hello, Jose--I enjoyed your posting, and wanted to add the following thoughts
. . .
There are many levels and hierarchies of responsibility and authority
within any given organization, Jose. My training was always that,
although I could delegate authority for certain activities, I could never
delegate responsibility.
What frequently happens in organizations is that people are selected for
new roles with authorities and responsibilities for which they haven't
been groomed, coached or trained. The skills which earmarked them for
selection usually were not the same skills they needed in their new role.
This happens frequently within team assignments, also.
We seek to develop the capacity for power (personal mastery, team
learning, mental models, visioning, systems thinking) among the members of
learning organizations. This process facilitates the transfer of
authority and responsibility to people who are now integrated and
connected with those who formerly kept the authority and responsibility to
themselves.
Even in hierarchical and patriarchical organizations (non-LO types), it
pays to prepare people for promotion to supervisory and management
positions by schooling them in interpersonal skills development, in
addition to the technical skills they require.
At any rate, I suggest that these people are not being empowered when they
are assigned role authority or responsibility. Power does not
automatically come with these organizational role characteristics (as the
new manager in Terry Deems case study found out).
MARTIN HUELVES, JOSE wrote:
--snip--
> It is clear that authority must be distributed to make things work
> correctly. But what empowerment facilitates, as I understand it,
> is to have a more autonomus people in your organization and it is
> something imposed by market forces:
>
--snip--
> * But now, we have people trained / responsible enough and
> information systems that allow line managers to have control over
> their business without the support of others and they don?t need
> an intermediate manager to control and push up information to top
> managers. This new situation is cheaper and favours more complete
> people.
>
> * In this moment, is when techniques and tools of empowerment must
> be applied, just to give support to these new managers who
> increase resposability in their business.
>
> Jose Martin.
> jose.huelves@grupobbv.com
-- "The most invisible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible - without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt - their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don't have to draw. They are the artists of being alive." - J. StoneThresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Olympia, WA ICQ# 10849650 Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>