Why You Should Give Staff Freedom Within Clear Guidelines

Most people don’t want complete freedom. If you ask them then 90% or more say ‘We don’t wanna be told what to do, but no, we don’t want ‘yes’ to be said ‘do whatever you like. We want some guidelines, and then the freedom to operate within those.’ And that’s what we work hard to create, so that people feel that, in control of their job. They can do stuff and know what the boundaries are. It’s all common sense.

There are some people, me included, who quite like just working on their own. But, most people like someone to support them. They don’t necessarily want somebody to manage them, okay, but then you come to the role of the managers. Would you like to have somebody who builds your confidence, who asks you questions, who help you find the solution, who never tells you what to do? Ask people that and they say ‘Yeah, I’d love that’. It’s called coaching, of course, and that is what great managers do. 

So one of the things we do with organisations is we get them to switch from a traditional management model to one of the manager as the coach, and you choose your manager and they coach you. If you get to work and there’s a note from your manager saying that ‘I want to see you at two o’clock’ then do you feel excited? Because, actually, if it’s all working well then you should, you should be looking forward to a half-hour session where you can talk about yourself with somebody who supports you and coaches you.