How To Encourage Employees To Take Initiative

The Freedom Ladder is a great way to help you achieve this. Everything starts with creating an environment that rewards employees for taking initiative! Using the ladder will guide your staff and help them become more and more adept at using their own initiative.

Climbing To Take Initiative

When I was a kid I could climb the tallest trees and often spent hours messing about with friends in the higher branches. We were fearless.

As an adult I've been back to those woods in Harrogate a number of times and looked up at the beech tree tops with incredulity.

We're talking serious heights of easily more than a hundred feet. Maybe a hundred and fifty feet and we would play-fight with each other, getting attacked by squirrels and territorial birds. I don't like to think too hard about it now.

Back then my friends and I didn’t need anyone to force us there. We climbed entirely for fun and it was all our own initiative.

You wouldn't see me up there these days. I think the branches might not be as strong and there's the slight possibility that I might weigh a tiny bit more than I did in the early 1980s. A tiny bit more maybe.

Plus I've developed a genuine fear of heights. It only kicks in now and again but the fear is palpable. I feel it walking over motorway bridges, cliffs, open staircases and on ladders. Which is unfortunate because I want to talk about ladders today and the way to encourage employees to climb them.

Stepping Up

Our topic is the Freedom Ladder and why it's important to perch on the highest rung you can reach.

If you work in an organisation then you want to be working on the top rung. If you're a leader the game is to push your staff all the way up the freedom ladder. But you must make it clear to staff that you want them to climb the ladder - make sure everyone can see how far the ladder reaches.

This is what it looks like in a work environment that encourages employees to take initiative:

As you can see, there are just five rungs we're going to climb - so it's not too scary!

The Reactive Team Member

The first step, the bottom rung of the freedom ladder, is called 'Wait', an interesting but crucial metric for understanding initiative, or rather the lack of it. 

This is the rung where people just sit and wait to be told to do stuff. These people display no initiative at all. Someone else has to let them know what to do and then after they've done it, they just stop again, and that's that.

It's not brilliant to be on this rung when we need to create an environment that encourages good work. Employees need to be shown that this is not brilliant and explicitly told that they have authority to make decisions.

"Why won't my staff take initiative?" you might hear yourself say.

Well you might need to invest the time in them and let them know this is what you want. It might be that you need to be trying new approaches. You might need to excite them. Have they been rewarded and praised? Do they know they have to freedom to start acting on their own ideas? 

You want them to think outside the box and take ownership of their work. If they're not used to doing this you might have to really show how you are trying to make this explicit and outline the steps they would take.

Opportunity to Improve Employee Initiative

Rung number two, the next level up is 'Ask'. This is where staff start to ask "What shall I do next?"

Now why would they do that? Why would they say, "What do you want me to do next?"

Well it's because they're starting to be motivated, they've realised they're part of things, they can make difference, maybe even use their initiative and drive.

If that's you then that's good news - you're moving up the ladder and starting to display initiative.

If you're the boss then it's good news too - your staff are on the way and you can recognise and encourage that. You need to ensure that your team know that you want them to be proactive and innovative.

Foster An Environment For Ideas

Then, the third level is where people actually suggest ideas. Listen out for phrases like "Would you like me to do this for you?" that demonstrate when people are showing initiative.

This is the 'Check Before Acting' box, because they're coming up with ideas and saying, "Shall I do this?"

It's much better than the first two rungs but notice that they're not allowed to do it until someone has said, "Yes, good idea, go ahead and do that."  And that is a bottleneck. It slows things down. And very often it's not necessary.

What could you do about that obstacle? If you're a leader why don't you give them the explicit freedom to go ahead with ideas first? Allow people to act on their own initiative and encourage employees to use the freedom. You'll be encouraging them to take charge of their own ideas and you'll rapidly create a culture where the staff thrives on challenges. 

When an idea an employee has come up with a successful idea it's a great idea to make a point of celebrating it. Do you have a clear way to reward your employees for adding value?

And conversely when something goes wrong you want to ensure your employees feel supported. The way a company deals with mistakes suggests how well the staff will be willing to come up with new ideas. An environment of trust is important if you want them to go any further up the ladder. 

Encourage Employees To Make Decisions

Above the 'Check' rung you come to the fourth of the five levels which is 'Report Afterwards.' 

So this is where staff don't have to check first, they can just do it, but they're going to tell the boss what they've done.  You don't need employees to provide a reason for what they're doing because you trust them.

If that's in place then as a boss you'll already hear certain phrases a lot, things like:

• "Just to let you know, I've been to see the customer."
• "I thought I should tell you I've booked an author to visit on World Book Day."
• "Good news, we've managed to get a price increase."

The boss still knows the detail of what's going on. People are allowed to act on their own initiative as long as the boss knows what they’re doing.

This is probably what most organisations strive for. It's useful delegation because it gets talents out of its people. There's monitoring going on and it's empowering but there is yet another level you could reach for.

Allow Employees To Take Initiative Completely

This final level is above delegating, and this is where staff are 'Free To Act'. There's no monitoring, they just do it.

This is empowerment where the boss isn't checking and the staff member is confident in their actions and ability. They have trust and the opportunity to use their own initiative.

It's a level above delegating because there's no checking anymore, which allows for good work to flourish. People are just getting on with the objectives. 

There might be some routine monitoring or a budget that can't be overspent but the everyday details of how the job is being done don't get in the way.

If you are here in your job it's a great place to be. A leader who has a large number of staff that are empowered to use their own initiative and work on rung five of the freedom ladder will undoubtedly have an effective organisation.

Plus they'll have a lot of time for themselves in order to work 'on' rather than 'in' the business.

Rung five is really motivational for staff and brilliant for leaders. There's no time spent telling people what to do, or checking on them, which is a great way to help employees to take initiative. Everyone can get on with bigger things.

True, when you are at this point you might have to take risks but training your staff up to this level isn't a quick process. To get to this point you'll already have displayed a management style that encourages team-building, highlights the best ideas and talents and allows all staff to foster collaboration. 

Lead By Example

The Freedom Ladder is a great tool for thinking about staff and colleagues, their levels of initiative and how you can help them develop. 

But don't forget to also ask yourself where on the ladder you are.

You probably don't spend all your time on one particular rung - I'm sure you move up and down the ladder depending on your role at any given moment. But consider what you might need to do to get to the highest rung. Are you suffocating your own ability to act on initiative?

If you're a leader ask yourself how you're helping your team move up the ladder. Or are you keeping them stuck on the lower rungs by over monitoring, delegating only the rubbish jobs and generally micromanaging everything!

Enjoy the climb and, when you get there, don't forget to tell me what the view's like from the top!