Christian Giroux wrote:
> In the last issue of HBR, Chris Argyris published an article on the
> subject, presenting a view that is often unspoken about... Baically he
> says that Yes, theoretically empowerment is something you want. However,
> what's not clear is whether bosses and employees really want it...
In general, I would concur with the others on this list that empowerment
is about greater autonomy; however, as indicated in the above post, not
all people want it. Empowerment, for me as a manager, is linked to
facilitating maximum performance from each employee. Some need a lot of
direction and others do not. Therefore, empowerment may be an
inappropriate management technique for employee A while working wonders
for employee B.
With empowerment methods, defining the size / nature / scope of the box to
play in is critical. Management must define the boundries within which the
individual is empowered to avoid having everyone frustrated, confused, and
running amok. Anything outside the box should have a defined and well
communicated process for escalation through management for consideration
and/or action. It would be pointless to say to an employee that we value
your potential and contributions, then completely disregard efforts to
improve the company.
Management, likewise, has to be willing to put the forethought into
empowerment processes, or chaos is likely to ensue. I work in a company
where about half are knowledge workers and the others are task-oriented.
Those with less education and business sophistication are sometimes very
impractical when given too much authority to act without management
review. The empowerment process in this environment has to be gradual to
evaluate successes and failures, to make corrections, and communicate.
This takes a lot of work and management can be very resistent to doing it
correctly. Rather than doing it badly, I would recommend skipping it
altogehter.
regards,
Vana Prewitt
vprewitt@bellsouth.net
--Vana Prewitt <vprewitt@mail.rdu.bellsouth.net>
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