Continuous Learning
By Sidsel Lindsø
Before the summer the Norwegian Leadership Magazine Ledernytt was curious to hear our opinion on a recent study that demonstrated that the Norwegian work life had been more authoritarian, which to a high degree had been related to the global financial crisis in 2019 and again due to the downturn in the oil industry where more cost control systems had been implemented in businesses. The systems in question are not including the ones that are in place to keep us all safe and make sure that everyone follows the law and pay their taxes, of course.
Our learnings from our networks are that such systems can be useful when implemented to support their people and processes - but sometimes, when the focus is more on the system rather than the needs of people using it, they can end up taking up too much valuable time and kill motivation. And, depending on the task of the system, they might just provide a false sense of security. Much more about that in the article, which we have translated to English . You can access it via this link.
A new Leadership Model
For ExploCrowd we have consciously chosen a leadership model where trust is the foundation and where the team has the highest autonomy and influence on their work as possible in order to spark motivation this way. To me, it does not really matter how many hours people work. And when. What matters to me is how the team cares for each other and delivers together, meet the deadlines while maintaining the high quality and scientific integrity that we are so proud of. And the way we achieve this is to set the goal, list the tasks and then people have to find their own preferred way to deliver. This takes a significant share of communication, and it works most of the time - but we have also seen examples of when the entire task and even vision of the company has been misunderstood. When this happens it really hurts, but the finding is every time that the communication was not clear enough, because there was not time enough or it was not prioritised over other tasks. One can really never have too much communication, a wise woman once told me, and I believe Tone was right. But when these situations happen, then we learn. And improve.
Testing Ideas and Technical Solutions
Actually, in our team we try to constantly test different approaches to see what is working best for Our Way of Working and do our best to find the time to experiment with new technology and solutions to minimise especially repetitive tasks that are not directly value creating, or absolutely necessary. After more than two years in operation, I would estimate that 80% of the testing we have done so far, have actually resulted in improved ways of working, increasing speed and/or quality. And of course, again, we don’t have the financial muscles that others have in this business, but somehow there is an exciting challenge in trying to find smart solutions to work smarter - not harder. And there are so many possibilities out there that needs to be tested.
Continuous Learning
We see that this ‘ExploCrowd Approach’ creates a good foundation for valuable relations and our network of Contributors and Collaboration Partners is constantly expanding, as is our Client Base. The latter now consist of both small, medium and large companies, and it is very interesting to observe how we as an agile team with a high degree of autonomy and based on trust mostly fit into the organisation as a perfect match - but we have also seen an example of unexpected misalignment between the teams. And we have to accept that it does takes some time for the client to fully understand the strength and flexibility that lies in the way we are working.
And there will never be one leadership model that fits all companies. Fortunately. It is probably good with a little diversity in mind sets and cultures, enabling us all to challenge and inspire each other.