Permission-Based Management

I posted the other day that now is the time to put in place a reward and recognition program in order to focus behavior and eliminate the paralysis that most employees are feeling because of the uncertainty surrounding the economy.  I was thinking about that post and trying to come up with a good "program" idea that would help.  I kept coming back to something I read six years ago.

What I read was Gordon MacKenzie’s book – Orbiting the Giant Hairball. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the book – from Amazon:

MacKenzie worked for the Hallmark greeting card company for 30 years,
first as a sketch artist and eventually as an upper-level manager,
until he escaped the "hairball" by creating his own niche. A corporate
hairball is an entangled pattern of behavior or a mess of bureaucratic
procedure that discourages originality and stifles imagination. A
consultant for the last seven years, MacKenzie tells what he knows
about creativity and what he learned about the creative process in a
corporate setting.

Mr. MacKenzie created his own position and his own title:  "Creative Paradox."  As remember from the book he explained his job description as…

It didn’t matter what they wanted to do – his job was to give them permission.  He writes of sitting in his office decorated like Dumbledore’s room from the Harry Potter series (my description not his) with mood lighting and furniture worthy of a Creative Paradox, listening to people’s ideas and thoughts about the business. At the end of the conversation he tells them – "you have permission."

No Judgment – Just Permission

That’s it.  He doesn’t evaluate the idea, tell them how to do it better, how to change it to fit in the company culture and process.  He simply tells them they have permission.

When I was thinking about how to put a program in place to help employees weather this economic storm of uncertainty I kept coming back to the fact that it’s not a lack of ideas that stops companies from being successful – it’s a lack of permission.

Employees don’t feel they have permission to pursue ideas for fear or reprisal that they aren’t focused on the "job."

So here’s the Incentive Intelligence nugget for Monday – give your employees permission.  State it openly and loudly.  Tell them they have permission to explore and experiment.  Tell them they have permission to question and recommend.  Tell them they have permission to be thinking about the company, the business, the markets.

I’ll say it again…