BUS603: Managing People

As the amount of creativity a role requires increases, the amount of directed and "managed" work we find in that role decreases. Guidelines get broader, processes looser, schedules lengthened (I wish!). This is because what's required to "be creative" involves other types of work (and new degrees of transparency and authority along with them). Ron McFarland explains this in his article on adaptive leadership: Many challenges are ambiguous, as opposed to technical, and therefore require specific kinds of leadership.

To take this idea one step further, we might say open leaders need to be adaptive to how they view and implement the different kinds of work on their teams or in their organizations. "Enabling" associates means growing their skills and knowledge so they can manage themselves. The foundation for this type of activity is information - access to it, sharing it, and opportunities to independently use it to complete work activity. This is the kind of work Peter Drucker was referring to when he coined the term "knowledge work".

Enabled work liberates associates from the constraints of managed work, though it still involves leaders providing considerable direction and guidance. Outcomes of this work might be familiar and normalized, but the paths to achieving them are more open-ended than in managed work. Methods are more flexible and inclusive of individual preference and capability.

"Enablement" is the best strategy when objectives are well-defined and the outcomes are aligned with past outcomes and results.