So, so far in our self managed team, building a team that actually owns their work, isn't constantly coming to you for clarification to solve problems for them. We have talked about the importance of creating a clear direction that your team's aligned around. We have talked about them having clear role clarity.
We have talked about that you actually delegating decision rights down to them. Now, the last thing that I want to cover in the series is actually equipping your team with All the information they need to own their work. And this is where corporate bureaucracy and hierarchical culture come into play.
And that is, we have been told a few things. Our job as leaders is to be the ones who develop the strategies. We are the ones who are supposed to attend the important meetings. And we are the ones who are supposed to. Um, hold tight, critical information to the vest and that almost puts us like above our team.
I am the important person who directs this team and you are the doers. And that right there just told your team that. They are simply executors and not owners of their work. And that is how they're going to operate. If you are the one hoarding all of the information they need, if you are the one developing the strategy in a silo, if you are the one attending all the meetings because you have the title, And therefore the seat at the table.
If you are the ones cc'd on all the important meetings, your team can't own their work. I can't tell you how many times I've had teams come to me and they're like, I want to own my work. I want to step up, but I don't understand how to, because I'm constantly trying to piece together what the heck I'm supposed to be doing.
Just based off the tidbits of information, my leader gives me in one on ones. Because they're in the meetings. They're on the emails. They're the ones in the strategy sessions. And I'm supposed to just somehow take the little tidbits of information I have and go save the world. Like it's just not setting them up for success.
If you want your team to own their work, you've got to treat them like the owners. You have to Actively challenge the belief that has been put in you that you need to be the one doing all the quote unquote sexy work and your team just needs to execute because if you come at it with that belief, your team will act like executors and they will be 1000 percent depended on you.
to move their work forward. So let's talk about some key areas that we need to make sure we're empowering their team, our teams to own in order for them to fully own their work. The first one is strategy. If you are developing your strategy behind closed doors, figuring out what your team's going to focus on, figuring out what you're going to prioritize, And then just pushing it down onto your team.
We've already taken one massive step back to your team, owning their work. Teams are bought into solutions. They have helped develop. They aren't going to feel ownership over a strategy that they had no part in developing. They aren't going to feel connected to a strategy that they had no part in developing.
In fact, a lot of the times it's only going to frustrate them because maybe we didn't focus on a key area. They would have. Or we didn't do it the way they would have. And it just, it shuts them down. Cause they're like, they don't know what they're talking about. I would have done it differently. We have to give them a voice in that process if we want them to step up and own it.
So that means inviting your team to the table. Getting clear on that vision we talked about in that, for one of those first episodes and saying, based off of this, what do we need to focus on this quarter? When having the conversation with your team together, not in individual silos. So they're actually together saying, how do we not, how does my function, my team, how do we.
Want to move towards this vision and another piece of that is every quarter actually getting your team together and saying What is going well and what isn't those feedback loops because a lot of the times us as leaders We're getting information from everyone our leaders stakeholders our team all of it telling us everything that's going wrong and everything We need to be doing differently and then we take that and we decide what we're gonna go after and what we prioritize And your team feels disconnected from that.
We want to bring them into the process. So share with them, Hey, this quarter, I went and I talked to our core stakeholders, our core customers, my more senior leaders, here's the feedback they shared on what we did last quarter, what went well and what didn't. Now I want to hear from you. What do you think from your perspective went well and what didn't run?
Then based off of that, what do we need to do differently moving forward? What do we need to prioritize? What do we need to shift? And you do that every single quarter. And now they actually feel like they had a say in the strategy. They actually feel connected to it because they helped develop it. It is not our leader jobs as leaders to push things on our team.
It's our job as leaders to facilitate our team, bring them together and really capitalize on their shared expertise. The other one that is a major issue is meetings. We feel like we have the right title, the seniority, the visibility to be in these meetings and we exclude people from the conversations that directly impact their work.
And so they're left scrambling to figure out what was decided, wasting time chasing updates and approvals or waiting for their weekly one on one to figure out what the heck's going on only to find out that the work that they're doing has completely changed. And they wish they would have had that meeting like three days ago.
We are significantly impacting our teams by not getting them a seat at the table. We need to be continuing to push against the cultural norms and say, no, I'm bringing this person. I can't tell you how many times I was like bringing an analyst to a meeting with an exec level individual because that analyst was doing the work.
And sure, did we get some weird looks at first? Maybe, but guess what? It made their work 10 times better. And that client wasn't talking when they got the result they wanted. It may feel uncomfortable. You may be the only one doing it, but it's going to empower your team to actually own their stuff and they're going to make a bigger impact.
Otherwise you're just playing a giant game of telephone and your team is constantly having to operate from only one page in the book and that is not setting them up for success to own their work. So if your team is struggling to step up and take ownership, I want you to look at it and say, Where do they lack critical information or a seat at the table or even visibility with the stakeholders they need in order to do their work?
Gosh, I can't tell you how many people I've seen where they were the one doing the work for a key customer group, yet their leader went to every meeting with that customer. I literally talked to people who were like, I have never been invited to a meeting with my customer in the year and a half I've been here.
I simply, my leader goes to those meetings, they come back to me, they give me a directive and they go do the work. Imagine how different it would be if your team actually had a seat at the table who was able to listen to the conversation. And ask way better questions than what you could have. I know how frustrating it was when I was sitting there and I'm like, gosh, if I would have heard that I would have asked X, Y, and Z, but now we've lost our opportunity.
I simply have to operate based off of half the picture and have to wait until the next time my leader goes to seat at the table and somehow pray that I equip them enough that they ask the right questions and they get the right answers. When it would have been so much easier if I just had a seat at the table to begin And then the last one is that you are hoarding, um, information that your team needs to know.
Sometimes it's because, well, it's, it's confidential. No one's supposed to know it's secretive, whatever reason, but it is key information that your team actually needs. And you're scared of sharing it because of some transparency thing that this really isn't that big of a deal, but we're hoarding information and asking our team to operate blind.
You have literally just blindfolded your team and say, do the job. And of course, they're not going to own their work. Of course, they're going to be confused because you're holding a key piece of the puzzle that they need. The other way this happens is unintentionally. You're just in all the information.
You're in the emails. You're cc'd on things that they don't have access to. And of course, they're struggling because you're operating from the full book and they're operating from one chapter. No wonder they're constantly having to go to you. So as you're taking in information, constantly be assessing, is this something my team needs?
How can I take myself off and put them on? How can I get them on the email chain? How can I get them access to this? Is this really confidential? Because if I can't trust my team and the people doing the work with it, then what's the point? And what is the point? They're the ones doing the work. They need the information.
So if your team is struggling to own their work, I want you to challenge yourself today and say, have I fully equipped them with the full picture that they need to truly own their work? And of course, you know, if you need help in doing this and you want to strip out the overwhelm, the overthinking and the overworking from running your team and have a truly, truly Fully self managed team that allows you to pull up and out of the weeds and lead strategically than you need to be inside the liberated leader.
I'm dropping that in the show notes below. Go take one thing you learned from this episode and go apply it. Listening to podcast episodes and gaining more knowledge, but not applying any of it is not going to result in any sort of change in your team. Doing the work is what drives change. So go do it.
And then DM me. Let me know how it went and where you have questions.
