I’ve talked before about the application of pin-factory thinking to work that requires empathy, creativity, imagination, judgement and flair.   This kind of thinking reduces management to supervision, control, and reporting.   Activities that are easily automated, but add little value.

No wonder we have an employee engagement problem, an innovation problem and a productivity problem.

Because we have a management problem.

People don’t need managing.  We are perfectly capable of managing ourselves, and do so every day.

We don’t need supervision and reporting.  We need communication – a vision, a score to follow, feedback on how we’re doing.

We don’t need to be controlled.   We need freedom – to make mistakes, learn from them, correct ourselves, improve how we do things.

We don’t even need to be led.   We can lead each other – the right leader, at the right time to deliver what’s required.

Down with management!

Long live responsible autonomy!