Top Down vs Bottom Up: Eternal Team Productivity Paradox
Have you at any point of time found yourself facing these paradoxical situations:
- I'm guided by excellent faculty, I'm sincerely putting in efforts but why am I still not improving my overall score in the final exams? 😣
- I complete all assigned tasks on time and I am good at my job but I still feel a sense of 'Emptiness' and I don't feel 'Inspired' to go to work everyday! 🤔
- I don't mind taking the lead in white-board meetings. Yet, it feels like a burden when I have to take charge every-time only because no-one else volunteers! 🙄
- My team is well-paid, on-board with the company strategy and share a good bond working together, yet I why do I find them only working 'Bare-Minimum' towards their assigned tasks? How do I change this culture? 🙁
I've personally encountered all 4 of them, and have often been puzzled whether these situations actually do have a proper effective Solution!
Turns out there is! But let's step back for a moment...
What's the core problem?
Quite often, humans (even those who are independently very productive) tend to face this issue of 'ineffectiveness' while working as a team.
The problem is that teams approach Management through either a Top-Down Approach (#2 & #4) or a Bottom-up Approach (#1 & #3).
BOTH Approaches lead to Ineffective teams!
As showcased by Apple's Spectacular rise post Steve Jobs' return, the growth engine behind team effectiveness is run by two prongs of Focus & Intensity.
Top-Down teams lack Intensity: Top-Down teams decide on a strategy on the top level and cascade the tasks down till the lowest rung of team members. Now even though the on paper the company becomes 'Aligned' towards the goal, the 'Motivation' of colleagues take a massive hit.
All teams where tasks are 'assigned' to members without them designing the plan themselves, are bound to suffer from the 'Bare-Minimum' syndrome.
Hence, even though these teams are climbing ladders resting on the correct wall, the speed of climbing becomes really slow. Focus without Intensity leads to Ineffectiveness!
Bottom-Up teams lack Focus: Bottom-Up teams let the people closest to the actual problem decide on the way to go forward. Since they know the ground realities better than anyone from the leadership team, these members are trusted to come up with the action plan. This leads to high level of Motivation and Accountability among colleagues, but now, this team often strays away from the mission of the organisation itself.
So, a super energetic team that has devised its own tasks, often fails to create a sharp focus for the team and suffers from a lack of direction.
This team, unlike the previous case, is climbing the ladder at a good speed but the ladder itself might not be on the correct wall. Intensity without Focus leads to Ineffectiveness!
So, how do we solve this dichotomy? What is the right approach?
Controller & Driver: Two Roles of Highly Effective Teams
Let's define the two roles.
Controller: A member from the leadership team assumes this role. She is responsible for providing an accurate bird eye view of the current situation and setting up context for 'Desired outcome' of the meeting. She also makes sure that the team, whilst discussing about the current issues, stays on track with regards to the long term vision of the company. The final decision is owned by the controller.
Driver: Team members who are closer to the actual problem collectively take up this role. Since these colleagues spend a lot of time at the ground level, they are much better equipped to take charge of owning up the discussion and to identify value-creating opportunities. Under the framework provided by the controller, Driver group takes ownership of the Execution plan for the final decision.
It is important that Controller-Driver roles be separated so that two roles are given responsibility to ensure the enforcement of Focus (Controller) & Intenstiy (Driver).
Finding the Sweet Spot: Controller-Driver Synergy
Synergize, Habit 6 from Stephen Covey's amazing book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is one of the most powerful concepts that teams need to understand for effective inter-dependent work.
"Simply defined, Synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, i.e [1 + 1 > 2]. It catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people" - Stephen Covey
Controller [Read Top-Down] & Driver [Read Bottom-Up] are Independently Incapable of coming up with the 'best possible' solution to a problem.
However, when these two roles learn to 'Synergize' with each other, they would combine their expertise in vision & execution to come up with a beautiful plan that would invigorate the entire team towards Fast and High-Quality work!
Driver group uses it's 'On-ground expertise' to provide inputs which Controller would often miss out, whereas the controller hears out all the inputs to define a strategy based on a top-level understanding of the vision. Together, this Synergy (1+1>2) creates a final decision and an execution plan much more powerful than any of the Top-Down or Bottom-Up approaches would.
So, is Synergy easy to achieve?
I'm afriad not! The tendency to go Top-down or Bottom-up is Very Strong for humans. Synergy requires us to listen carefully, understand someone else's perspective and collaborate actively, without being fixated to personal opinions. Not always so easy to achieve.
But, I recently found a tool which has made Synergy a lot easier!
OKRs: The Perfect Controller Tool
John Doerr, the legendary venture capitalist, introduced Google to OKRs in 1999. The idea was implemented by Larry Page & Sergey Brin immediately (Around 25 employees at the time). Today, with ~150,000 employees, it still remains the Management method across the organisation. OKRs started gaining traction globally after Doerr's book, Measure what Matters, was released in 2017.
Objectives & Key Results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework which works on a simple philosophy to 'Measure What Matters'. The process of creating Value-based OKRs forces you to first clarify 'What Matters' to you and then figure out creative ways to 'Measure What Matters'.
Controllers can use OKRs as a tool for communication!
OKRs propagate a culture of Transparency & Accountability, and give teams get a blunt & accurate feedback of progress towards agreed objectives. This feedback forms a basis for Controllers to start the discussion, and for Drivers to provide insights into what plans are/aren't working for the team.
Since I've started implementing OKRs for my team, we've never had a problem with structuring our meetings. OKR reflections act as the perfect 'Synergy Incubators', asking the right questions and fostering creative discussions. Every meeting acts as a hard reset for the team to assess the situation, figure out changes to execution plan & revive the energy to begin the next phase.
I'd strongly recommend any team struggling to find this synergy, give OKRs an attempt. As coined by Doerr, it is a 'Simple Idea that drives 10x Growth'.
Coming back to our situations...
Using a Controller-Driver approach, all paradoxes can potentially be resolved. Let's quickly go over how they look like with our new approach.
🎯 Working 1 on 1 with a faculty member, you should assign the controller's role to someone who understands the exam well. Since you are too close to the problem, you would often misalign yourself and focus your limited time on topics which might not significantly affect your long term result. In case a faculty cannot take up this role, OKR philosophy can be used to gamify your exam so that the tool acts as the controller while you can be the Driver.
🎯 This is a classic example of the Driver-level problems of a Top-Down approach. Whenever tasks are 'assigned' to you, there will always be a problem of Intensity. 'Inspired' is what creates 'Great Work', and the key is to create your own Execution plan for a given Objective. Owning your plan forces you to work with credibility and you will feel the difference!
🎯 Versions of this problem are often faced by small teams [read startups]. Even though not discussed often, energetic people might encounter team friction as they continue to work together for a prolonged span of time. Assigning & Rotating clear roles of Controller-Driver removes this friction altogether. Controller must provide framework whereas Drivers are responsible for all ideas that go on the board. This results in smooth meetings and a powerful understanding of your Effectiveness as a team.
🎯 This is a classic example of the Controller-level problems of the Top-Down approach. Even though you have a vision which helps you align the company, the Intensity is always a problem as long as the tasks are 'assigned' to colleagues. Since they do not feel ownership of your vision, they'd never be motivated to push for 'Great Work'. The solution is for you to assume the Controller role and assign execution ownership to the team through Driver role. As soon as they own up the execution, they'd quit the 'Bare Minimum' block!
I've personally implemented the Controller-Driver framework across lots of teamwork scenarios and have always found a really good 'Vibe' throughout the discussion. Synergy becomes easier to achieve & the team gets a positive jolt of energy when everyone feels a part of the solution.
Highly Recommend you try it out!
Hey again, this is Aditya! Thank you for reading this!
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