Succeed with Self-Managing Teams – One Step at a Timeaf Tina Gaarn Christensen

It presents 15 behavioral skills that promote effective autonomy in the workplace – and that can be implemented one step at a time. In addition, it provides a series of concrete tips and tricks for holding meetings, new approaches to leadership, and handling recruitment and onboarding when implementing self-management. 

It starts with an introduction to the theoretical foundation for why self-man­aging teams is an effective and inspiring approach with few drawbacks and many advantages. Challenges such as silo mentality, the gig economy, and too much responsibility resting on too few shoulders can all be resolved by focusing on genuine autonomy, equality, and broad delegation. 

Last, but by no means least, the aim of Succeed with Self-Managing Teams – One Step at a Time is to make it as easy as possible for you to implement more autonomous behavior. There is no need to wait for senior manage­ment to decide to restructure the entire organization. You can start right way with your own team and with the behavioral skills and tools that make sense in your given situation. 

The book has a spiral spine, which makes it easy to use as a reference book. 

The 15 behavioral competencies are: 

Seeing the System as a Whole, equality, decision-making, experiments, roles, trust, feedback & learning culture, listening/presence, transparency, caring, celebrating and positivity, conflicts and disagreements, change, goals & progress, and knowledge sharing & coordination.

The book also covers the following areas to support  implementation: Meetings, handbook, recruitment and onboarding, the leader, and challenges with self-managing teams.  

About the Author: Tina Gaarn Christensen, MSc in Economics and Management from Aarhus University in Denmark, is the founder of Leadinspire, basing her approach on neuroscience and systems theory; she is also a certified sociocracy facilitator. Tina Gaarn Christensen is a specialist in working with self-managing teams. 

Her first book, Hvad nu, hvis din kollega var en guldskovl? En guide til fælles-skab, fokus og tillidsfulde teams [What if your colleague was a golden shovel? A Guide to Community, Focus, and Trustful Teams], was published in Dan­ish in 2022. It examines the ineffectiveness of organizational restructuring and personality tests, while presenting an alternative recipe for success focusing on trust and interpersonal relationships.