Does happiness affect our results - both positive and negative - with self organizing teams? Mark Levison shares research in psychology that shows that choice and control are interchangeable. Specifically, in It's All About Control:
Having power over others and having choices in your own life share a critical foundation: control, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The paper finds that people are willing to trade one source of control for the other. For example, if people lack power, they clamor for choice, and if they have an abundance of choice they don’t strive as much for power.
“People instinctively prefer high to low power positions,” says M. Ena Inesi of London Business School. “Similarly, it feels good when you have choice, and it doesn’t feel good when choice is taken away.” Inesi and her coauthors suspected that the need for personal control might be the factor these two seemingly independent processes have in common. Power is control over what other people do; choice is control over your own outcomes.
So, if people are equally satisfied with control and choice, can this be (part of) what is behind the excitement around self organizing teams? And if having more choice makes people happier, does this affect their productivity? Does the fact that they no longer strive as much for power enable them to more easily reach what is good for the team and to acheive shared ownership of the results?
On the other hand, a typical tranistion to self organizing teams leaves middle management unhappy. A common explanation behind this is that they are insecure and don't know where their new place is in the agile world. Joe Little recently wrote:
But often the middle managers feel left out. Yes, they see benefits here and there, but often not for themselves. They should actually see benefits for themselves, but no one shows them how to realize those benefits. We just assume they will naturally, without any explanation, understand and adapt to, the change (to Scrum).
But, a common feeling among the middle managers is: 'Who moved my cheese?' (If you know that book.) Meaning: Before, I knew how to manage and be successful and show progress. Now, with Scrum, they moved all my levers. And how do I function successfully?
In light of the idea that choice and control are interchangable, can it be that the loss of control for middle management is the problem? Could it be that they net out with a loss, as they lose control but are not given any more choice? Is this a perception that can be cleared up, or is it a reality? If so, what are the choices that are there to offset the loss of control? Please share your experiences.
