From many corners of the organization capable and talented people emerge with the intention of contributing positively to the achievement of the objectives proposed by the company's management, talented and capable collaborators who, however, find their expectations frustrated when they meet bosses and colleagues who limit or are unaware of their potential.
Empowerment is RECOGNIZING the power that employees have, it is not about giving them power, they already have it, in fact that is why we are supposed to hire them, because they bring in their favor a series of knowledge and experiences that we need and their management should incorporate the skills for which they were chosen to develop their work.
The daily work life and cultural tradition have led us to consider that the answers to the questions in the organization are held by the bosses who are seen, in many cases, as providers of solutions and worse still, they themselves feel invested with a gift granted by we do not know who makes them feel like the owners of a revealed truth and that therefore they are like patriarchs who guide their team of collaborators with their advice and decisions. His mistrust in the capacity of his work team is such that when they go out somewhere his blunt phrase is "I'm going to go out, if they have any difficulties call me", which immediately makes him the only one capable of making decisions and the others are just a group of followers who carry out the assigned tasks.
Believing in people's capacity, handing them responsibility and trusting in their management is the best way to build teams where each of the participants feels that they add value with their work, that their contribution is significant for the results obtained. The boss is important, there is no doubt since she is the technical director who designs the best strategy to obtain the results, assigns tasks to each of the roles, accompanies the implementation and follows up, in such a way that each one recognizes which is its framework of action, with Fedeomies and limits, but at the same time it understands that it is part of a harmonious whole that works for a common result.
Delegating is not the same as empowering, as S. Covey mentions in his third habit of highly effective people, the importance of recognizing the difference between what can or cannot be delegated in the development of a task, identifying the person on the team to which I can assign the task, give it the necessary resources to be successful and demand accountability according to the agreed deliverables. Delegation is to offer the opportunity to a collaborator of the work team to develop a clearly defined task, both in its purpose and in its deliverables and that is commissioned by the boss to be developed; For its part, empowerment allows the generation of ideas, innovation in the workplace and the development of alternatives to improve the management that is carried out.
Successful work teams are consolidated when each of its members recognizes their playing field, knows their responsibilities, their limits and their results. Having a scheme of indicators that allows monitoring progress in management is an opportunity that allows identifying the success factors in the daily operation of the group.
It is important to insist on the idea that talent is produced through collaboration and is a sustainable result that arises from the sum of individual contributions and that therefore is not the product of individual genius that fills those who become a star with pride. fleeting of organizations. We can see this in sports but also in the frustration that corporations have when paying millionaire sums for those geniuses who obtained differentiating results in one company and who cannot repeat them in others. Superior performances are not enough to make a difference in what will be the rating of the customer who pays for a product or service that is rarely the product of individual effort.
The invitation, with this brief reflection, is directed especially to the bosses, to those who have the difficult task of distributing the functions in the team and finding who they are who, through their capacities, will be able to contribute significantly to the expected result. It is not about GIVING power to employees (they already have it), but about RECOGNIZING that power and putting it to work for the benefit of the team and the company, allowing them to develop those tasks in which they are successful and for which we brought them to the company, let them play their game in such a way that they feel motivated and committed to the execution of a management that requires them but that at the same time allows them to offer and put into practice what they know.
On many occasions, bosses are concerned and fear thinking about the consequences of error and mistake on the part of employees, this issue has already been sufficiently addressed by management gurus since the 80s when they left. consolidating the idea of allowing employees to make mistakes and build experiences based on their mistakes that lead them to be much more demanding of themselves in the development of the tasks assigned to them. It is not about promoting the "error management", the consequences will determine the way in which it will have to proceed.
When a member of the work team feels that their contributions are valued and that their contribution supports the achievement of the objectives, their personal motivation and performance are increased by significantly committing themselves to the management they must carry out and strengthening their sense of identity with the team and the company.
I hope that these brief notes serve to encourage those responsible for guiding work teams to incorporate into their management models some techniques that allow to take full advantage of all the potential that the expectations of our collaborators move in work teams.
