Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

Radical honesty. - tobe built in

People Have Power; Don’t Take It Away

company’s job isn’t to empower people; it’s to remind

A company’s job isn’t to empower people; it’s to remind people that they walk in the door with power and to create the conditions for them to exercise it. Do that, and you will be astonished by the great work they will do for you.

Here is my radical proposition: a business leader’s job is to create great teams that do amazing work on time. That’s it. That’s the job of management.

It’s a matter of identifying the behaviors that you would like to see become consistent practices and then instilling the discipline of actually doing them.

We wanted open, clear, and constant communication about the work to be done and the challenges being faced, not only for a manager’s own team but for the company as a whole. • We wanted people to practice radical honesty: telling one another, and us, the truth in a timely fashion and ideally face to face. • We wanted people to have strong, fact-based opinions and to debate them avidly and test them rigorously. • We wanted people to base their actions on what was best for the customer and the company, not on attempts to prove themselves right. • We wanted hiring managers to take the lead in preparing their teams for the future by making sure they had high performers with the right skills in every position.

Great teams are made when every single member knows where they’re going and will do anything to get there. Great teams are not created with incentives, procedures, and perks. They are created by hiring talented people who are adults and want nothing more than to tackle a challenge, and then communicating to them, clearly and continuously, about what the challenge is.