Many of the aspects that in the past were raised under the "empowerment", today, as in many other cases, are taken up by tools such as the "High Performance Teams", the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) or the basic principles of the ISO 9000: 2000. This is logical for us, since every so often a new topic is posed before the exhaustion of the previous ones, being many times, a different emphasis, rather than something really new.
When empowerment states, "The mindset that led to success in the past will not lead to success in the future," it defines four requirements of fundamental importance to organizations:
- Customer oriented:
This concept is taken up from the customer's perspective at the BSC and is one of the 8 principles established by ISO 9000: 2000. It is logical that this is so, because with the sophistication of current consumers and the variety of products available, any organization that is not sensitive to the wishes and needs of customers is doomed to be second-class and soon disappear from the business scene.
- Cost efficient:
This requirement is not considered in ISO, but it is one of the fundamental aspects of the BSC in your financial perspective. However, in "empowerment" it is only related to costs and states "the time has come when companies are obliged every day, to do much more with much less, if they want to survive". A new standard is being developed at ISO regarding the financial and economic benefits of Quality Management Systems under the ISO 10014 guide, which would be a great achievement, since many consider that it has been very disconnected from financial results.
- Fast and flexible
This requirement could have its equivalence to the perspective of internal processes of the BSC and in the approach to ISO processes where it is argued that the changing needs of clients have made the heavy layers of bureaucratic administration, as deadly as high cholesterol levels.. Empowerment goes further, saying that the deciding factor is front-line employees with whom clients have to understand and make decisions, solve problems and act without delay. ISO also reinforces this with the principle of human resource involvement: "Staff, at all levels, is the essence of an organization and their full commitment enables their skills to be used for the benefit of the organization."
- Continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is established in the BSC in the perspective of Learning and Growth. ISO also endorses it in one of the eight principles: "Continuous improvement of the organization's global performance should be a permanent objective of the organization." For "empowerment" lifelong learning has to become the norm of the company if it wants to be an organization that continually and permanently surpasses itself. He even goes further when he recommends "to release all the creative and unexploited energy that exists in companies". All staff must be invited to take responsibility and make full use of their skills and abilities. Everyone needs to feel empowered to take on the task of making the company more considerate of customers and employees, and at the same time financially healthy.
Empowerment is operationalized through the creation of high-performance or self-managed teams, which, following the Motorola nomenclature, we insist on calling them "Self-Directed Cells", since at all times their intention is development at the lowest level of the organization. A cell is the smallest form of self-sufficient life, capable of reproduction. Today we have new versions such as High Performance Teams, Work Cells, Social Insects, Gung Ho, Zapp or Participatory Administration etc. In some ways they are just variations on the same theme.
As Ken Blanchard himself, author of the book "Executive to the Minute", says, While it is true that the application of "empowerment" gives results, it is true that it takes more than a minute to obtain them ". If those involved do not have previous experience in intervening in decision making, they will not know how to proceed.
Additionally, it raises a requirement, often difficult to fulfill, and it is the one referred to "having a basic faith in people, otherwise you will be wasting your time". Blanchard is the author of the book "Empowerment", the basis of our original proposal back in 1995.
We remember another great advanced manager in the old PPC, today Amanco, when he said that you should not give "empowerment", only stop doing what rather reduces the ability of people to do things on their own. People prefer to do their best at work, if given the choice. You already have enough power (in the treasury of your knowledge) to perform your job magnificently, all you have to do is release that power.
When asked why we use the word "Empowerment" and we don't go for any of the translations that other authors have used, such as "empowerment," "empowerment," and the more recent "empowerment," our answer is that while it is true, the first two give a logical meaning to the translation, with the last one we feel less satisfied, since it seems that power is taken by force. Faced with such problems, we prefer to continue using the original term in English, whose word implies greater strength that is not so easy to translate.
In "empowerment", what is sought is that the employee has a basic sense of belonging, in their own right and not because they "seized", something that did not correspond to them, but above all it begins with what senior management, considers that it is the correct thing and that it is clearly convinced that this is the only way to manage today, otherwise, it will never achieve what it sets out to do.
Every company that wants to be competitive must become a place where people can take pleasure in showing how much they are capable of, and become the best place to work.
Long before thinking about employees taking the initiative, and acting under what empowerment proposes, management should examine their way of managing and instead of directing, controlling and supervising employees, acting as a link of union between employees and the rest of the organization. A manager who grants faculties, is in charge of coordinating efforts, acquiring resources, planning the development of the company, investigating the current and future needs of customers to determine their requirements, as ISO requests, but also takes time to train their staff.
The Keys to «Empowerment»
There are 3 essential requirements to implement this philosophy: «Information Sharing», «Create Autonomy by Borders» and «Replace the hierarchy with self-directed teams».
Share information
When this first requirement of "sharing information with everyone" is raised, the problems begin, since not all managers are willing to give information on how the business is going: profits, waste, budgets, market share, productivity, defects. Our experience in its implementation in multiple companies taught us that the requirement to "share information" is somewhat difficult to overcome.
If managers are not willing to share information with their employees, they can hardly have them as partners, to successfully manage the company and they will never have an organization under the philosophy of "Empowerment". We know that Bill Gates shares the information of his company with all his people and that it supports his success. In Costa Rica, they told us a similar experience, of a person who worked in the Yaohan supermarket, every day they received information about sales, profits, costs, etc., in addition to promotions, special events, etc.
The importance of the issue is that if employees are not provided with information, they feel that they are not trusted. And indeed it is, many companies keep valuable information for decision-making under seven keys. It should be clarified that we are talking about the information necessary to make decisions. Although the experiences of success under this new philosophy speak of total information.
What we do agree with is that those who lack information will hardly be able to act responsibly, which is valid to the contrary, if they have information they are forced to act responsibly. Blanchard says "Information is the currency for taking responsibility."
Although it is a difficult aspect to assimilate, this point allows us to understand the situation of the organization in clear terms and thereby create trust in all its collaborators. Of course, in addition to teaching people to be more responsible, it encourages them to act as owners.
Under empowerment, teams must have all the information they need to make an important decision that must be made to satisfy the customer, ensure quality and be able to make a profit for the company.
Create autonomy across borders
One of the flaws in the implementation of this philosophy was the absence of guidelines for action. If it is posed correctly, we suggest that companies that are thinking of implementing empowerment, seek to obtain ISO 9000 certification, or at least have a quality management system, which allows the requirement to "create autonomy by borders".
This confirms our opinion that all theories, doctrines or administrative philosophies of our time are interrelated and in one way or another complement each other. It is annoying to see some successful projects being abandoned, equivalent to "changing horses in the middle of the river", simply because a "new flavor of the month" appeared.
We left the Just in Time and went to Total Quality, then to Reengineering, later to ISO and the BSC, we were dazzled by the latest technique leaving aside all of the above. We have repeatedly called that "they fall in love with the model and forget the problem."
With an adequate systematization of the processes, applying the continuous improvement cycle model, PHVA, many of the previous projects, would still be yielding successful results. Unfortunately, until ISO appears, we understand the need to establish policies and procedures, despite all the teachings of the Administration for Policies and Standardization that the Japanese left us. ISO applied in the correct way, without that paper world it has become, is a very good alternative to give continuity to the improvement processes.
In "empowerment" it is said; "Without guidelines to guide, employees revert to their old habits when they weren't empowered." This happens when supervisors or managers are changed in a department.
Many of the certified companies are in danger of losing the certification, if a manager arrives throwing the previous thing on board, to implement new ideas, instead of rescuing the good thing and improving it.
Policies and procedures have the ability to channel energy in the direction that the company wants to give it. When the policies are not defined, it is equivalent to having a river that has its banks removed, it would no longer be a river, its momentum and direction would disappear, now it is nothing more than a great swamp.
Similar to what is stated in the Balanced Scorecard, on how to align an organization with its strategy, this is stated in the empowerment:
- 1. - Mission-purpose. What business are you in?
BSC: Why we exist
- 2. - Values What are your operational guidelines?
BSC: What is important to us
- 3. - Image What is your vision for the future?
BSC: What we want to become
- 4. - Goals What should be done, when, where and how do you do what you do?
BSC What are our priorities
- 5. - Papers, who does each thing?
BSC What do I need to do
- 6. - Organizational structure and systems, how do you support what you want to do?
BSC: Strategic Initiatives
Every organization must have clearly defined a compelling Vision, a picture of the future, an image that clarifies its purpose.
As in BSC and ISO 9000, each department must translate the vision and objectives into roles and goals that have meaning for each of them, in what is known as the deployment of objectives.
A vision is the figure that is seen in a puzzle, when the pieces are put into place. The specific role that each person has to play to achieve vision is as an individual piece of the brain teaser.
When a person is held accountable for end results like service, sales, and so on, there must be congruence with the things they are told about every day and for what is called their attention. There must be clear goals that are constantly verified, the vision comes alive when everyone sees how they are contributed. The vision tells you what to do, while your policies and systems, along with well-defined goals and roles, ensure that things are done well.
It is important to examine every rule, policy and process to ensure that it contributes to the desired organizational model, so that each one can know how to respond about what is their role? What things do they have to solve? to hold responsible? What are the new rules? And how to get training for the new role. We add, a clear definition of competencies.
Replace hierarchy with self-directed teams
This is Blanchard's third requirement for companies that want to implement empowerment.
As a result of many reengineering processes, or when an organization is finished flattening, cutting jobs, hiring services from outside and eliminating intermediate management levels, senior management is closer to where the action is, they have supervisors with a control broader, but you also have many resentful people, they are not trained in their new responsibilities since before they limited themselves to executing decisions made by others.
In a self-directed and appropriately formed team, the members rely on each other's skills and specialized knowledge, thus becoming something much more powerful than a disconnected group of individuals. Hence the importance that ISO highlights in the development of competencies and that in the BSC we are spoken of as Learning and Growth.
It is probable that there are many definitions of what a self-directed team is, one of them says "It is a team of collaborators with enough" authority "to be able to" answer "for a whole work process, which provides a product or service to a client internal or external ». Another definition states: it is a group of employees who have the responsibility for an entire process or product. They plan, execute, and direct the work from start to finish, where the boss is unknown.
Both agree on responsibility for a whole process, but the first establishes that in order to answer for something, you must have authority. A definition of "Empowerment" says: "Give the line officer the" authority "to do his job," to which he adds the concept of "Accountability" of "responding" for the careful use of resources. so that a competitive advantage is obtained ». If power is given, accountability for the power conferred must be requested.
A self-directed team does what managers do: evaluate information, analyze it and solve what must be done and transfer decisions to others, but for this they must be given what they need, starting by helping them develop a participatory leadership style, where the manager teaches his collaborators how to direct their own work, how to make group decisions, give skills in how to solve problems, how to lead meetings, how to lead the team and manage conflicts.
In empowerment, the aim is to teach things that allow you to depend less on superiors, since you cannot give yourself faculties if you lack the skills or competences. Managers must show vigorous leadership to guide and direct and act as facilitators and coaches.
Management style:
By changing their role, new managers are expected to focus more on developing strategic plans and implementing a Balanced Scorecard, working more with clients to learn about their current and future needs, and evaluating the degree of satisfaction with products. and services provided, examining new equipment and processes, researching and delivering the training that employees will need in the future, as well as special company projects.
By implementing the Empowerment »you will find that:
- Empowered Teams Can Do More Than Empowered Individuals Employees Don't Know How To Work In Self-Directed Teams Dissatisfaction Is A Natural Step In The Process Everyone Has To Train In Team Skills Commitment and support have to come from the top Teams with information and skills can replace the old hierarchy.
Bibliography
- Blanchard K., "Empowerment", Editorial NormaWellins R., "Empowermed Teams", Jossey Bass PublishersPasmore W, "Developing Self Managing Work Teams", Compensation & Benefits ReviewParker G, "Cross Functional Teams", Jossey Bass PublishersPalom, J. « How to organize high-performance teams »Nelson R,« Empowerment Employees Through Delegation ».Gung Ho total alignmentLeadershipValues ManagementISO 9004: 2000Balanced Scorecard. R. KaplanThe Paradox
