At our recent webinar: Valuing people in the era of decentralised autonomy, we brought together Semco Style Institute (SSI) founders Mark Green and Barry McNeill, and international speaker, writer and influential HR thinker, Perry Timms, to talk about how organisations can drive success by paying more attention to autonomy, value and transparency – focusing effectively on non-financial considerations to support strategic growth.
In a wide-ranging panel discussion, with plenty of opportunities for participants to ask questions and share their own experiences, the SSI team covered some fascinating topics, challenged organisational norms and showed how cutting-edge practices and approaches can help organisations to design these important elements into their culture and day-to-day working.
Thinking differently for our times
We are certainly in a global economic slowdown, and potentially heading for recession. As we plan for our organisations in 2023 and beyond, is this a good opportunity to look at what Perry Timms calls ‘the human economic manifesto’? And if so, what does this really mean? On the webinar, Perry Timms said: “What I’m agitated about is the fact that the value of organisations still seems to be about how much cash people have, or what their stock value is. These organisations are all made up of people, so why have we got this imbalance in how organisations are valued?”
And this is reflected in our own thoughts – the reality is that too many organisations still measure their people by input versus output. There is still a focus for many on getting a project completed (over time and over budget!) rather than thinking creatively about the best way of getting the most successful result and how the team can work together.
It’s time to think differently.
What is autonomy?
Autonomy is about giving people choice and the ability to make their own decisions. We really need to start saying to people: ‘you choose how you work’. For leaders, giving up control can feel uncomfortable. But the key point in here is that enabling autonomy does not mean leaders give up all controls but become less controlling. Instead, we negotiate alternative controls.
Autonomy creates value – it busts bureaucracy and gets rid of unnecessary red tape. We waste trillions of pounds on controlling people and on productivity measurement systems.
As Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini point out in Humanocracy: “In the age of upheaval, top-down power structures and rule-choked management systems are a liability. They crush creativity and stifle initiative. As leaders, employees, investors and citizens, we deserve better.”
When you give people autonomy over how they work and the decisions they make, you unleash creativity in your organisation. For example, Four Seasons Hotels give their teams unlimited ability to solve customer problems without limiting their budget. To keep customers happy, that kind of shared control is a no-brainer, but in today’s corporate world, it still takes a lot of courage to try it.
What do we mean by value?
If you’re really going to deliver value and purpose-driven business, you’ve got to look after your own people, do good things for them and value them properly – what’s the point of having an external message you don’t live by?
This relates to organisations who talk about being purpose-driven. This is a great thing to say, of course, but it’s important to remember that this is often an external-facing proposition. It’s easy to forget that there are people inside the organisation as well – so the purpose and focus can’t be all about the external impact.
For many, it can be difficult to reconcile all the definitions that are associated with the word ‘value’. Does it relate to competence? Is it monetary? Is it 100% staff attendance?
We think that value comes from listening to your people, giving them the autonomy to work in the best way for them, and making them a priority in your business. And we’re not the only ones.
Perry recalled a conversation he’d had with an investor in the city. He said, “Investors are genuinely looking for companies that care about their own people and are responsive with their culture – not just talking about how different their product is and what their capitalisation might look like. In fact, they are now asking hard, direct questions of entrepreneurs and senior leadership teams to make them demonstrate their commitment to people and culture.”
This may seem strange to organisations who still count value by the hour. And we need to support people to change their whole way of thinking. If an HR director is currently running a spreadsheet on an hours-based productivity basis, and counts training as ‘lost time’, we need to show them how to count ‘value gained’ from the training – measure the positives, rather than counting the negatives. We need to work on getting organisations to look at social and intellectual value – changing the way they think about value completely, and for the long term.
The importance of transparency
In UK culture, we don’t like to talk too much about money. And lots of organisations take this attitude too – we don’t even advertise salary on job roles. Knowing what people are paid, what their job entails and how you measure your value for money is often the elephant in the room.
Forward-thinking companies tend to be much more transparent about what they pay, why they pay it, the other benefits they offer and their overall financial position. At SSI, unfiltered transparency is one of the core pillars that sits underneath trust – and it’s part of how we help organisations and leaders to begin to experiment with more open ways of working.
For example, Michigan-based software company Menlo Innovations has a process they call ‘prosperity exchange’. If somebody thinks they're due a raise because they've been working hard and getting good client feedback, they put a proposition and discuss it with their peers – and if they agree, the person gets a raise then and there. This approach creates so much more openness, understanding and appreciation than waiting until a particular review date to make any progress.
Some progressive companies don’t hide any of their finances at all. Anyone can see and understand how they make, use, manage and spend their money – just something as simple as getting people to understand the dynamics of the balance sheet beyond what’s ‘usually’ published immediately puts that company ahead of the game – for its people, its investors and its customers.
How SSI can help you redefine value
Our Semco Style programmes are based around five principles: Trust, Alternative Controls, Self-management, Extreme Stakeholder Alignment and Creative Innovation. These principles are underpinned by 15 pillars and over 100 practices. The non-prescriptive Semco Framework cam act as a stimulus to experiment and create new ideas and practices across organisations.
Join future thinking organisations and make the choice to think and do differently – for the benefit of your people and your organisation’s success.
Find out more
If you’re ready to think about value, autonomy, transparency and your people in a different way, why not get in touch to see how we can help? You can also join our next webinar, Making Hybrid Work, which is on November 18th. Book your space here.
