People power
It is striking how many people pursue lives outside work which are full of achievement and responsibility, for example, through voluntary work, coaching a kids'football team or simply an absorbing hobby. Yet at work, their motivation and search for...
It is striking how many people pursue lives outside work which are full of achievement and responsibility, for example, through voluntary work, coaching a kids'football team or simply an absorbing hobby. Yet at work, their motivation and search for achievement and fulfilment often vanish. It's as though they leave their commitment and enthusiasm at the office door or factory gate. Listlessness and indifference take over.
This is the challenge of empowerment. In the past, it was enough to insist people did what management told them and no more. Yesterday's workers may have been resigned to this role, but today's employees are demanding more.
What is at the heart of the concept of workplace empowerment? It is human nature for people to want to feel they can make a difference to the success of the enterprise in which they work, and feel their participation and skills are valued. Many want to be able to make decisions, divise solutions to workplace problems, exercise their initiative and be held accountable for results.
Just because people may not be considered "management material" does not mean they can't take responsibility for their actions, behaviour and performance at work.
Empowerment comes ultimately from changing the role and behaviour of management. The "traditional" way of managing concentrates on the control and direction of people and the maintenance of discipline.
"If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile," was the response of hard-line managers to any suggestion of workforce empowerment.
A drawback of the traditional approach has people concentrating on doing what they are told in order to keep their manager happy. Acting in the customer's best interests, making improvements or producing high quality work may be sacrificed in pursuit of doing what their manager directs. When the direction is unclear, people guess what their manager wants rather than use their own judgement, or they are paralysed for fear of the consequences of making a mistake. They lack the confidence to act independently, to be creative or to take decisions without recourse to their manager.
To empower, managers have to trust that their people's motivation is no different from their own. For people to commit themselves to greater ownership of the work they do, they must be able to trust their managers, and feel able to exercise initiative without fear of recrimination.
Empowerment may sound like a fine, uplifting principle whose advocates assume the moral high ground. But although concepts such as involvement, enthusiasm, responsibility and self-fulfilment stir the heart, managers are entitled to ask what empowerment does to costs and profits. I see the tangible benefits of empowerment falling into three broad areas: better customer service; continuous improvement in every aspect of the organisation's operations; and more effective business processes.
Every point of contact a customer has with an organisation is an opportunity to satisfy a requirement, to delight or disappoint. Fundamental to empowerment is understanding that it's the front-line people who are in control of customer perceptions, not managers. People at the front line are closer to what people want now, to their problems and concerns, and to changing patterns of demand in the marketplace. Empowerment means giving responsibility to those closest to the problem, to harness their creativity and commitment to ever-improving standards of customer service, efficiency and effectiveness.
Continuous improvement means harnessing the talents of everyone in an organisation in a ceaseless quest for ever-improving standards. It relies on employee participation. The greater the participation, the more ideas are generated, the more enthusiasm is created, the greater the rewards to the business.
Conventional organisational structures are heavily segmented by function. In an empowered organisation, work is structured around groups of people, often in self-directed teams, which drive and operate the key business processes delivering value to the customer. Teams are held together by shared objectives and common values. They work cooperatively and harmoniously to deliver high quality customer service at the lowest cost. In such companies, when people are frustrated by the actions of others, the response is not recrimination. Instead, they work together to overcome the problem or at least to reach a working compromise which optimises the benefit to the business overall.
One thing that is hard to understand is why empowerment is so difficult to achieve if the benefits of an empowered workforce are so clear.
One barrier is, simply, fear. In an environment where people are fearful of the consequences, or the disapproval of others, risk taking will not happen and empowerment will not occur.
Fear, in any form, undermines the commitment, motivation and confidence of people in work. It is at the heart of meetings which skirt issues rather than confront them head-on. It's the reason people will not raise issues despite glaring effects on customer service, waste or product quality. Fear means people keep things to themselves and hide problems to avoid recrimination. It results in middle managers holding a lid on problems so senior managers only get to hear the news they want to hear.
One argument is that fear can be a good thing, keeping people on their toes. I disagree, because fear generates mistrust, divisiveness and defensive behaviour and builds a passive and conforming workforce. In contrast, an empowered workforce is active, enthusiastic and involved.
Often, the messages given out by managers, the way they exercise authority, the legends and anecdotes they use, and their symbols of rank do not reflect the change of attitudes sought. The reasons people get promoted, the way recognition is given for good work, the criteria by which one individual's rewards are set higher than another's are potent symbols of management's values and beliefs. But while managers may say one thing, their symbols sometimes tell a very different story.
The organisation structure itself can be a mechanism reinforcing disempowerment. Control structures are characterised by strong functional boundaries, rigid hierarchies and job specifications which demarcate authority and responsibility. A control structure implicitly assumes management's role is to tell people what to do and then make sure they do it. People who work in such a structure fall into the habit of checking with those above them about the acceptability of their intended decisions and actions. Managers link their role and status to the authority levels and responsibilities vested in their posts, enforcing a rigidity difficult for the concept of empowerment to challenge.
In almost all cases, the key to empowerment lies with management. They must make the first moves by providing direction, begin behaving in new ways and give responsibility to those below them so they feel confident in accepting the new responsibilities offered.
• Mr Hand is the chief financial officer of Chirurgiae, a private sector healthcare service provider in the UK.
KnowledgeCurve ©
This is the challenge of empowerment. In the past, it was enough to insist people did what management told them and no more. Yesterday's workers may have been resigned to this role, but today's employees are demanding more.
What is at the heart of the concept of workplace empowerment? It is human nature for people to want to feel they can make a difference to the success of the enterprise in which they work, and feel their participation and skills are valued. Many want to be able to make decisions, divise solutions to workplace problems, exercise their initiative and be held accountable for results.
Just because people may not be considered "management material" does not mean they can't take responsibility for their actions, behaviour and performance at work.
Empowerment comes ultimately from changing the role and behaviour of management. The "traditional" way of managing concentrates on the control and direction of people and the maintenance of discipline.
"If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile," was the response of hard-line managers to any suggestion of workforce empowerment.
A drawback of the traditional approach has people concentrating on doing what they are told in order to keep their manager happy. Acting in the customer's best interests, making improvements or producing high quality work may be sacrificed in pursuit of doing what their manager directs. When the direction is unclear, people guess what their manager wants rather than use their own judgement, or they are paralysed for fear of the consequences of making a mistake. They lack the confidence to act independently, to be creative or to take decisions without recourse to their manager.
To empower, managers have to trust that their people's motivation is no different from their own. For people to commit themselves to greater ownership of the work they do, they must be able to trust their managers, and feel able to exercise initiative without fear of recrimination.
Empowerment may sound like a fine, uplifting principle whose advocates assume the moral high ground. But although concepts such as involvement, enthusiasm, responsibility and self-fulfilment stir the heart, managers are entitled to ask what empowerment does to costs and profits. I see the tangible benefits of empowerment falling into three broad areas: better customer service; continuous improvement in every aspect of the organisation's operations; and more effective business processes.
Every point of contact a customer has with an organisation is an opportunity to satisfy a requirement, to delight or disappoint. Fundamental to empowerment is understanding that it's the front-line people who are in control of customer perceptions, not managers. People at the front line are closer to what people want now, to their problems and concerns, and to changing patterns of demand in the marketplace. Empowerment means giving responsibility to those closest to the problem, to harness their creativity and commitment to ever-improving standards of customer service, efficiency and effectiveness.
Continuous improvement means harnessing the talents of everyone in an organisation in a ceaseless quest for ever-improving standards. It relies on employee participation. The greater the participation, the more ideas are generated, the more enthusiasm is created, the greater the rewards to the business.
Conventional organisational structures are heavily segmented by function. In an empowered organisation, work is structured around groups of people, often in self-directed teams, which drive and operate the key business processes delivering value to the customer. Teams are held together by shared objectives and common values. They work cooperatively and harmoniously to deliver high quality customer service at the lowest cost. In such companies, when people are frustrated by the actions of others, the response is not recrimination. Instead, they work together to overcome the problem or at least to reach a working compromise which optimises the benefit to the business overall.
One thing that is hard to understand is why empowerment is so difficult to achieve if the benefits of an empowered workforce are so clear.
One barrier is, simply, fear. In an environment where people are fearful of the consequences, or the disapproval of others, risk taking will not happen and empowerment will not occur.
Fear, in any form, undermines the commitment, motivation and confidence of people in work. It is at the heart of meetings which skirt issues rather than confront them head-on. It's the reason people will not raise issues despite glaring effects on customer service, waste or product quality. Fear means people keep things to themselves and hide problems to avoid recrimination. It results in middle managers holding a lid on problems so senior managers only get to hear the news they want to hear.
One argument is that fear can be a good thing, keeping people on their toes. I disagree, because fear generates mistrust, divisiveness and defensive behaviour and builds a passive and conforming workforce. In contrast, an empowered workforce is active, enthusiastic and involved.
Often, the messages given out by managers, the way they exercise authority, the legends and anecdotes they use, and their symbols of rank do not reflect the change of attitudes sought. The reasons people get promoted, the way recognition is given for good work, the criteria by which one individual's rewards are set higher than another's are potent symbols of management's values and beliefs. But while managers may say one thing, their symbols sometimes tell a very different story.
The organisation structure itself can be a mechanism reinforcing disempowerment. Control structures are characterised by strong functional boundaries, rigid hierarchies and job specifications which demarcate authority and responsibility. A control structure implicitly assumes management's role is to tell people what to do and then make sure they do it. People who work in such a structure fall into the habit of checking with those above them about the acceptability of their intended decisions and actions. Managers link their role and status to the authority levels and responsibilities vested in their posts, enforcing a rigidity difficult for the concept of empowerment to challenge.
In almost all cases, the key to empowerment lies with management. They must make the first moves by providing direction, begin behaving in new ways and give responsibility to those below them so they feel confident in accepting the new responsibilities offered.
• Mr Hand is the chief financial officer of Chirurgiae, a private sector healthcare service provider in the UK.
KnowledgeCurve ©