Why the Boss Should Not Be the Boss

Companies can be much more competitive and responsive to market changes as they abandon their old management, says Jelle Dijkstra, professor of NHL Hogeschool. Organizations have become too complex for one manager to be the decision maker: “It is too risky”.

The Dijkstra's message is simple: the boss should no longer be the boss. Classic management should be changed, and employeesshould work in teams. Experts in particular fields can automatically take the lead on issues where they are most skilled at. “So sometimes you might have two or four managers”, he explains. On this opinion Dijkstra is not alone: he fits in with the popular “scrum”and “agile” work, which for example, ING uses. The principle comes from big tech companies like Google and Spotify, where this method has been present, and is now being picked up in the Netherlands.

A Trend for a Few Years

A few years ago, the prevailing morality was different, says Dijkstra. Six years ago he wrote the book Shared Leadership and was then mockingly addressed. “The first review was devastating: we were savaged”. Not much later, there was a change, and the book became management book of the year.

It is a change that he attributes to the crisis. “Organizations can see that the current model works. We are working the same way as in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but now that does not work anymore”, he says. “Before the crisis, the trees grew up until in the sky, but then suddenly leading companies sank because they were not flexible enough to adapt their business model. You can see that systems are vulnerable”.

“Through Shared Responsibility Errors Can Be Corrected More Easily”

He pleads to make organizations less dependent on structures and emotions, and more on the personal qualities of the employees. Through shared responsibility, it is easier to correct mistakes, he stresses. “For example, I was busy with several banks to enter the Austrian Vier-Augen-Prinzip. In one bank they have done it now. There a decision is taken by one person, but the others have to be part of it also. In that way it can be seen from different angles and it is not the individual, but the collective responsibility.

How Does the Best TeamWork?

Sounds nice, but not every team works efficiently together. How do you make sure they do not get bogged down in endless discussions that you as a company want to avoid? “Students havedone a study in escape rooms. Teams had eleven assignments and if the answers were accurate, they came out of the room. It worked only half well”.

Conclusions: homogeneous teams, which share the same mindset because it may include, for example, only lawyers or accountants, sit too much on the same track. “They cannot find the solution, because no one of them has a different perspective”. Overly complex teams also do not work as well: “They do not reach a solution quick enough”.

“There is an optimum: The composition must be flexible. Then you get other points of view and with that, it becomes easier to troubleshoot. The one who knows more about a particular subject, automatically goes into the lead...”

Source: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl