Free Range Management: How to Manage Knowledge Workers and Create Space

By Andreas Creten and Steve Tauber

The new way of work and management

Leading a team has never been more difficult — or easy. With Free Range Management, you can create an environment where people are truly happy and free to do their best work. Whether you are a first time manager or want to improve the culture of an existing team, look no further.

In this concise manual, Steve Tauber and Andreas Creten have detailed the processes, structure, and approach needed to lead and manage knowledge workers. Inside, you’ll find concrete advice needed to revolutionize your organization from the inside.

Each chapter is laid out smartly with detailed advice, key takeaways, and the recommended first, pragmatic steps in your journey. Welcome to the new way of work and management.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9789464664737

Book preview

Assess outcomes

A person holding a measuring instrument next to book chapters standing on a graph with an arrow to measure the results.

Outcomes versus output

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Through collaboration and creating output, team members can create desirable outcomes. For instance, a software team doesn’t care about the number of lines of code (output) but instead the number of customers using a particular feature to solve their problem (outcome).

Many first time managers make the mistake of measuring output. Instead of focusing on hours worked (butts in seats), look at the outcomes produced by employees. But how can that be measured?

It is valuable to differentiate between evaluating work in a qualitative way (assessment) and a quantitative way (metrics). It is much easier to perform assessments rather than rely on metrics. However, this opens up individuals and teams to subjective measurement.

Assessments are useful for measuring the ways in which outcomes are created (the process and interactions along the way). While metrics should measure the outcomes directly (often at a team level).

For instance, the head chef of a restaurant is reviewing the work of a newly hired cook. The head chef can use assessments to understand how the individual interacts with the team and if they can follow the existing rules of the kitchen. Metrics can be used to determine if the new hire can prep ingredients at the right pace and how the team’s mean time to dish delivery is impacted by the hire.

By creating metrics (and a dashboard to view them), the management team can have an overview of the work. In this way, managers can build trust with their teams and give them the autonomy to do what they are hired to do: think about and solve problems.

It is useful to compare individuals within the context of a team, not to coach individuals, but instead to understand how the team as a whole is functioning. This can be done with various frameworks such as 9 box grid (sometimes called the people-performance-potential-model).

As the name implies, two axes are used: performance versus potential. On one edge, performance is tracked based on job results, focusing on output as low, moderate, or high. Potential is on the other edge and deals with personal growth and future capabilities.

Although this model can help visualize individuals compared to their colleagues, it does have its drawbacks. It can be hard to remain objective because both axes are difficult to gauge in a quantitative way.

A chart with a potential axis and a performance axis. The names of people are mapped on the chart in 4 quadrants.

Meaningful performance metrics are generally assigned at a team level rather than an individual level for knowledge workers. And when it comes to potential, collecting data in the first place is near impossible making this ranking very subjective and prone to bias without a structured rubric.

One company, YSC Consulting, has taken steps to quantify potential. Their system is composed of judgment, drive, and influence (JDI).¹ During each review period, a manager can document the way an employee demonstrates each quality and where they need to improve.

Judgment is composed of recognizing problems, framing them properly, and the analytical rigor in solution ideation. Drive is focused on aspirations, taking initiative, and self-assurance in making change. Influence is defined as self-awareness, maintaining an environmental radar, and identifying the range of the individual’s influence.

Because individuals are compared against one another, 9 box grid becomes all about subjectivity. It allows a manager to see the bigger picture of a team. Mentors and mentees become apparent and changes over time are easy to identify.

There are certain metrics that can be measured at the team level. Again, the metrics should be focused on desired outcomes. What is the core role the team is fulfilling?

Depending on the team it could be shipping software features or proofreading chapters of a novel or holding training workshops. Once the core role is discovered, metrics can be created.

A north star metric is the number one metric within a business, one which drives a company towards delivering customer value. For a passenger transportation service company, it might be weekly rides or perhaps total minutes ridden per week.

Initially, the team will be able to identify and track trailing indicators. These are metrics which are measured after something occurs. Given enough time and research, correlations will be discovered which allow tracking of leading indicators. These types of metrics predict success and help companies make decisions about the future.

For instance, a sales team might track Revenue or Churn rate. These metrics occur after an event. The same sales team might also track Qualified leads and Customer happiness which would help them understand what might happen next and therefore become predictive.

1. https://www.ysc.com/leadership-strategy-services/identifying-and-developing-potential/

Autonomy

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Traditional organizations have a structure filled with supervisors who manage communication up and down the reporting chain. This prevents individuals from making decisions. The people furthest from the problems are then making decisions, with limited information and expertise to do so. The decisions of many companies are guided by those with the highest salary rather than the best knowledge.

One approach to ensuring decisions are made by the right people is by assigning a directly responsible individual (DRI). Coined at Apple, the DRI describes someone who drives an issue towards resolution. They are an orchestrator who ensures the right people are working on a particular problem and they help push decision making as low in the organization as possible.

L. David Marquet documents his approach to management in Turn the Ship Around!. As the new captain of a nuclear submarine, he quickly discovered flaws in a top-down organization.

The crew was trained to follow orders, even though the one he gave was impossible on this particular boat. This made him rethink his entire approach.

Soon he developed some guidelines where the crew would have the power to make their own decisions. By announcing their intent, ample time was given to officers to prevent error. For example, a crewman might say I intend to reduce speed to zero six knots.

Controls are still needed. On the sub, weapons control was still firmly reserved for upper ranks. In the office, perhaps everything below a certain monetary cost is permitted.

When given the proper context and with decision makers closest to the problem, better decisions will be made because those people will have the fullest understanding of the niche factors involved. But how can those people come