A few years ago, I was asked to speak about autonomy at an event in Birmingham. Before the event, I looked up the definition of the word and found this:
Autonomy comes from ‘auto’ meaning “self” and nomos meaning “custom” or “law.”
This reflects a person’s right to self-government or self-rule.
When a person seeks autonomy, he or she would like to be able to make decisions independently from an authority figure.
Self-governance…. governing yourself…
I mean I’m all in for that but the thing is, our ability to self-govern ourselves is literally bashed out of us from a young age, which means that we need to change our mindset around autonomy if we’re going to truly empower the people in our businesses.
It starts with our education…
I recommended Duolingo to my niece a few months ago. My niece is 13 and seems to have a bit of a natural flair for languages so I thought she’d love to to be able to learn more on Duolingo.
She set up her account but after a week or so she told me that she likes it but she doesn’t want to spend time on it anymore because it doesn’t teach her the things she needs to learn at school….
And I get it. I don’t blame her really.
Our learning is defined and in many ways limited by the things that we need — to pass the tests — to get the grades — to please the education assessors — to attract the parents — to enable the politicians — to tick the boxes that show…
💪 We’ve done well.
With experiences like this, we are celebrated for limiting our output to the confines of what we are told to do.
We are literally taught the exact opposite of autonomy.
So to bring more autonomy into the workplace, we need to nurture people's sense of confidence, recognition, permission, perspective, clarity, security and opportunity.
What's given you your sense of autonomy?
Where has your autonomy been diminished or controlled?
How do you feel about stepping into a stronger sense of autonomy?
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