Three key points from the document: 1) Self-direction requires more than just autonomy and trust - it requires a work environment that enables employees to improve, a data-driven culture, operational self-direction, and management that fosters self-direction. 2) Building a self-directed organization is challenging but has significant benefits like increased engagement and adaptability if successful. It requires a long term view due to initial performance risks. 3) In an increasingly changing environment, a flexible constellation of talented humans is better suited than static organizational structures. Efforts should optimize human capital yield by reflecting value creation opportunities.

1. Organizational
Self-Direction
Olof Hoverfält
Director, Sanoma Games
December 16, 2015

2. @Hoverfalt

3. Sanoma Games is a diverse yet compact and lean unit
B2C & B2B, web & mobile Autonomous unit Key functions “in-house”
Business development
Marketing
Design
Development
Sales

4. The following reflections are based on experience from running
an autonomous business unit within a large organization
Individual Business unit Large organiation
Autonomy

5. Self-Direction

6. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

7. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

8. The first step in any attempt to increase proactivity is to ensure
that people can actually make an impact
<
Personal influence is often more about the small things that matter than about changing the world.
It can be something as simple as choosing your own work equipment

9. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

10. Self-direction cannot be created by coercion, but must be built
through intrinsic motivation from its visible benefits
Transparency Autonomy Ownership

11. xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
Improvement actions
xxx
Revenue
ROS&packag.
campaign vol.
Video
campaign vol.
Pricing
Discounts
Campaign
volume
Optimization
Direct
Referral
SEO
Ret. visitors
Potential
issues
Site problems
Ad blockers
New visitors
Reach
Monetization
Visits
Premium
fill rate
Premium
eRPM
Remnant
eCPM
Unique
visitors
Media sales breakdown by contributing component
Impression
success rate
nn%
nn%
nn% 
mm%
nn%
nn%
nn%
lost
Ensure overall understanding of how the business works and of the contribution of and the
dependencies between its components. Make deep data available
In order for a team to develop and fine tune an engine,
everyone must know how it works

12. Adoption of a data-driven approach requires for people to see
its benefits; how they could kick ass even more at what they do
Image: http://blog.crazyegg.com/lessons/show-benefits/
Make the personal benefits of being data-driven visible.
Show how its autonomous pursuit enhances mastery.
Super You!
Data-drivenness
You

13. Ownership
is not about doing what I tell you to do
is not about not doing what I tell you not to do
is about doing what I don’t tell you to do
Ensure ownership of benefits, not deliverables
Focus on why, not what

14. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

15. Data-drivenness, at both individual and team level, is a
capability that can and should be developed
http://skepdic.com/tencommands.html
+
While a data-driven mindset takes time to develop, it is a key enabler of operational self-direction.
This capability is best built before attempting extended autonomy in direction.
Reflection Key concepts
Being data-driven is not only about
sensibly answering questions, but
about finding them in the first place
It cannot itself be standardized
into rules or processes, but it
can be guided by high-level key
concepts

16. Side note: for more elaboration on the management and data-
drivenness layers in this same context, please see:
www.slideshare.net/Hoverfalt/building-a-datadriven-culture

17. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

18. Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action (TED) & Start With Why (2013)

19. Focus on benefits, not deliverables. Strive to make this the
standard way of thinking in practically everything
Deliverable
Benefit
Ability to cross the river
Don’t get stuck here Alternative solutions can only be found
through benefit thinking

20. Benefit thinking might also reveal unconventional links and
radically different opportunities to create value (solve problems)
Deliverable
Benefit
Avoid wasting time waiting for the bus
Bus schedule Audible
Remove waste
by minimizing
waiting time
Remove waste
by making the
waiting time
useful
Both solve the same
problem

21. Like creativity, autonomy works best under constraints. Benefit-
driven direction and freedom in how can be highly engaging
*Henrik Kniberg (Spotify, Lego, …): http://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unproject.pdf
Alignment
Autonomy
Low High
HighLow
Authoritative organization
Conformist culture
We need to
cross the river
Build a
bridge!
Innovative organization
Collaborative culture
We need to
cross the river
Figure out
how!
Micromanaging organization
Indifferent culture
… … …
Entrepreneurial organization
Chaotic culture
I hope someone is
working on the river
problem
Aligned autonomy*
What/why given,
freedom in how

22. How do we get there?
Can we go beyond?

23. Meaningfulness and mastery are key enablers of self-direction
What
How
PhilosophyInstruction MethodologyProcess
PurposeBenefitDeliverableTask
Meaningful
execution
Operational
self-direction
Goal-driven
achievement
Meta level (reflection)
Metalevel(reflection)
Combining ownership of benefits with methodological autonomy and capability forms a
strong foundation for operational self-direction
Increasing
Meaningfulness
Increasing
capacity to find
opportunities to
create value
(find problems)
Ask: Why?
Increasing
Mastery
Increasing
capacity to deliver
value
(solve problems)
Ask: Why not?
Taylorism
Pragmatic
optimizing
Teal
Visionary
motivation
Disengaging
routine work

24. Provided the right competence and mindset, people doing the
job are far better at deciding what is needed than any outsider
Platform: people responsible for their own decisions
Tools Sourcing Technology Learning …
A well-funcioning self-directed team often needs to be protected from centralized one-fits-all
solutions. There is little point in trying to resist this as smart people will find their way around 

25. Self-direction might yield remarkable innovations otherwise
prohibited by limitations in formal processes, roles or structures

27. ...Design Product Marketing Business
Self-direction requires much more than autonomy and trust
Work environment enabling personal ability to improve
Data-driven culture
Operational self-direction
Management fostering self-direction
Purpose

28. Ideally, you have a Massive Transformative Purpose*. If you
don’t, purposefulness can come from other aspects of work
*Salim Ismail: Exponential Organizations
Purpose can be tricky, especially for incumbent companies in comparison to their disruptors.
Not all endeavors save the world though. Work can still be meaningful
Substantial Contextual
“Mantra”
(not vision)
-Guy Kawasaki
“Massive Transformative
Purpose”
-Salim Ismail
Great team!

29. Benefits, Challenges and Opportunities

30. The benefits of self-direction are indirect but potentially huge
Engagement Productivity Adaptability
Self-direction might be a potential enabler of survival for large companies in the battle against über
agile start-ups only through playing even remotely with their rules (or rather rulelessness)
*Henrik Kniberg (Spotify, Lego, …): http://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unproject.pdf
Maximize value,
not output*
An engaged employee can
be 10x+ more productive
Focus on failure recovery,
not failure prevention

31. Building self-direction is by no means easy…
Requires work Takes time Risky
... but the transformation becomes easier as it gains momentum until ultimately self-sustaining
Must be allowed its own
pace to find its own form
Needs a champion but
cannot be coerced
No standard roll-out nor
guarantee of success

32. While increasing and decreasing autonomy both involve risk,
one key difference is in the potential upside when successful
* In my environment and experience, over 1 year
Performance
Autonomy
Opportunity
Strain-driven
performance
is capped
The initially higher marginal
performance of decreased
autonomy drives decisions to
revert to control in bad times
Transitioning to significantly increased autonomy requires a long-term view* and the acceptance of
a certain level of short-term risk

33. The risk of even temporarily decreased performance is for many
managers an understandable barrier to experiment
Performance
Time
Inhibitor
Opportunity

34. At the end of the day, it’s all about the people
Really, it is

35. As talent management is more about enablement than
development, it calls for analytics much deeper than skills etc.
Creating Strategy
Analytical
Complexity
Innovative
Learning orientation
Multitasking
Vision
Engaging Talent
Affiliation
Concern for Others
Development
Sociability
Team Orientation
Inspiring People
Assertiveness
Authority
Decisiveness
Energy
Influence
Social Assuredness
Achieving Excellence
Achievement Orientation
Competitiveness
Dependability
Detail Orientation
Initiative
Organized
Risk Orientation
Self Control
IBM Workforce Sciences (2015): Leadership Preference and Leadership Behavioral Assessment
Diverse thinking Intrinsic motivation

36. xxx
Radically changing environment

37. An exponentially changing word challenges companies both
from the outside and from within with a force difficult to grasp
Environment Employees
285k subscibers 59 million views
Companies face not only an exponentially changing environment, but also a new wave of
”employees” that have embraced it and live at its pace and rulelessness
Fixed
assets

38. Our standard way of designing organizations seems to be as
static structures of roles, defined by tasks and required skills
This demand-driven approach is ill suited in a rapidly changing environment

39. A temporary and flexible constellation of humans with talents
and ambitions is better suited to describe opportunities
A shift to supply-driven talent management calls for at whole new level of awareness at scale and
at all levels of the “organization”

40. Efforts to optimize return on human capital should reflect value
creation, current and potential
While efforts in finding and developing future-proof top executives will be warranted for a long time,
companies should build capabilities to optimize their entire human capital yield at the same level
Most HR analytics
efforts seem to be
put here
Although customer
value is
increasingly
created here

41. Disruption pushes people to higher levels of human contribution
What
How
Instruction PhilosophyMethodologyProcess
PurposeBenefitDeliverableTask
Meta level (reflection)
Metalevel(reflection)
Companies need to not only be prepared for this migration, but to drive it
AI
This is an
enormous
opportunity to
improve both
productivity and
happiness
It requires for
people to have the
willingness and
capacity to rise to
new levels

43. ”The best way to predict the future is to create it”
The next best strategy is to build adaptability
If you are not playing in that league...

44. Great reads on future current organizations

45. If you’re excited about this stuff too, I’m always up for an
intriguing chat. The coffee/beer is on me 

46. @Hoverfalt