Step 1: Conduct a Readiness Check

We believe that any company could run a self-selection event, or at the very least be able to actively demonstrate the principle of giving people autonomy to choose whom they work with. To get started, you’ll need to ask yourself a series of questions in order to understand whether you have everything in place to be successful. The following checklist outlines the considerations you should make before you embark on self-selection:

If you answer no to any of these questions, that’s okay. Don’t give up! It just means you might have slightly more groundwork to do. It’s important to know your starting point, and we’ll talk you through some of the ways to make progress in each of these areas.

In some cases you may need to tackle other problems in the run up. For example, if you’re still discussing whether people can work in stable, cross-functional teams, you may struggle to get employees to choose a new home. In that case you may want to dedicate some time to researching, experimenting, and problem solving first. In our case, before embarking on self-selection we certainly had to identify and work through a number of problems, including staff members working on too many projects and having ad hoc project teams formed and disbanded according to whichever project was highest priority at the time. By the time we self-selected, we had tested and demonstrated why small, stable, cross-functional teams were the way forward.

While the previous questions are aimed at the company, it’s also important to consider if you yourself are fully prepared. It’s likely that people will have lots of questions and probably some criticisms, so it’s important you be ready for lots of upcoming conversations and persuasion.

We would be lying if we told you we weren’t nervous about embarking on our first self-selection event. We were acutely aware that we were reorganizing one of New Zealand’s most iconic businesses using a process that was unproven at the time. We honestly had no idea whether it was going to work! By the time you finish this book, you should be confident that the process will work and feel reassured by the case study, but you should still be prepared to be challenged and questioned as you suggest something that may be radically different from what your organization has done in the past.

Managers and coworkers are likely to ask you questions and voice concerns; it could be to test your ability to persevere or to discuss genuine concerns about the event itself. The most frequently asked questions before a self-selection event are usually these:

• What if a fight breaks out as people argue over joining one squad?

• What if someone gets picked on and pushed around by others?

• What if one person ends up standing in the corner on his own like the last kid chosen for sports at school?

• What if people want to join a squad they are totally unskilled and inappropriate for?

• What if one particular squad or area is very popular?

• What if no one wants to work in a particular area?

• What if no one turns up, out of fear or because they don’t like the idea of self-selection?

The questions you will be asked could be somewhere along those lines, and you should expect to be asked lots of questions. You will know the people involved and how best to handle your responses, but it may also be helpful to refer to responses like these:

• We have an expectation that employees will behave like trusted adults and resolve their problems themselves.

• We have confidence in the process; it has been tested it and it works.

• When we choose teams by managerial selection we often get things wrong.

• It’s worth a try.

• Even if it doesn’t fully work, we will learn a lot about the staff, their preferences, and their relations, which will be useful for whichever direction we choose to take.

Self-selection can be a scary concept. There’s no certainty that self-selection will work for you, but thorough preparation will help reduce the uncertainty as much as possible and increase the likelihood of success.

If you’re still debating whether to go ahead at this point, one way to get an insight into the potential outcome is to consider running your own ShipIt Day and ask people to self-select into teams for the day. This will allow you to see how they react to self-selection in a safe environment. If they can figure out how to self-select for a twenty-four-hour hackathon, there’s a good chance they’ll figure it out in real life, too. It will also make employees feel more confident when you can point to a real and recent example they’ve been part of. (You can read more about ShipIt Day .)