“The Greatest Waste in America

Is The Failure to Utilize the Abilities of People”

~ W.E.Deming

Exercise: Do you feel your abilities are fully utilized through your work?—Share your

feelings and experiences

• Listen to each other’s feelings & experience with empowerment initiatives

• Summarize & Analyze the various feelings & experiences

• Develop principles for success with empowerment

Empowerment: How To

• Just Do It! -- Push Decision Making Down the Hierarchy?

• Just Train for Better Decisions?• Change Job Content? -- Add more

Stuff• Change Job Context? -- Do Different

Stuff• Change something else, but What?

Empowerment, is it:

• Directed Autonomy?• Authority Commensurate with

Responsibility?• Employee Given Freedom to

Choose Action in the Business’ Best Interest?

• Employee Involvement & Cooperation?

• Enabling the Release of “Power To”in the Person?

For Discussion

• What is empowerment? Is it important? Why?

• Is empowering another the same or equivalent to motivating another?

• What does it have to do with leadership? What kind of leadership?

Motivation

• Intrinsic (Being Engaged)

– stimulation or drive emanating from within

• Extrinsic (Being Moved)

– stimulation from an outside force

Truth about Extrinsic Rewards

• Extrinsic rewards reduce intrinsic interest

• Extrinsic rewards can be controlling

• Extrinsic rewards changes people's understanding of their nature (of themselves)

Motivation in Traditional Management Theory

• What theory of motivation is advanced in traditional management theory?– We’re all substitutable cogs in the economic

machine• instrumental motives

– means in the pursuit of material gain

• homogenized motives– interlocked with the same motive (most often $$$)

• no depth, all seeking greater profit (seeking to avoid the unavoidable loss)

Interplay of IM & EM

A group of pre-school age children were drawing. Children were randomly selected and asked to

draw some more, promising rewards for the best participants. The rest of the children just drew pictures, without the promise of a reward. Two weeks into the study, the drawing behavior of the children showed that those who had been rewarded drew less, but those who had never

been rewarded still drew at the same rate.

Case: The Empowerment Effort at SportsGear• Martin’s depiction of “what will be” sounds great. Why didn’t it

work? What was bad about it? Is he inspiring or just driving his staff? How does Martin’s depiction of empowerment and George’s teams experience differ? How different is Harry’s solution from Martin’s?

• What assumption(s) is Martin making in his empowerment initiative? Are these assumptions valid?

• What went wrong with the initiative? What was the cause of failure?

• Is empowerment the best solution to SportsGear’s host of problems? Why?

• What could be done now? What should be done? Why should it be done?

• Would Covey’s 1st three habits have helped Martin? Why?• What lessons have we learned from this case?

Personal Values & IM

• What is Good

• What is Valued

• What is Empowering

• Does What Motivates, Change (as you progress in life)?

– Why?

Empowerment: Why?

• Fewer Staff => Labor/Cost Issue• Encourage Sense of Accountability for

Consequences• People Asking for More Autonomy• To Participate in Decision Making• To Enhance Motivation• To Generate Creative/Innovative Ideas• To Enable People to Realize Potential

Empowerment: Why & Why Not

• Fewer Staff => Labor/Cost Issue

• Encourage Sense of Responsibility for Consequences

• People Asking for More Autonomy

• Share in Decision Making• Enhance Motivation• Generate

Creative/Innovative Ideas• Enable People to Realize

Potential

• Loss of Control

• Too Risky, Costly

• People Require Supervision

• It’s a Manager’s Job

For it Against it

Correlated with the continuum of Transactional to Transcendental Leadership

Empowerment: Two (related) Issues• Accessing “The Will”

– Internal Desire; Self-Motivated

• Relate/Connect People’s Interiors w/ the Organization’s Vision & Values– Develop Relationship of Collaboration

But to do these requires Leadership =

1. To first know it in one’s self

2. To seek to understand the other as a unique individual

3. To facilitate another knowing it in themselves via dialogue

Tactics for Accessing IM

• Emphasize the Value of the Activity Itself: Meaningfulness of Activity

• Lessen Control and Increase Autonomy through Free Choice

• Establish a Caring, Trusting & Cooperative Environment

• Enhance & Encourage Interpersonal Relationships

• Seek to Understand the Interests of the OtherLook back on the Case: Did Martin do these?

More Tactics

• Provide Interesting Work• Arouse Curiosity & Challenge• Encourage Risk Taking• Model the Attitude• Help Others to Believe They

Can Succeed• Helpful Feedback & Celebrate

& Recognize Their Power to Achieve

For Discussion

• Margaret Wheatley says “ we have known for nearly half a century that self-managed teams are far more productive than any other form of organizing.” Why is there so much resistance to it?

• Wheatley also states, “ we hope to change our organizations by tinkering with incentives, reshuffling the pieces, changing a part, or re-training a colleague or group. But these efforts are doomed to fail…” Why?

• Why has “honoring and trusting people unleashed startlingly high levels of productivity and creativity?

• What is trust? What role does it play? Why is it so hard to come by?

• What role does Covey’s 1st three habit play in its emergence?

Discussion Issue• What makes an organization ready

for empowerment? How would you know that the organization is ready?– system is setup to help, not to

police or punish– has clear purpose, values &

support structures– hierarchy seeks to unify not

control– open & inclusive environment

Issue for Discussion

• If an organization was characterized as having employees with low desire for personal growth, a low level of social capital and managers with poor interpersonal skills, how would an empowerment program be successful?

Critical Elements for Empowerment

• First, Transform Yourself -- self empowerment

• Foster Mutual Respect• Attend to Actualizing Factors• Attend to Dissatisfiers• Build Connection between

Responsibility & Freedom