Here below I report some strategies to increase autonomy that I found mainly in the book Drive:

• Leave people the freedom to choose on what, when, how and with who work. The important is to complete the work required. I have some concerns about this statement. See Balance autonomy and accountability.
• Leave free the 20% of time to work on projects decided by people. I have some concerns also about this strategy.
  • Although this is surely a strategy that increase autonomy and motivation, I have some doubts about the efficiency of this suggestion in terms of productivity. If this would be efficient, it means that the project decided by people have a higher return of investment than the project decided by the company. If this is true, why the company do not decide to work on them for more than the 20% of time? Because the people who decide do not understand what it valuable and what it is not? I think this strategy is valid in particular in context where creativity and innovation is a main part of the job. It is also true that many self-directed projects may lead to valuable long-term outcomes, but companies still need to balance short-term business goals with long-term innovation.
  • Another concern is that, to be efficient, the motivation increased allowing people to work on free projects it is worth more than 20% of people time. It seems to me a huge increase, that would mean that most of the unmotivated people are very inefficient and probably not very professional.
  • To conclude I agree that this is a strategy to increase autonomy and motivation, but I have some concerns about the efficiency to define a fixed amount of time (20%). It should depend on various factors and the context.

In conclusion I believe that the strategies should be flexible and adaptive to the context.

Related Questions:

Related Topics:

• Motivation

References

• Drive | 2011 | Daniel Pink