Hidden Mojo

Fortune Magazine is running an article this month that’s causing some controversy. It’s about Google’s chaotic management style.

Letting go is scary, but giving up control makes employees happier, more creative, and more motivated.

It’s controversial because Google is successful, but their chaotic style is anathema to the Six Sigma’ed, Total Quality Management management styles that were all the rage in the industrial age. But in the post-information age in which we live, most efficiency should be outsourced. If you want to succeed, new products and more efficient processes are the only way to compete. And the way to find those new products and new processes is by increasing variability and experimentation.

If you come from a command-and-control mindset bent on improving efficiency, increasing variability sounds like a management nightmare. And indeed, it is. The only way this strategy works is to make sure your systems encourage the right behaviors, and then let go. You must trust that the people you are betting your business on will want control to make their situations better! Your job is now to give them the tools and information to make good decisions, guide them, and then get out of their way.

Letting go doesn’t just apply to big-brained engineers from Stanford and MIT, by the way. The desire for control over one’s surroundings is universal, so by giving control to your employees, and having the right systems in place, your business can realize significant gains. Roosevelt Finlayson of Festival in the Workplace tells a wonderful story about dispassionate laborers by day who turn into passionate creators of beautiful Junkanoo Festival costumes every evening after work. It’s not a coincidence that having control over costume design translates into passion.

Letting go is scary, but giving up control makes employees happier, more creative, and more motivated. As we get deeper into the post-information age, it is these skills that will help your company find and connect with customers more effectively than any others.