Four Groups

A good friend, Professor Vlatka Hlupic recently had a piece published in Harvard Business Review called ‘To Be a Better Leader, Give up Authority‘. Congratulations!

The piece focuses on leadership, giving up power as a leader and witnessing corresponding improvements in performance. There are also case studies from CSC and ANADIGICS showing some attractive financial improvements as a result of this new way of working.

Over and above the financial improvements, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the article is the idea of “mutualism.”

Mutualism involves measuring workers not against revenue or other numerical goals, which we have observed to be ineffective as motivational tools, but against qualitative values such as trust, responsibility, and innovation.

And it implies that leaders don’t dictate vision or strategy; instead, they enable employees to create a common vision through, for example, off-sites for discussion of strategic issues and regular feedback and education. Hitting numerical goals has been the natural outcome.

It will be interesting to see if methods such as mutualism increase in popularity and adoption over the coming months.