Preparing people to operate in a world of constant changes is the main advantage of #NoHierarchy, especially the self-management part of it.
I found myself focus more on the difficulties and challenges associated with agile management systems, mainly because I want to help anyone that is taking this path. This time I want to share how they can help you.
The main advantage, from my point of view, is hard to see from the beginning. It takes at least two challenging periods during implementation (which means time and sorrow) to see this benefit. Any system that requires self-management to teach people how to be independent, how to make their own decisions after consulting others, and how to execute them.
Self-management turn all the “doers” that Taylorism created into thinkers and doers. This is a significant change as you are preparing your people, the most important P of the 3 Ps (People, Processes, Products), to operate in a world of constant changes. This is a long process and a hard one. Such a process takes years in a typical enterprise environment (and takes months in special unit boot camps).
People that feel comfortable operating in the ever-changing business world are the only remedy for the need to deal with unexpected chaos and non-linear business world. Learning to be self-manage is learning how to deal with uncertainty. It creates a group of people that can very fast response to any trigger generated by the world around your business (customers, suppliers, government auditors, stakeholders, etc.). This fast reaction will save your business!
Pingback: Running Companies on Non-deterministic Management – Distributed Control – Galaxies