Can you imagine how many problems could be overcome in organizations, simply assuming a change from the old traditional paradigms, and acting differently in front of their collaborators?. In effect, we need to make a fundamentally ontic reflection, if we really want to agree to achieve better results at work.
Empowerment is a management strategy that will help us face these challenges and challenges in modern management and administration, especially our main asset "human capital".
Empowerment, means empowerment, empowerment and empowering people to decide and act with responsibility and commitment, at the present time constitutes a fundamental management tool to break the old mental models of metacentric and authoritarian leadership that is oriented to direct and control people. It is also a strategy to transform traditional organizations, it is mainly based on an educational process for our collaborators, that is, transmitting a new culture inspired by transmitting values and behaviors to carry out with freedom, initiative and autonomy the roles at work, in the let them put their ingenuity, initiative and creativity into play.
Empowerment is oriented to grant workers greater power to strengthen the conditions and actions necessary to improve job performance and personal performance of each of the workers and therefore the company. It also implies a new work philosophy in which pyramid structures collapse to make way for a flatter organization where trust is one of the fundamental pillars, empowerment does not constitute a simple delegation of tasks and responsibilities, but rather learning to learn. to guide people to become "managers" of their position.
Empowerment means trust, appreciation and respect for people
The essential premise is based on the fact that we are all responsible for the organization of our work, optimizing spaces in which people access their personal development and psychological autonomy to create and innovate and improve their work. We must therefore be consistent in providing them with trust, appreciation, respect and learn to "live" with them, creating a climate in which human feelings are important, being understanding in meeting their expectations and problems.
Understanding the philosophy of empowerment, the manager will understand that the responsibility at work belongs to all the members of the organization, the feelings of the people require special attention, recognition is a vital source, decentralizing power and authority is necessary, promoting commitment, creating a climate of innovation, freedom of ideas and emotions, banishing the rigid persecuting climate that can sometimes turn into an unjustified "witch hunt" fostering fear, the imposition of ideas is not valid, relinquishing power for the achievement of objectives.
When the manager applies empowerment, he can have more time for other management tasks such as evaluating and fine-tuning the company's mission, vision for the business, evaluating the competition (benchmarking), being aware of changes in the environment to respond quickly. to the new needs and expectations of increasingly demanding and discriminating customers in order to survive and stay on course.
Implementation of empowerment
The first step is the creation of a culture of empowerment within the organization, in which the new values to be adopted at work are clearly defined, such as: Commitment, loyalty, solidarity, companionship, quality at work, responsibility.
The second step is the training of managers as a coach, facilitators and coaches, teaching our collaborators to have confidence in themselves, in their team and in the new approaches that the work will take from today, which will involve assigning values added to the work, in which they can propose significant improvements, establishing a system of written suggestions (Kaizen), with the best ideas that they must present directly to their immediate boss that allows them to strengthen systems, processes, and work methods, where the staff feel that they participate and that their opinion is important.
The third step, the managers already involved in the philosophy, must become true coaches or facilitators of the change of the work teams: to direct, guide, support and delegate the transformation and metamorphosis of the organization, through positive attitudes that allow:
- Motivate and enthuse people Communicate a clear vision of the work Articulate a precise direction Encourage communication Inspire and encourage achievement Give and receive feed back Inspire respect and credibility Appreciate work well done Assure team unity Recognize, reward efficiency, give responsibilities to people, among other aspects.
The fourth step, taking into account that empowerment, is based on two fundamental pillars: Training and confidence, obviously confidence cannot be obtained immediately, it does not appear magically, but we must build it, performing first Regular meetings with those workers who seem to be more flexible and more involved, to whom we must explain the philosophy of empowerment and what is the responsibility of one and the other towards the organization. This undoubtedly represents a significant change in both the attitudes of managers and people to understand that we are one team, the important thing will be to retain our collaborators just as we do with our clients.
The fifth step is the formation of high-performance teams, who will be in charge of a coach who guides them “invisibly”, since they must start to generate radical change, they must then monitor that people gradually internalize the new values, which are reflected in their interpersonal relationships with their colleagues, collaborators and superiors, development of a synergistic work, having already banished the "islands", obtaining greater commitment and identification with the organization, clients and suppliers.
It is essential to establish meetings where they can feed back the results that are being obtained, publicly recognizing those who achieve the best performance, supporting and guiding others towards achieving work objectives and personal development.
The result obtained is that the organization will obtain a more open, warm and humane work climate, less paternalistic, permissible within the limits of the assumed values. A concurrent and subsequent evaluation of the results will be required in this process.
The sixth step is to establish a system of support and sustained maintenance of the work environment obtained, being essential to have "Perseverance in the purpose" as Deming would say.
Perhaps on the way to empowerment there will be successes and failures, suddenly the people or the executives who make Coach, become discouraged, fall into despair, become skeptics, suddenly even nihilists, because logically the human being is complex and different from each other; against which we must remain firm and stoic, if we really want to have an organization to successfully face the other challenges of the ever-changing and competitive environment. " Renew or Die ".
