Wheel of Autonomy

There’s something systematic in management, or even in your own experience.

When you learn a new task, when you land at a new job there is a path you’ll inevitably be taking every single single time.

It is the Wheel of Autonomy.

The wheel is a concept that has been introduced to me by my coach. The principle is that for each person in a new experience, or environment, this person will go through the same 4 steps:

• Dependence, where the person needs guidance, and precise to do lists↕

• Counter-dependence, when the person is challenging the situation and trying to put her own vision of how to do things, "(the saying “no” phase)↕

• Independence, when the person is up and running and fully competent for achieving the tasks at hand↕

• Inter-dependence, where the person learns and understand the interactions with other groups and people within her job.

You can imagine it as a wheel, where you’ll pass from one part of the wheel to the other turning around.

When you learn a new skill, start a job, start a project, keep in mind that:

As a managee

• you will always go through each of the steps yourself

• you’ll go faster around the wheel with skills and experience

• you can go backwards

• you’ll repeat the process for each new context

As a manager

• your team will always go through each of the steps (even the dependence one!)

• they’ll go faster with skills and experience

• based on what you tell them they can go backwards

• you want to bring them to inter-dependence

• they’ll repeat the process for each new task, project, context

Take a step back and have a look at the wheels around you!

If you want more daily nuggets