Letting go is necessary to building a learning organization

Create learning environments by developing others through delegation and “letting go” to stretch and grow protégés.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

One of the most destructive behaviors a sponsor can undertake is to hold onto the ownership of the work of their teams. Whew! I’m gonna get some push back on this one. Great! I don’t care. As a former sponsor I can tell you that I have held onto the work I used to do. The solution is letting go.

In a session I led with a Canadian mining company, I asked a question to help emphasize this idea. The question was this, “Why do we tell our teams how to do their jobs?” The answer, which came without deliberation, was, “Because we can!” After a brief silence in the room, we all burst out laughing. Well, sir, I agree with you, but just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Why not?!

The short answer is learning. The long answer is ownership.

Before I go too deep into learning and ownership, I want to touch on yet another common failure. Who sets the targets? The sponsor does. The sponsor should set the targets, but what I experience is that sponsors rarely set targets clearly, meaningfully, and measurably. No targets, no clear methods for success.

Out of the frustration of poor performance we default to explaining. If you are explaining you are losing. We explain because we can. How about checking first for understanding and agreement to the targets. This is usually the real problem. We only make the problem worse when we skip to the method and remove any ownership from our teams – the people who really should own the way in which we deliver the results we value.

Letting Go Makes Us Uncomfortable

We can get to the learning opportunity by leaving ownership with our teams and exploring what they really know about the work with which we have charged them. When the sponsor give the process owner the opportunity to define and design a process, we can actually evaluate their level of competence. We can accelerate their learning by uncovering there knowledge gaps and helping them to see the gaps. By then asking the right questions, we can challenge them to step into the gaps and find a solution for themselves. This experience will indeed stretch and grow our future leaders.