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Andy Grove, Intel co- founder has asked, what is the actual output of a manager? His response: A manager produces what his or her team produces and the teams influenced by the manager. It was as equally applicable to us in that it applies to away.center as we scale with each of us being a self-managed teal organization with no typical bosses.
In a teal organization such as ours, we do not have formal managers, Grove principle does apply. Every individual affects the output of a team i.e. team output is everyone's responsibility. The true value of performance is not how productive we are but how far our work augments the work performance of the team. To this end, we have designed our own performance improvement approach, or rather a performance improvement plan which is applicable to the entire group of staff. How we operationalize this philosophy at away.center is through specific principles around output, balanced metrics, and culture of feedback.
1. Output Over Activity
We have a tendency to think of motion as synonymous to progress - to judge success by the amount of meetings, phone calls, hours of being busy. activity is not production Real productivity is what we can invent and maintain, such as number of members served, deals closed and culture enhanced.
At away.center, output is what counts. For us, output means many things in our day-to-day work:
- Delivering member tours thoroughly and warmly.
- Completing work on time and meeting expectations.
- Making our member experiences seamless.
This is not the role of one particular manager because everyone is accountable in a teal setting. Whether I stayed busy or not is not important but whether my work drove the work of others is the pertinent question.
2. Leverage: Work That Multiplies Impact
Not every task is made the same other work is much more significant in its ripple effect on performance than is some. We make maximum use of high-leverage activities the kinds of work that, when accomplished, many times multiply the output of the team. Work done in high leverage form can be demanding at first but saves time and better results in the long term term.
At away.center, leverage looks like:
- Writing a playbook once instead of answering the same question ten times.
- Coaching someone to own a process instead of doing it for them.
- Hiring great people so that each new addition raises the bar for the whole organization.
We do not depend on a pyramidal manager to disseminate these improvements- all can generate leverage. When you optimize any process, system, or give feedback, you increase group productivity all around.
3. Balanced Indicators: What We Track Shapes What We Do
To eliminate lopsided efforts we monitor matched measures that offset one another. Each indicator must have its opposite indicator: concentrate on speed and quality will go down; concentrate on quality and you will lose speed.
An example is that we counterbalance growth and the satisfaction of our members (increasing our reach and at the same time remaining satisfied with the members), and hobbyhorse the speed with the speed of the team (moving swiftly as well as keeping the speed of the team).
To follow through with these combinations assists us in being truthful in the revision of success. When one measurement is booming and another is making less progress, that is an indication to investigate further and make corrections. The metrics we measure align the things we work towards and therefore we have to choose indicators that promote balanced excellence, not extreme performance that has adverse effects.
Data-Driven Decision Making Rhythms
It is almost as significant as what gets measured that we measure it and how. We have a quarterly OKRs-based version of data-driven decision making, monthly reviews and daily/weekly stand-ups. These are not rituals as an end in themselves. In these forums, we look at main metrics collectively, appreciate victories, and as well address shortcomings in the open. This rhythm informs our culture: it makes all of us resonate, fosters openness, and makes facts drive our choices. These routinely established checkpoints help us identify issues at an early stage and ensure duplication of victories. The numbers do lead us but we read those numbers as a team, and then take action as a team. We end up using our indicators as not only figures, but as statements of our value.
4. Meetings: The Factory Floor of a Teal Performance Management System
Much of the actual work of management occurs at meetings. When done well they are not a tax on time, they become part of our output where alignment, decisions and clarity is generated. Whereas in a traditional company, managers are using the meetings as a means of directing the team, in our teal organization, we use meetings as a way of communally directing ourselves.
In the away.center, daily stand ups and weekly whole team review keeps us on track and answerable. Such meetings are not Michael Scott-style status reports but collaborative forums in which any team member can make general points, suggest process improvements, and throw light on purpose. To make these meetings work to improve performance, we require clear inputs (be prepared), clear outputs (decedisions or follow ups) and inputs are always expected of everyone.
When it is done well then, meetings can be high-leverage activities in their own right. Scenes of a manager telling somebody what to do and how to do it become unnecessary in our self-managed culture which needs an effective organizational meeting. They hold peers more accountable and give the opportunity of data-driven decision making.
5. Feedback and Task-Relevant Maturity
Individuals excel through feedback when it is targeted and when it arrives promptly. One of Grove ideas, the concepts Task-Relevant Maturity (TRM), is the extent of experience or expertise one has on a certain task. The individual may require a certain level of support depending on how mature he or she is to the task at hand. Someone new and not bringing a trace of TRM needs regular supervision and monitoring, and an expert having a high TRM will feel like a free person with trust.
At away.center, peer feedback sessions motivated everyone to get input on a quarterly basis. We customize support to each individuals TRM: seasoned find less support; newcomers more. When a person begins a duty (low TRM), colleagues will offer practical assistance; when one has gained more experience (high TRM), he or she will be granted independence.
6. The Manager as Coach, Not Just a Player
In conventional team, the managers do the directing and others do the doing. In our teal organization, we all can be both a coach and a player. When we are in need we all step up and guide one another. Employees at away.center even suggest their own salaries, which are then reviewed by their colleagues, a practice which also compels openness and internal responsibility. We all learn to coach and not just do our jobs: whether it is getting someone to acquire a new skill, or delivering knowledge in a stand-up presentation. There is also a peer-coaching ethos to this and knowledge is not hierarchical or subjected to authority; instead it is shared and responsibility is collective and mutual means we either succeed together or fail together. Our ability to coach one another will take Team performance to levels none of us would be able to on his/her own.
Conclusion: High-Output Culture for Continuous Improvement
Not just a hustle but also clarity of output, leverage and systems- High output. We do not gauge success by filled out desks and time clocked. We measure it in the experience that we create: a workplace where work feels deliberate and human. That is our score board. The balanced indicators and principles above constitute living performance improvement plan that keeps us focused on what matters.
In our organization of self-managing (teal) employees, the bettering is not a command going from above-down, but it is a course, that we all own. Adopting these principles, we make the idea of continuous improvement an everyday task and the matter of performance management inclusive. We should be measured by what it takes to get results.
