May 1, 2023Presentation name 1

OrganizationalSelf-DirectionOlof HoverfältDirector, Sanoma Games December 16, 2015

@Hoverfalt

Sanoma Games is a diverse yet compact and lean unit

B2C & B2B, web & mobile Autonomous unit Key functions “in-house”

Business development

Marketing

Design

Development

Sales

The following reflections are based on experience from running an autonomous business unit within a large organization

Individual Business unit Large organiation

Autonomy

Self-Direction

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

The first step in any attempt to increase proactivity is to ensure that people can actually make an impact

<Personal influence is often more about the small things that matter than about changing the world.

It can be something as simple as choosing your own work equipment

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

Self-direction cannot be created by coercion, but must be built through intrinsic motivation from its visible benefits

Transparency Autonomy Ownership

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

xxx

Improvement actions

xxx

Revenue

ROS&packag. campaign vol.

Videocampaign vol.

Pricing

Discounts

Campaign volume

Optimization

Direct

Referral

SEO

Ret. visitors

Potential issues

Site problems

Ad blockers

New visitors

Reach

Monetization

Visits

Premiumfill rate

Premium eRPM

Remnant eCPM

Unique visitors

Media sales breakdown by contributing component

Impression success rate

nn%

nn%

nn% mm%

nn%

nn%

nn% lost

Ensure overall understanding of how the business works and of the contribution of and the dependencies between its components. Make deep data available

In order for a team to develop and fine tune an engine, everyone must know how it works

Adoption of a data-driven approach requires for people to see its benefits; how they could kick ass even more at what they do

Image: http://blog.crazyegg.com/lessons/show-benefits/

Make the personal benefits of being data-driven visible.Show how its autonomous pursuit enhances mastery.

Super You!Data-drivenness

You

Ownershipis not about doing what I tell you to do

is not about not doing what I tell you not to dois about doing what I don’t tell you to do

Ensure ownership of benefits, not deliverablesFocus on why, not what

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

Data-drivenness, at both individual and team level, is a capability that can and should be developed

http://skepdic.com/tencommands.html

+While a data-driven mindset takes time to develop, it is a key enabler of operational self-direction.

This capability is best built before attempting extended autonomy in direction.

Reflection Key concepts

Being data-driven is not only about sensibly answering questions, but about finding them in the first place

It cannot itself be standardized into rules or processes, but it

can be guided by high-level key concepts

Side note: for more elaboration on the management and data-drivenness layers in this same context, please see:

www.slideshare.net/Hoverfalt/building-a-datadriven-culture

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action (TED) & Start With Why (2013)

Focus on benefits, not deliverables. Strive to make this the standard way of thinking in practically everything

Deliverable

Benefit

Ability to cross the river

Don’t get stuck here Alternative solutions can only be found through benefit thinking

Benefit thinking might also reveal unconventional links and radically different opportunities to create value (solve problems)

Deliverable

Benefit

Avoid wasting time waiting for the bus

Bus schedule Audible

Remove waste by minimizing waiting time

Remove waste by making the waiting time

useful

Both solve the same problem

Like creativity, autonomy works best under constraints. Benefit-driven direction and freedom in how can be highly engaging

*Henrik Kniberg (Spotify, Lego, …): http://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unproject.pdf

Alig

nmen

t

AutonomyLow High

High

Low

Authoritative organization

Conformist culture

We need to cross the river

Build a bridge!

Innovative organization

Collaborative culture

We need to cross the river

Figure out how!

Micromanaging organization

Indifferent culture

… … …

Entrepreneurial organization

Chaotic culture

I hope someone is working on the river

problem

Aligned autonomy*

What/why given, freedom in how

How do we get there?

Can we go beyond?

Meaningfulness and mastery are key enablers of self-direction

Wha

t

HowPhilosophyInstruction MethodologyProcess

Purp

ose

Bene

fitDe

liver

able

Task

Meaningfulexecution

Operational self-direction

Goal-driven achievement

Meta level (reflection)

Met

a le

vel (

refle

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n)Combining ownership of benefits with methodological autonomy and capability forms a

strong foundation for operational self-direction

Increasing Meaningfulness

Increasing capacity to find opportunities to

create value(find problems)

Ask: Why?

Increasing Mastery

Increasingcapacity to deliver

value (solve problems)Ask: Why not?

Taylorism

Pragmatic optimizing

TealVisionary motivation

Disengaging routine work

Provided the right competence and mindset, people doing the job are far better at deciding what is needed than any outsider

Platform: people responsible for their own decisions

Tools Sourcing Technology Learning …

A well-funcioning self-directed team often needs to be protected from centralized one-fits-all solutions. There is little point in trying to resist this as smart people will find their way around

Self-direction might yield remarkable innovations otherwise prohibited by limitations in formal processes, roles or structures

...Design Product Marketing Business

Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust

Work environment enabling personal ability to improve

Data-driven culture

Operational self-direction

Management fostering self-direction

Purpose

Ideally, you have a Massive Transformative Purpose*. If you don’t, purposefulness can come from other aspects of work

*Salim Ismail: Exponential Organizations

Purpose can be tricky, especially for incumbent companies in comparison to their disruptors.Not all endeavors save the world though. Work can still be meaningful

Substantial Contextual

“Mantra”(not vision)

-Guy Kawasaki

“Massive Transformative Purpose”

-Salim IsmailGreat team!

Benefits, Challenges and Opportunities

The benefits of self-direction are indirect but potentially huge

Engagement Productivity Adaptability

Self-direction might be a potential enabler of survival for large companies in the battle against über agile start-ups only through playing even remotely with their rules (or rather rulelessness)

*Henrik Kniberg (Spotify, Lego, …): http://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unproject.pdf

Maximize value,not output*

An engaged employee can be 10x+ more productive

Focus on failure recovery, not failure prevention

Building self-direction is by no means easy…

Requires work Takes time Risky

... but the transformation becomes easier as it gains momentum until ultimately self-sustaining

Must be allowed its own pace to find its own form

Needs a champion but cannot be coerced

No standard roll-out nor guarantee of success

While increasing and decreasing autonomy both involve risk, one key difference is in the potential upside when successful

* In my environment and experience, over 1 year

Perfo

rman

ce

Autonomy

OpportunityStrain-driven performance is capped

The initially higher marginal performance of decreased

autonomy drives decisions to revert to control in bad times

Pote

ntial

out

com

e

Pote

ntial

out

com

e

Transitioning to significantly increased autonomy requires a long-term view* and the acceptance of a certain level of short-term risk

The risk of even temporarily decreased performance is for many managers an understandable barrier to experiment

Perfo

rman

ce

Time

Inhibitor

Opportunity

At the end of the day, it’s all about the people

Really, it is

As talent management is more about enablement than development, it calls for analytics much deeper than skills etc.Creating Strategy                    AnalyticalComplexityInnovativeLearning orientationMultitaskingVision Engaging TalentAffiliationConcern for OthersDevelopmentSociabilityTeam Orientation Inspiring PeopleAssertivenessAuthorityDecisivenessEnergyInfluenceSocial Assuredness Achieving ExcellenceAchievement OrientationCompetitivenessDependabilityDetail OrientationInitiativeOrganizedRisk OrientationSelf Control

IBM Workforce Sciences (2015): Leadership Preference and Leadership Behavioral Assessment

Diverse thinking Intrinsic motivation

xxx

Radically changing environment

An exponentially changing word challenges companies both from the outside and from within with a force difficult to grasp

Environment Employees

285k subscibers 59 million views

Companies face not only an exponentially changing environment, but also a new wave of ”employees” that have embraced it and live at its pace and rulelessness

Fixedassets

Our standard way of designing organizations seems to be as static structures of roles, defined by tasks and required skills

This demand-driven approach is ill suited in a rapidly changing environment

A temporary and flexible constellation of humans with talents and ambitions is better suited to describe opportunities

A shift to supply-driven talent management calls for at whole new level of awareness at scale and at all levels of the “organization”

Efforts to optimize return on human capital should reflect value creation, current and potential

While efforts in finding and developing future-proof top executives will be warranted for a long time, companies should build capabilities to optimize their entire human capital yield at the same level

Most HR analytics efforts seem to be

put here

Although customer value is

increasingly created here

Disruption pushes people to higher levels of human contribution

Wha

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HowInstruction PhilosophyMethodologyProcess

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Task

Meta level (reflection)

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Companies need to not only be prepared for this migration, but to drive it

AI

This is an enormous

opportunity to improve both

productivity and happiness

It requires for people to have the

willingness and capacity to rise to

new levels

”The best way to predict the future is to create it”

The next best strategy is to build adaptability

If you are not playing in that league...

Great reads on future current organizations

If you’re excited about this stuff too, I’m always up for an intriguing chat. The coffee/beer is on me

@Hoverfalt

May 1, 2023Presentation name 47