Happy Friday!

When you're in a leadership position, it can feel like all of your time is used up by having to intervene on one crisis or another. Instead of looking ahead and creating opportunities or clearing a path, you have to go to another meeting because another group is stuck or in trouble. It is exhausting to work this way, and even though some people thrive on being needed, it is also a sign that something needs to change.

Some time ago, the term "Self-managing teams" gained popularity. Just the sound of it speaks to a cure to so many struggles technical leaders face. Teams that manage themselves don't need crisis intervention, supervision, or course correction because they manage themselves!

Looking around, it doesn't seem that there are many self-managing teams out there, so let me give you a few reasons why and what you can do about it.

Delegation

The bottom line is that when you keep yourself as the person who is in every meeting and making every decision, you are creating a bottleneck around yourself.

Delegation is critical to having self-managed teams that free up your capacity as a leader. Delegation is when you hand over responsibility fully to someone else over something specific. You will need to do this more.

Start simple: send a delegate to a meeting you normally attend and prepare them for the key information you want reported on and the key information you want them to convey. Warn them about any topics to steer clear of. Then, get out of their way and let them go.

Just delegating meetings, you probably don't need to attend can free up hours of time every day.

Boundaries

The reality is that we don't work in a world of infinite resources or authority. We are forced to create results in a constrained environment. More often than not, leaders direct their teams on what to do but don't communicate what the boundaries are. This leaves the teams stuck when something surprises them because they don't know what choices they have.

What would be a boundary? It could be timing, and I don't mean a fake deadline used to create urgency. A boundary could be how much or little they can utilize other groups and their resources. Another could be the scope of the endeavor itself, where over 60% of it is nice-to-have, jumbled up with the 40% that is a must-have. A boundary that sneaks up on some groups is communication, who we do and don't communicate to about specific things. Maybe an example would help with this one. A leader may tell at team they can work with any peer team they need, but if they need the legal team, call the leader first.

By explicitly communicating boundaries, the teams know the field they can move in and make decisions in. This allows them to self-manage and keep your phone from ringing as much.

Context

Whenever teams are instructed to accomplish something they are never told the full story. Leaders believe that they are sharing what is important and that not burdening them with all the extra information, the team will be more successful.

What gets lost most often in this exchange? The why of the work. When leaders present a solution to implement without the surrounding context and why, teams are forced to execute only. When the team inevitably builds what was asked for and it isn't right, it is that leader's fault.

Sharing the surrounding context of an issue and the reasons why this solution matters allows teams to raise important questions, provide better alternatives, and innovate towards a better solution. It lets them raise their hand with an idea that could be better, faster, or cheaper.

So next time you're talking with your teams on upcoming work, burden them with the context. They can take it, and it will help them self-manage their way to a better result.

Alright, this was a bit of a longer email than normal, but I'd like to know what you think about this one in particular. I've been thinking over some directions I'd like to take my writing so your opinion would really help me sort through what is rumbling around in my head.

Sincerely,

Ryan

PS: Did you know I build exceptional teams? All you have to do is call.