Why you shouldn’t have to empower your people
Like agility, empowerment is fast becoming one of those business buzzwords, that everyone wants to do, or at least be seen to do. But few seem clear on what it actually means, let alone the implications.
It’s this lack of clarity that can make leaders nervous. Who knows what will happen if we give away too much control?
And that sounds like a sensible question to ask. But it’s really not. You should know what will happen, because empowerment is a means to an end, and before you ever get into the how, you should be pretty darned clear on the why.
Why do you want to do it? What is it that you want to achieve by “empowering your people”? And what else needs to be in place to make sure you get that outcome? Because it’s probably not the stuff you expect.
We generally assume that, to “do” empowerment, we will need to put sharper guidelines in place, create more clarity on individual roles and responsibilities, to ensure it doesn’t lead to chaos. But that’s what you do if you feel you ought to empower, not if you actually want to empower.
Because here’s the thing: empowerment means the granting of power, or in business, the delegation of authority, to someone to do something. But the reality is never that simple. Saying someone is empowered doesn’t mean they’ll feel empowered. Especially where the prevailing culture tells them otherwise.
And the reverse is just as true – we often celebrate those who went beyond their own authority to do what needed to be done. We even have phrases like: “Ask for forgiveness, not for permission”, to deliberately encourage a culture of self-empowerment.
Empowerment is far more a function of how an individual feels they should act within the norms of their organisation, than it is about what’s written in their employee handbook or job description.
One of the phrases I often use when feeding back observations on organisational culture, is management to the edge of the desk. This is where employees are so clear in their own interpretation of their responsibilities that anything beyond that bailiwick is off their radar.
Management to the edge of the desk means that it’s not your problem if you put a caller through to the service team and there’s nobody there to pick it up. Nor is it for you to worry if the solutions you create in your area cause a wave of problems elsewhere.
Increasing individual empowerment in that type of culture means increasing the divisions between your teams, the cracks in your processes, and in the customer’s experience.
Which brings us back to purpose, in more ways than one.
The first step is to get really clear on your why. The second, is to get everyone else clear on your why.
Your aim might be to improve end-to-end customer service, for people to think and act right across the customer experience, to work collaboratively with other teams to fix problems at source rather than spot-fix them on each occasion, to see and share the opportunities across all the different touchpoints.
If that’s your why for empowerment, the first step, and often the only step, is for your people to want that same outcome. Because if they want it enough, and they know you trust them to do what it takes, empowerment will simply mean getting out of their way.
The most famous quote of French philosopher Antione de Saint-Exupery is not his; it’s far pithier and more elegant than his posthumously published 1948 version, and was actually first posted by some anonymous guy on Reddit, but regardless of its genesis, it’s a great quote:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, or divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
This is the secret of effective empowerment.