It’s been over a decade since Dan Pink highlighted the motivational power of autonomy. In the intervening years, it has come to the fore of movements ranging from the gig economy to the self-organizing teams at the center of philosophies such as Holocracy.
The transition towards remote working during the pandemic has also shone a light on the concept of autonomy, with some organizations giving people greater freedom to work how they wish, while others responded to the move by installing various surveillance technologies.
Most of the time when autonomy is discussed, however, it’s done so in the context of employees being assigned tasks and given some freedom over how and where those tasks are performed. Seldom do we give employees autonomy over the tasks they’re required to perform as well.
Self-selection
Such self-selection is more common in the software development world, but it nonetheless remains an outlier. A recent study from INSEAD explores the conditions under which self-selection works and performs better than having managers allocate tasks.
The study found that self-selection provides the best outcomes when tasks are independent of each other, the workers are highly specialized, and their availability is unpredictable.
The researchers highlight previous research into the field, which illustrates how self-selection works because employees have a better grasp of their own skills than their manager does. What’s more, there is also an empowerment aspect of being able to choose what you work on.
What we lack, however, is the organization-level perspective that can often be crucial in successfully coordinating tasks effectively, which can result in some crucial tasks being poorly done or even unfulfilled entirely.
The right approach
The researchers approached their task by assuming that the division of labor is largely a process of accurately matching people with tasks. They then built a model from this assumption that allowed them to simulate the various conditions under which a self-organized versus centralized approach might thrive. They operated under the explicit assumption that in both circumstances managers and employees strive to pick the people and tasks best suited for their relevant skills.
They found that there are some circumstances in which it works better when the manager allocates people to tasks. For instance, this was the case when both tasks and employees are visible and available at the same time. This condition allows the manager to avoid any understaffing issues. A good example might be the launching of a new project with a particular number of employees.
Similarly, if tasks crop up somewhat unexpectedly, such as when an employee resigns, this is also a good time for that task to be assigned by a manager.
Alternatively, self-selection can be a great option when employees become available at unforeseeable and different moments, and this is especially so when there is a high degree of specialization among employees.
Highly specialized
The degree of specialization of employees turns out to be the key factor in whether self-selection works or not, as when employees are only moderately specialized, it doesn’t seem to work well at all. A scenario whereby teams are full of highly specialized people is one in which both the quality of work and general level of motivation will benefit from higher levels of self-selection. If workers have more similar skills, however, then managerial allocation may be the better approach.
There is a strong sense that workers today crave more autonomy over their work, so the insights into when it can work should be useful for managers grappling with how they might lessen control effectively. Indeed, the researchers argue that the most effective approach might be a hybrid one, whereby less popular tasks are shared equitably among the team to avoid tasks going unstaffed.
