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What it Means to Be an Autonomous Team and 10 Steps to Create Team Autonomy

Steve Jobs famously said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Lee Iacocca shared a similar view: “I hire people brighter than me and get out of their way.”
Whether you’re building an internal team or hiring external contractors, you can often create a significant impact on your business by giving great people the freedom to solve problems in their own way. They produce better results, create more efficiencies, enable innovation, and overcome challenges in ways you might not otherwise.
But to get the most value out of great people, you must give them autonomy. With autonomy, they will work to their potential, and your business will reap the benefits of their knowledge and experience.
This article provides an overview of what it means to be an autonomous team. We discuss the characteristics of autonomous teams and offer some critical steps to create your own.