Without teams who are and feel empowered, innovation can't happen.
In the words of Bill Campbell, "The path to success in a fast-moving, highly competitive, technology-driven business world is to form high-performing teams and give them the resources and freedom to do great things."
Savvy leaders recognize the pivotal role these teams play in adapting strategies to meet evolving customer needs, quickly addressing critical issues, and staying ahead of industry shifts.
They understand timing is everything. Swift reactions can propel organizations forward, while sluggish responses lead to stagnation or minimal growth.
Great leaders know what determines reaction time is identifying and prioritizing the opportunities that align with the vision, pinpointing crucial customer problems to tackle, and which to say no to.
They swiftly delegate these challenges to cross-functional teams, ensuring the team understands how their work connects to the broader vision and strategy.
These leaders assemble teams with diverse skills and experiences, empowering them to tackle critical problems head-on. Each role on the team contributes to different aspects of the product development process.
Clear objectives and success metrics keep everyone focused on achieving customer and business outcomes, not building features or outputs.
Instead of micromanaging, it's about creating a culture of innovation and problem-solving, trusting teams to conduct discovery to understand the customer problem deeply, and empowering them by giving them the responsibility and accountability for delivering the solution that achieves the desired outcomes.
Leaders champion the team to run rapid experiments to reduce risk and enable them to make data-driven decisions, finding the fastest path to deliver customer and business value.
By decentralizing decision-making and fostering an environment of trust and empowerment, leaders unleash the full potential of their teams.
Empowered teams are closest to the customer and positioned best to determine what's possible. They have the creativity to explore solutions versus being told what to build.
Teams are driven by a sense of ownership and pride in their work, leading to higher levels of employee happiness and satisfaction as they feel involved and valued contributors to the vision and success of the organization.
For leaders who grasp empowering their teams, the result is accelerated innovation, solving critical customer problems, and responding to changes that allow the organization to thrive.
Written By: Pam Krengel