How to Manage a Self-Directed Team

Self-directed teams are quietly but effectively altering the landscape of corporate business management. Top level managers are finding that self-directed teams are 30 to 50 percent more productive than traditionally structured teams. Additionally, the team members are more involved and satisfied with their work. Follow these steps to manage a self-directed team.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Keep the focus on the whole process. To manage a self-directed team it's important to redirect focus on the series of individual steps, as in the Taylor model, to the entirety of the process. By focusing on the entire process, each member of the team is constantly aware of how they and the other members are contributing on a daily basis to accomplish the overall task.

2. Gradually transfer management skills and roles. Part of your job as a manager of a self-directed team is to transfer your skills and roles as a manager to the team. The team as a whole needs to receive managerial training. As they do so, the team must decide as a group on how to delegate and divide different roles. You need to manage this process to make sure that it runs smoothly.

3. Meet regularly. As a manager of self-directed team you need to reconsider your own role. It's important for you to think of yourself more as a floating member of that team, or as a team consultant, rather than as a supervisor or a manager. If there is anything that you are still supervising it is the implementation of the team's goals in terms of the company's overall mission and vision.

4. Give the team an opportunity to correct itself. In cases where a team is under-performing or making errors, you need to manage the situation by bringing the problem to the team's attention and soliciting possible action plans from the team to correct the problem. If the problems persist you should try to re-frame the team's focus or mission. Only as a last resort should you change the membership of the self-directed team.