The Difference between Self-Management and Self-Organization

This is the second slice of the four-part series on Self-Management. The first article describes what is self-management. The third article focuses on how to apply self-management. The fourth article shares the challenges in moving toward self-management.  This second article discusses the difference between self-organization and self-management. 

Why write an article on the difference between self-organization and self-management?  The main reason is that many people conflate the two words and concepts when, in fact, they mean two very different things.

Within a self-organizing structure, teams own the 'how' to do the work, along with deciding 'who' does the work within the team.  You will often find the self-organizing concept applied to an Agile environment, where the Product owner owns the priority of the work (aka, the ‘what’) and the team owns the 'how' and 'who’. 

In a self-managed structure, employees own the ‘how’ and who, along with the 'what' to work on.  The ‘what’ means that employees prioritize the work activities.  In each cases, there is the mission level 'what' and 'why' for the organization defined by the leaders of the company that both must align with.  

In self-management, employees own much more than the work activities at hand.  They own the priority of the work, the overall planning, management of their own budget, and HR aspects like compensation and staffing.  This also includes the team deciding who is on the team or how the team is structured.  None of this occurs in self-organization teams.  It is just limited to the ‘how’ and ‘who’ owned by the team while the Product Owner (or Manager) defines the overall planning and priority of the work and the manager handles the HR aspects of the work.   

It is easier to apply self-organization to teams (compared to self-management) as the ‘who’ and ‘how’ are typically activities within the team boundary (working with just other team members).  Self-management activities extend beyond the team to areas like working with HR, finance, and more.    

For those interested in self-management, it is recommended to understand and attempt self-organization first.  If your business is ready for you to both own the ‘how’ to do the work and ‘who’ should do the work, then self-management may be considered.  If there is still resistance to these aspects of self-organization such as project management or managers continuing to decide who does what, then this hurdle must be resolved before attempting self-management.

--> To read the first article in this Self-Management series, see: What is Self-Management and is it good for Agile? 

What is Self-Management and is it good for Agile?

This is a four-part series on Self-Management.  This first article focuses on what is self-management.  The second article conveys the difference between self-organization and self-management.  The third article focuses on putting self-management into action.  The fourth article shares the ways to mitigate the challenges in moving towardself-management.  First up, what is self-management?

Self-Management is an alternative approach to management.  It moves away from the traditional structure of hierarchical management and moves the core management activities and work related activities to employees therefore effectively eliminates the manager role.  Typical management activities that move to employees include planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling (per Morningstar Self-Management Institute). 

A major change that must occur for self-management to be achieved is a shift in mindset.  People within the organizations that move to self-management must believe they both have ownership and accountability of the work and each other.  More importantly, relationships matter in self-management as there needs to be personal responsibility to each other. 

Self-management in context to organizations and corporations doesn’t mean people can do whatever they want.  Leadership defines the mission level 'what' and 'why' for the organization. Employees own the 'what' to work on and the 'how' to do the work, along with 'who' does the work.  It means that within the boundaries of the organizational mission or strategy, employees align the priorities, budgeting, planning, staffing and more around the work.   

Models similar to self-management include Holocracy, which is defined as a different way of operating an enterprise that moves power from a hierarchy management structure and distributes it across autonomous teams. Holocracy should have clear rules and definitions on what teams and individuals can do. 

It is recommended to start self-management with first understanding all of the types of activities that management would do so that they are understood and then adapted in a manner what allows for more of a distributed ownership of the activities. 

As self-management relates to Agile, it may be said that they are both mutually supportively of each other.  Agile works better when the bounded authority of many management decisions particularly regarding the work are pushed down to the team effectively reducing hierarchy.  Inversely in order to achieve self-management, it is supported by the Agile values and principles and the mindset it brings that is center around a strong focus on individuals and collaboration.

To read the second article in this series, go to: The Difference between Self-Management and Self-Organization. 

The third part of this series is titled: Putting Self-Management in Action!
The fourth part of this series is titled: Ways to Mitigate the Challenges of moving toward Self-Management.

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To learn more about self-management, consider visiting the Morningstar Self-Management Institute website at: http://www.self-managementinstitute.org/about/what-is-self-management.