The Circle of Safety: Transition to Empowered

You already know how a high-impact developer organisation looks like. The hard part is getting there, especially in a large traditional organisation.

Back when I tried to make this shift and needed help, all I could find were descriptions of how organisations should work, but hardly any steps for getting there when the ideal was too far from the current reality.

This is the path I had some success with. A way to carve out space for your team to embrace parts of the empowered way of working, even when the larger organisation is not yet ready to change.

Why bother, you ask? Because empowerment matters. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose do not only improve the wellbeing of your team, they improve your chances of achieving business goals as well.

The biggest pushback I got was the lack of a single point of contact. Management wanted one single person to hold accountable for delivery. But that does not match with how high performance teams actually work. In a strong team, everyone takes responsibility for the outcome.

I solved this by taking on a role I call Team Captain. I was not the manager of anyone in my team at that time, but I still took personal responsibility for delivery and served as the single point of contact between the team and management.

My number one task was to earn the trust of the team. I never promised anything that they could not reasonably deliver, and I shielded them from management. This gave them a protected environment where they were free to decide how to handle a clear set of priorities.

For the team to truly mature into an empowered team, one more thing is needed from the organisation: product discovery must happen entirely within the team. The organisation gives the Team Captain a business goal and trusts them to deliver on it. If the Team Captain is handed a list of pre-scoped tasks, the team will never become more than a feature factory.

But the team members also need to do their part. Empowered teams enjoy a healthier, more exciting work environment — but it does not come free.

Their first responsibility is to take an active interest in new solutions at an early stage. They combine their understanding of the problem with technical skill to propose solutions that meet requirements while minimising time and cost.

Next, they must estimate delivery by analysing incoming work quickly and thoroughly. By committing and then delivering on time, the team builds trust with the rest of the organisation. Deliveries must also meet minimum standards, including architecture, coding, design, and usability, which demand mastery of all these disciplines.

Finally, team members need to actively build robust relationships within the team and dare to challenge their current way of working. This means suggesting ways to deliver better and faster without working harder.

This approach lets teams and organisations new to empowered ways of working start the transition with minimal disruption. Externally, the team looks just like a traditional group, reducing friction with the wider organisation.

If the team commits to these responsibilities, and management allows the team to do product discovery, the team will be on a clear path to empowerment.

Once the team proves its maturity, the Team Captain steps back and the team faces the wider organisation as a cohesive and effective unit — ready to deliver real impact.