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# System prepended metadata

title: Self-Management Primer

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# Self-Management Primer

#teal #self-management

## Goals of this document
This primer is a brief summary of the littlefish principle, "Self Management". If you, dear reader, are looking to deepen your knowledge and understanding of the principles of Littlefish, you are in the right place.  This document will help you participate more fully in littlefish by helping you understand the fundamental principles of the littlefish organization.  

## Self management
![](https://i.imgur.com/lLkSScv.png)

![](https://i.imgur.com/CtAiEAc.png)

![](https://i.imgur.com/9bK8Jsv.png)

Self Management is one of the three key innovations of [[Teal Organizations]] (the other two being [[Wholeness]] and [[Evolutionary Purpose]]). Classical organizational hierarchy is shaped like a pyramid with power and decision making ability concentrating to the top. Teal organizations distribute this decision making authority throughout the organization to each member. In this new structure, there are no "bosses" or managers. Each person is expected to make the best decisions on their own or in small groups, using principles of autonomy and tools like the [[Advice Process]] to ensure rapid innovation as well as alignment with the evolutionary purpose of the organization.

See: [[Reinventing Organizations]], [[Leading Beyond Change]], and [[Brave New Work]].

### Why it is important

Self Management is an innovation of the management struture and processes of an organization. The problems it addresses are: complexity, speed, scaling, trust, transparency, common knowledge / Information

#### Hierarchy cannot cope with Complexity
The topic of [[Complex]] versus [[Complicated]] is an interesting one.  A complicated system might take time to understand, but it is possible to completely understand, predict, and change. Examples of complicated systems are automobile engines or a computer CPU. Complex systems are systems that cannot be completely understood, predicted, or controlled. Complex systems can be nudged and influenced, but it cannot be controlled because of its inherent chaotic nature. Examples of complex systems are the global economy, the human brain, the flight of a flock of birds, a school of fish in the ocean.

One interesting aspect of the above complex systems is that they each have no central controlling mechanism or managers or bosses, but they self-regulate and adapt to changing conditions and work despite the lack of a controller. Self-managed organizations can similarly achieve their [[Evolutionary Purpose]] without hierarchy by distributing [[Autonomy]] and decision making power throughout the organization by default. Each person acting in the best interest of the organization turns into a beautiful dance of activity that grows and emerges over time as the environment and participants shift and change.

#### Speed

Classical management structures have problems reacting to change with fluidity and speed.  The decision making process takes too long. Self management uses an entrepreunial mindset and outlook. Each member of the organization is empowered to make change, and has a strong sense of ownership over that change.

#### Scaling

Classic organizations suffer when the scale is not exactly right.  The organization must be "Goldilocks", not too big and not too small.  Too big of an organization and it can become impersonal and detached from customer and all stakeholders. Too small, and the organization suffers as well (not sure why right now).  Also, as the org expands, contracts and pivots, which is nessecary in modern markets, classic heirarchy has trouble.

With self-management, decisions are pushed as far to the edges as possible. In practice, this means that most day to day decisions are made by individuals or small groups of people. Decisions that involve multiple teams might involve some form of [[Advice Process]] or [[Facilitated Consent Mechanism]], and only the most critical [[Below the Waterline]] decisions are made with large portions of the organization weighing in.

This allows massive scaling as more and more small teams form to address new needs, create new products, explore new areas. Each team is empowered to do what they think is best, and need not wait for decisions to come from above.

![](https://i.imgur.com/GOIRRW3.jpg)

### Self management at littlefish
This primer will go over the following topics on how self-management looks and manifests as a littlefish:

- ikigai as an onboarding tool
- showing initiative
- working towards the goals of the whole
- producing Action

## Decision Making in Teal Organizations
### One and Two-way Doors
The analogy of a one and two-way door are doors that can be easilly traversed in either direction, and those that only allow traversal in one direction and prevent movement back.

In order to move quickly, people are encouraged to make self-managed decisions using the advice process for those things that are two-way doors (ie. can be easilly reversed with no long-term negative side effects). One-way doors (those that are hard to reverse and/or will cause damage to the organization if it is wrong), should be more carefully deliberated using a facillitated consent mechanism (see below).

### Above and Below the Waterline
Another similar analogy that is used is the concept of "above" and "below" the water line. This terminology is derived from a boat analogy. The waterline on a boat is where the water comes up to on the side when the boat is loaded and on the water. A hole or damage occuring to the boat above the waterline is able to be repaired and does not risk the ship sinking. A hole or damage below this waterline, will cause water to enter the ship, eventually sinking it.

Using this analogy, any decision that is "above the waterline" should be done using the advice process, and any decision "below the waterline" should invoke the facilitate consent process.

### The Advice Process
The Advice Process is a key tool in most Teal Organizations. The way the Advice Process works is that for non-trivial decisions, you should ask relevant stakeholders that might be impacted or benefit from the results of the decision for their opinion and advice. The bigger the decision, the greater number of people should be sought for advice. Advice is not manadatory changes that need to be made to the proposal, it is only advice and can be used to expand scope, change direction, or be noted and not incorporated into any changes at all. The important part of the mechanism is that *others* fell like they have the opportunity to provide advice and are heard, even if their advice is ultimately not used.

From Reinventing Organizations: 
![](https://i.imgur.com/J1FXsyz.png)

### The Facilitated Consent Mechanism
What about decisions that are "one-way doors" and/or "below the waterline"? In these cases, even super inclusive advice process might not be enough. Are there people upset or angry? Are people not getting on-board? These are signs that something more structured is needed. One such tool is a facilitated consent process called Generitive Decision Making.

![](https://i.imgur.com/4ThnGG7.png)

## Ikigai 
[[Ikigai]] is a key concept for littlefish. Ikigai is a Japanese term that losely translates to "Life's Purpose". At littlefish, it means specifically where what you love to do, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for overlap. We use a venn diagram to map this out visually:

![](https://i.imgur.com/xKkA9gJ.png)

The process of discovering one's Ikigai involves deep listening over time in a structured way to uncover and discern the "urge to self organize".  Having a working relationship with one's Ikigai improve the chances of success in a teal organizatoin and can be a step stone to changing to the teal org mindset.

See how others in the community are mapping their Ikigai to: [Roles of littlefish](https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOWGnhvE=/?moveToWidget=3458764530377308813&cot=14)

Link to Ikigai report: 

## Producing Action
Action is one of the key mechanisms for mapping Roles and Ikigai to value created. Actions are the heart of how we show each other what we've done, what impact we are having, and get feedback from the collective on its value.

## Further Resources

### Books
- **Reinventing Organizations** by Frederic Laloux
- **Brave New Work** by Aaron Dignan
- **Leading Beyond Change** by Michael and Audree Sahota

