Turning Complaints Into Proposals
Introduction
Self-managed organizations are leading the way in adopting flexible and responsive operational frameworks in the current business management landscape. These frameworks, including Holacracy, Sociocracy, and Scrum, give employees greater autonomy and decision-making capabilities than traditional management hierarchies. By being more dynamic and agile, organizations can better respond to changing circumstances.
However, to fully realize such structures' potential, self-management frameworks must be coupled with the right technological tools. While businesses can operate these frameworks manually or record them on paper, this approach can reduce agility and limit the benefits of the frameworks. By using appropriate self-management technologies, businesses can maintain and manage these nuanced frameworks more easily, autonomously, and clearly.
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are ready to take a giant leap forward in self-managed business operations and technologies. This blog explores how AI can be a game-changing asset for self-managed organizations, transforming everyday complaints into strategic proposals.
The Role of AI in Enhancing Communication
One of the biggest challenges organizations face is ensuring everyone knows the right information at the right time, so they can make informed decisions without slowing things down. This is an area AI could be helpful, if it knew what information were actually needed and when to deliver it.
The challenge with most AI products available is their need for context. Many organizations lack a central system for recording and updating policies, roles, and goals. A BPT Trends survey revealed that only 4% of companies consistently document their processes. This often leads to AI providing outdated or generic advice, requiring significant effort to make it useful.
Organizations using GlassFrog or those using forms of self-management (such as Holacracy) that focus on clarity and transparency have a unique advantage. That clarity, alongside well-documented "rules of the game," creates a strong foundation for the understanding that AI needs to tailor its capabilities to the things that set your organization apart.
AI deeply embedded in your organization's specific context, like GlassFrog's AI Assistant, can transform organizational clarity from a simple benefit into a competitive edge. It allows AI to act as a personal assistant for each team member, guiding them through their roles and responsibilities with precision, providing just-in-time suggestions based in the realities of how their team operates. An employee who needs to understand how to get budget approval can have the AI can guide them through the relevant policies and necessary steps, saving time and allowing team members to focus on what matters most – energizing their work and driving the organization forward.
And alongside its ability to take advantage of the clarity your organization already has, AI can also help further your team's ability to not only clarify, but improve the organization by identifying issues in the organization and empowering teams to solve them.
Transforming Complaints to Constructive Change
At the core of many self-managed frameworks is the ability to identify and resolve internal tensions. In Holacracy, "tension" refers to a person sensing a gap between the current reality and a potential future. For instance, an organization may require a new Role for a specific task or need someone to care for the penguins (check out the screenshots below). There is a process in these frameworks to resolve such tensions by creating a proposal to share information, request tactical work to get done, or suggest changes to a role or accountability, among other examples.
AI can take this process further by automatically turning these tensions into constructive proposals. At GlassFrog, we have consulted with many organizations using different self-management frameworks, and one of the most significant pieces of feedback is employee resistance to creating proposals to solve their tensions. It is a relatively new process for employees new to a self-management system and typically requires ongoing training and resources to get them up to speed. Furthermore, even in traditional business structures like Amazon's, the famous six-page proposal can be a considerable barrier to entry in promoting organizational change.
Traditional systems and the resistance to self-managed systems can hurt dynamic and agile change. It creates a barrier to entry, and employees often feel that they must already have a plan to solve the tension before they can record that they've felt it. This barrier between tension and proposal cuts off the feedback loop from frontline sensors/employees, putting a heavier weight on upper management to communicate, manage, and solve tensions. However, with AI assistance, employees can record their tension (what they are feeling) and work with the AI to develop a proposal. The "AI Suggest" feature of platforms like GlassFrog listens to employee complaints and converts them into actionable proposals. It walks them through proposing a new role, changing governance structures, and already knowing whether or not a policy exists that may solve the employee tension. Since AI learns the organization inside and out, employees no longer need to feel taxed when creating a proposal. Suddenly, their complaint or tension becomes meaningful change.
For instance, suppose an employee raises a concern: "Who feeds the penguins? They are getting too fat..." In that case, the AI can analyze this complaint, search your organization for any related accountabilities, and suggest a new proposal, such as "Create a new role for Penguin Care Coordinator," with the Role's purpose, accountabilities, and domains all filled out. This proposal can then be circulated immediately or brought up in a governance meeting to be reviewed and discussed, streamlining the change process and lowering the bar to enhanced organizational clarity.
Enhanced Clarity and Efficiency in Self-Managed Teams
Self-managed organizations that utilize frameworks like Holacracy already benefit from well-documented processes and clear role definitions. Such documentation provides a sturdy foundation for AI tools to deliver more accurate and contextually relevant suggestions. By streamlining decision-making and enhancing operational clarity, AI can amplify the competitive edge of self-managed teams.
For instance, when new employees are onboarded, AI can function as an interactive guide, quickly bringing them up to speed on their roles, the roles of their teammates, and the overall governance structure. This shortens the learning curve and reduces the cognitive load on human resources, enabling teams to remain focused on their core objectives.
Incorporating AI in such settings accelerates the operational workflow, ensuring that each decision or proposal aligns precisely with the organization's long-term goals and governance models. Thus, it increases the overall efficiency and effectiveness of organizational operations.
Predictive Insights for Proactive Management
Beyond immediate problem-solving, AI in self-managed organizations has the potential to predict future challenges and opportunities. While we are not quite there yet, AI has the potential - especially in SMOs - to predict trends, adjust targets, and sense gaps in organizational frameworks and day-to-day operations.
This predictive insight could help organizations avoid problems and align long-term strategic planning with current operational dynamics. For instance, AI could suggest adjustments to team structures or governance rules before inefficiencies become evident (by analyzing patterns in employee feedback and proposal outcomes). This "predict" feature could help adjust targets (OKRs), sense gaps in organizational frameworks and design, and predict trends. AI in SMOs can be crucial in optimizing performance and enhancing efficiency, and the future of AI for context-rich organizations remains bright.
Implementing AI in Your Self-Managed Organization
To implement AI in a self-managed organization, it is important to identify areas where AI can add value, such as communication, proposal generation, or predictive analysis. One way to start is by utilizing GlassFrog's AI Assistant, specifically designed to understand and interact with the unique structures of self-managed organizations. This platform can be an invaluable tool to enhance operational effectiveness. To see how AI can be applied in your self-managed organization, you can check out this webinar entitled "Leading with Clarity: AI's Role in Empowering Employees," where we discuss GlassFrog's powerful AI capabilities.
Conclusion
The Role of AI in self-managed organizations is not just a futuristic idea but a practical tool that can significantly improve operational clarity, employee engagement, and strategic agility. SMOs and their systems of record create the context for developing an organizational AI that serves as an advisor to each individual in the organization. With AI, SMOs can create a competitive advantage by turning clarity into agility. By transforming everyday complaints into actionable proposals, AI helps organizations move faster and more efficiently towards their objectives.
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