Empowerment, as it’s practiced in most companies, can be boiled down to 9 words —
“I empower you to do this (but not that).”
This makes it crystal clear that the boss
This is empowerment in name only.
It leads to frustration and disillusionment for the bosses because they invest a lot of time carving out the details of how they will “empower” — but the results never show up. There’s no jump in innovation. There’s no boost in productivity.
Meanwhile, employees silently watch the continued erosion of their dignity. They see empowerment as an increased burden when they should be feeling liberated.
It’s painful to watch.
The best managers don’t monitor and control. They groom and grow. To them, empowerment is not a
Instead of wasting your time defining the rules for empowerment, invest that time growing your employees. Teach them what questions to ask themselves, what issues to consider, how to think independently. Have conversations about the
Of course, this is way,
Time to move your org up to Skills 2.0 — or stay home.
Most of us are afraid to let go our ’empowerment’ comfort blankets, because we have no clue how to groom and grow our employees. Count me among the clueless.
It takes courage to admit what you did, Bud. Bravo. It actually is far easier to groom and grow than it is to monitor and control. See this post: http://www.skills2.com/blog/428/ Best, Aman
And what do you do if you don’t *truly* trust your employees? What if you’re afraid they’ll make massive errors of judgment?
Marcia, in my experience, it’s amazing how most employees will rise up when they realize how much you trust them and how vested you are in their success. Of course, there are a few who are just not ready. In which case, the problem is not the employee. It’s the questions you ask yourself when you recruit or promote. Yep, it always comes down to asking the right questions. Always.
What are the questions I must ask myself before I recruit or promote?
The most important skill is judgment — the ability to ask the right questions to get to the core of what will make the biggest difference. This skill trumps both experience and education. So, before you recruit or promote, you must know where the employee stands on the judgment scale — how high are they? and if they’re not high enough, what is the probability that you’ll be able to groom them for it?
As a side note, this thread illustrates the fallacy of tackling empowerment and recruitment and promotion as separate initiatives. They’re inextricably interrelated. Most companies tackle these separately, and that is why they get into so much unnecessary trouble.