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Empowerment is the willful choice to adopt a business strategy which redistributes authority from traditional top-down management structures to individuals and employee-driven teams at all levels. With full knowledge of how the organization functions, and a clear understanding of decision parameters, associates form teams and assume responsibility, leadership, control, and accountability. With power vested in teams rather than centralized at the top, self-interest, dependency, and territorialism are replaced by service, responsibility and results.
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Changing current paradigms may be necessary to respond to growth, the changes in industry, changing demands of clients/customers, and to respond to staff needs. Successful organizations are moving from treating people as expensive parts needing to be controlled to treating people as investments and recognizing that their empowerment is vital to quality improvement of services.
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Changing paradigms includes shifting management focus and identifying the new leadership skills required for coaching an empowered workforce.
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Communication skills. Effective leaders identify specific words and phrases contributing to effective communication, and address differences in assertive, aggressive, and passive communication patterns. How do we communicate who we really are instead of being misunderstood? Of course, attention must be given to tacky management.
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The value of a shared vision. Unless a team has the same end in mind they will not reach consensus. Without a shared vision individuals will be accused of having poor judgment.
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Handling conflict. If the group does not experience conflict, people have stopped caring. There are five appropriate ways to handle conflict, and none of them are appropriate in every situation. Conflict affects levels of stress, teamwork, and communication to such a degree, it is often considered an appropriate place to begin intervention.
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Building effective teams. Teams not only combine the best ideas from individual members, but through synergy gain results that are far beyond the sum of the ideas. It is necessary to understand the behavioral tendencies of members of the team, use effective quality improvement techniques, follow essential ground rules, evaluate the work of the team, and celebrate success. For teams to be effective, managers will find it necessary to move from managing toward leading.
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Client/customer service. Successful organizations in different industries offer models that can be applied to other businesses. How do we move from simply processing our clients and customers to being perceived as caring about them? For us to be successful in dealing with our customers and clients, as well as the community, we have to address how we deal with our internal clients; that is, our associates.
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Think-tank opportunities. Participants in a safe lab environment can practice identifying issues and addressing them as a team. Brainstorming and analysis procedures applied to real-life situations demonstrate the value of the team concept. How can this process work, using associates as the driving force?
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Developing action plans. How do we make decisions and implement those decisions? How do we remain committed to staying client-focused, cultivating a great place for staff to work, becoming even more cost-aware and centered on continuous improvement?
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- Treat everyone with dignitiy and respect
- Pursue continuous improvement
- Employ open-book management
- Allowing employees to have their fingerprints all over the organization and giving them a piece of the action is not only healthy for the organization, but it is the right thing to do
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Impact Seminars, Inc.
