It’s overly pithy to reduce things to a binary, but I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. I think there are two major categories of businesses - exoskeletons and straight-jackets. This is to say, businesses (and more broadly, organizations) that largely empower the people within them, and ones that disempower them.
Straight-jackets Link to heading
We’ve all worked at one of these before, and there are an infinite number of flavors. The commonality is that you have to struggle and strain to get anything done. In many cases, effective people are deterred, and those that quietly whittle away time are the ones who succeed here.
There’s a major clue to why this happens in that prior paragraph - people that take no action are rewarded (and I would say that being paid to continue your job while having 0 output to be a major reward, other rewards notwithstanding). Organizations like this, like a straight-jacket, want you to avoid motion. Motion brings with it change, and risk.
This risk-avoiding behaviour manifests in many different ways. You’ve probably experienced it, a series of meeting s with an indeterminate owner, with an indeterminate agenda, with indeterminate outcomes. Everyone in the meeting gets pulled into the murk, and it occurs time and time again. Or, a particular decision needs a series of approvals. Or, decisions are passed around like a hot potato. In any of these cases, nothing happens, repeatedly, over time.
But a company can’t survive indefinitely doing nothing. That means pressure builds up in the organization, until someone steps up and moves all that potential energy, usually with “politics”. Acting politically (building consensus, running the group) is the natural next-step for this sort of organization.
You’re probably thinking “That’s not true! Some people come in and make waves!” probably because you’ve been that person (that person is me). That’s a natural reaction to both the laying-on of the straightjacket and the politics. But how successful were you, and how often? You probably got results and felt that the rewards associated with that were paltry.
Exoskeletons Link to heading
Let’s examine the other category. These are much more rare. If an organization can strip away agency, it can also grant it.
On an individual level, these organizations give a significant amount of trust to the people within them. You’re allowed to set direction, and run with it. Whatever you need (within reason) to achieve the stated objective. People give time and energy to help you. Others priorities are clearly communicated, so you can also help, or get out of the way.
Which brings us to the next aspect - accountability. You don’t have complete leeway to set objectives (no mining bitcoin with your customers devices!), as not all objectives are created equal. You’re given lots of information about the business, and expected to set direction aligned with it. When you commit to something, you’re expected to carry it out. When you fail to do so, you have conversations about what happened and why.
Both of which illustrate a third point - transparency. You need to know about the organization to set effective priorities and goals. You need to know about others to seek help, or to help. When this information is transparent and legible, people can and are held accountable for knowing it and acting according to it.
When you work with an organization like this, rewards are real. Trust leads to more trust. Successes compound. Opportunities for growth abound. A truly effective organization like this empowers and ennobles you - it asks for more from you, supports you in delivering it, and in the process allows you to grow.