aren’t inconveniences but something to be considered when making decisions.

I know it may seem super obvious the more I repeat it: people don’t like being treated like objects or cattle… However, I assure you that it happens every day, even in the best organizations. Let’s not forget this.

Employees feel safer

A benevolent leader will generally adopt a growth mindset and focus much more on the lessons learned after a failure than the failure itself. This leaves more room for learning and continuous improvement. The benevolent leader creates a psychologically safe environment for his employees.

The benevolent leader knows to show and leverage his imperfect and vulnerable human side. He makes mistakes too and isn’t afraid to talk about it openly. What’s good for leaders is good for others as well, so he leads by example.

The benevolent leader can create ambassadors for the organization

“Wow! I’d really love to have bosses like yours”. Does this ring a bell?

It is likely that some employees will try to have their friends hired in the place because their managers are using a more human approach, and they like it. You might even observe situations where candidates who were interviewed (and might not have been chosen for a position) will refer someone to your organization. I’m not inventing anything, as I lived it myself.

Treating people in a proper manner isn’t only the right thing to do, it also gives you a serious advantage over your competitors. People will talk about you in a very positive way, and others will want to come and work with you. Isn’t it refreshing?

Employees volunteer to do their work

And this happens primarily because the benevolent leaders generally have the reflex to include their colleagues in the decision-making process. People who feel included and know they can participate at any time will see themselves as actors in their work, not victims of it.

Victims tend to wait for someone to give them something to work on since they already accepted their faith: they have nothing to say, can’t choose what to work on, and can’t suggest anything… Those who are actors of their work aren’t doing it “because they were told to”. They do it because they have been given the opportunity to want it, to believe in it and to make a difference and have an impact on their product or clients.

The disadvantages of benevolent leadership

Making difficult decisions seems… more difficult

Benevolent managers are still managers, and they too will have difficult decisions to make from time to time. Letting someone go, for instance, is sometimes necessary and it will probably feel it’s in contradiction with their management style.

Even if, according to a lot of people, there isn’t a good way to let someone go, there is always a way to make it more human. How? I’m not even sure of this myself, and it always depends on who we’re dealing with. One must also trust his feelings.

At any rate, one shouldn’t forget that a difficult decision must sometimes be made for the common good. And one must not forget about those who remain. It’s worth the effort to ask them how they feel in regards to the decision and if they have any apprehensions or questions.

It is difficult to keep everyone happy at once

Of course, wishing for everyone’s happiness isn’t a bad thing. The problem occurs when one hesitates to make a difficult decision out of fear of displeasing someone. Don’t forget that what you don’t do will often have more impact than what you do. At this moment, things that would normally be intolerable will sometimes become (wrongfully) tolerable. By wishing not to displease a person in particular, one can end up with a whole team that’s unsatisfied, and thus disengaged.

Sometimes, as stated in the previous point, one must make a choice. I’d rather have 9 people whose morale is at 9/10 and one whose morale is at 4/10 (and maybe it’s a symptom that’s worth investigating further) rather than have 10 people whose morale is at 5 or 6/10.

Benevolent leaders sometimes need to support decisions that contradict their values

The benevolent manager will often have a manager himself, who can also (or not) be benevolent, and who also has to make difficult decisions.

It will so happen that he won’t agree with a solution but will need to support it. It can prove extremely difficult, especially when it creates a conflict of personal values. In a traditional setting, this is pretty commonplace. In a benevolent environment, it will generate more waves and thinking.

I won’t pretend to have a solution for this. One must show transparency and have the courage to have discussions concerning the disagreement, and adopt a growth mindset: how can we reach a state where we are better aligned?

The benevolent leader can be perceived as “weak”

Especially to the fans of traditional management. Those who are more directive, and have no problem sleeping well after taking decisions that will turn other people’s lives upside down. Those who stand firm on their position of authority. For those people, taking a benevolent stance can rhyme with weakness, and suggest a lack of managerial courage. You know what? I think it’s a good thing.

Would a benevolent leader prefer to be perceived as a heartless person? Would he really be comfortable with being good at firing people? I think benevolent leaders will be able to accept the perceptions that come with their management style, even if it isn’t universally popular. After all, leadership is not about the leader, but about those he cares for and looks after. If his team is happy and performing, the leader’s reputation isn’t really that important…

Olivier Fortier

Owner of Primos Populi, partner and coach at Moabi. As a former manager, I prefer to use a “people first, the rest will follow” kind of approach. My favorite topics are organizational culture, safe work environments, and lowering the center of gravity of the decision making process. I cultivate people’s awesomeness.

www.primospopuli.com