During the past 28 years as a speaker and consultant I have worked with a wide variety of organizations which display a wide range of management styles.

These varying styles contributed greatly to the corporate culture as well as the productivity of individuals and departments. It is clear to me that empowering employees, departments and any group of employees improves performance and increases organizational effectiveness. It can also create a great deal of stress and havoc if management does not totally buy into this philosophy.

What is empowerment?

It is not a fad, although it gained a great deal of popularity during the 1990s. Empowerment can be defined with a variety of management approaches. Rather than give you a narrative, I thought I would share a list with you. I find that lists help people better identify strengths as well as weaknesses more easily.

Empowered organizations...

• Give authority with responsibility
• Communicate corporate direction clearly to all employees
• Have clear and flexible goals and focuses
• Focus not on methods or activities but results
• Goal setting is a combination of top-down and bottom-up
• Listen to employees
• Create a safe environment where employees can feed up bad news without the fear of criticism, termination or being perceived as a poor team player
• Get lots of suggestions from employees
• Do not make decisions that impact employees without first consulting them
• Delegate results not tasks
• Encourage mistakes, failure and risk as a tool for learning and improving
• Do not micromanage employees actions and decisions

One of best ways to determine how empowered your employees are is to observe their behaviour.

Do they behave the same...

• When their manager is out of town versus in town
• When they are alone versus part of a team
• When they are being observed or left up to their own devices
• When it is near their review time or after a review
• When they are a new employee versus a seasoned veteran
• When they are in a support role or a management role

If your employees never make mistakes, you may not have an empowered environment. If your employees never take risks or communicate reality be advised, you may have a heavy top-down old style management culture.

And if you do, you may be in serious trouble. The world may be passing you by and you don't even know it.

Have a great week.

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Wayne Berry

Wayne Berry is Australia's TOP GUN® Sales Coach and most in-demand speaker on Sales, Sales Management and Negotiating. Author of the best selling book “How To Negotiate And Get The Best Deal Every Time” (Also available on CD). Wayne Berry also presents seminars and workshops and speaks at conferences on negotiating.

E mail: wayneberry@topgunba.com.au

Web: www.wayneberry.com.au