If the transactional model is a dead end🔗, what's the alternative? It’s about creating an environment where teams are empowered to own their work and are given the safety and space to improve it. It's about shifting their focus from "how fast can we close this ticket?" to "how can we deliver the most value?".
This doesn't happen by accident. It requires a deliberate shift in how leaders lead and how teams are structured.
From assignments to ownership
The first step is to stop treating teams like ticket-takers and start treating them like owners. Instead of assigning individual tasks, give a team full responsibility for a product, a service, or a specific customer outcome. When a team owns something, their perspective changes completely. They are no longer just fixing a bug; they are improving their product. They benefit directly from their own improvements: less rework, fewer emergencies, and happier users. This is the essence of a team-centric view, where the goal is to organize work around the team to optimize the flow of value.
Create a safe environment to learn
Improvement requires experimentation, and experimentation sometimes leads to mistakes. A culture of continuous improvement is impossible without psychological safety. Like a parent on the playground who constantly scout for danger while letting their little one explore, leadership's role is to create a safe environment where teams can try new things, make mistakes, and learn from them without fear of punishment. If every misstep is met with blame, teams will quickly learn that the safest path is to change nothing at all.
Leaders focus on the 'What', not the 'How'
In a transactional system, managers often dictate the how. They define the process, approve the steps, and monitor the execution. To foster improvement, leaders need to make a fundamental shift: they need to stop obsessing over the how and start focusing on the what.
A leader's job is to set a clear vision, define the desired outcomes, and provide the team with the context and support they need. Then, they need to let go. They must trust the team to figure out the best way to achieve the goal. This approach nurtures autonomy, which is an internal property that drives ownership, motivation, and initiative.
Invest in improvement
If you want improvement to happen, you have to make time for it. It's that simple. Expecting teams to improve their systems "in their spare time" is a recipe for failure. Improvement is an investment that pays for itself over time. Even a small, consistent investment, like dedicating 15 minutes each day to find a 30-second gain, can yield massive returns in capacity and productivity over a year. This time needs to be protected and treated as a first-class citizen, just like any other work.
From transaction to transformation
Constantly pushing teams to work faster without giving them the space to work smarter is a losing game. You might see a short-term bump in output, but you're creating a brittle system and burning out your best people. You're stuck in the world of the short-order cook, forever reacting to the next ticket.
The alternative is to build an organization of chefs: autonomous teams who own their work, are empowered to improve it, and are supported by leaders who trust them to find a better way. This is what agility is really about: applying structures and practices that fit your environment to enable your objectives. The choice is yours. You can keep processing transactions, or you can start a transformation. After all, as Lauren Bacall said, "Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world".
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