Tag Archives: Management

10 Vital Empowerment Factors

empowerment
This is an excerpt from Fat Cats Don’t Hunt: Implanting the Right Leadership and Culture to Accelerate Innovation and Organic Growth by Jim Hlavacek, PhD. Jim has over 40 years of global experience as a businessman, strategy consultant, and management educator.

Empower Your Employees

For employees to be empowered, they must have control of their immediate environments.

They must have the necessary mindsets and skill sets—either through hiring or training—to do their jobs effectively and authority to make decisions that maximize the quality, speed, and effectiveness of their work outcomes.

Following are ten key factors that must be present for employees to begin to feel empowered and act on doing what is right for themselves, their company, and their customers:

  1. Theory Y leadership. Company leadership must demonstrate McGregor’s Theory Y management style, in which authority is shared. Theory X leadership, in which all decisions are made from the top down, and cultures in which employees are empowered to make decisions instantly in their realms of responsibility and expertise, are by default, mutually exclusive.

 

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“The process of spotting fear and refusing to obey it is the source of all true empowerment.” -Martha Beck

 

  1. Redistribution of power. Per #1, senior managers must be totally committed to the redistribution of power and authority. This presents one of the greatest challenges to culture transformation. Theory X managers at every level of a company have significant difficulty giving up control over even small decisions.

 

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“Autonomy leads to empowerment.” -Bobby Kotick

 

  1. Bottom-up decision making. In the old bureaucratic control model, brainpower is assumed to be located only with management in the hierarchy. But this has proven not to be true. As customers have become more demanding, front-line teams have been tasked with responding swiftly to them. As a result, the emphasis moved in some companies from optimizing efficiencies from top to bottom to developing more flexible, innovative and responsible decision-making by close-to-the-customer teams. By default, visionary companies moved away from control and compliance management models to a greater emphasis on entrusting individuals and teams with expertise in their areas to act in the best interests of their companies and customers. In a more committed and empowered organization, front-line workers have the authority to halt a production line or solve customer complaint decisions on the spot, without getting okays from managers higher up in the hierarchy.

 

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Leadership Tip: empower front-line workers as much as possible.

The Future of Humans in an Increasingly Robotic World

Humanity Works

The professional landscape is transforming, and the only way to maintain competitive advantage is to maximize the unique skills of your workforce. In Humanity Works: Merging Technologies and People for the Workforce of the Future, consultant and futurist Alexandra Levit provides a guide to making the most of the human traits of creativity, judgment, problem solving and interpersonal sensitivity.

If you’ve ever wondered what the ‘robot takeover’ will look like, how talent and machines can work side by side and how you can make organizational structures more agile and innovation focused, you will be interested in Alexandra’s work. I recently spoke with her about her research and observations.

 

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“Enlightened 21st-century leaders will abandon command-and-control to diplomatically govern their organizations.” -Alexandra Levit

 

When Robots Do More

You cover some sweeping trends. Would you share a few of the macro themes that are the backdrop of your work?

The book addresses a few essential questions: In a world where robots can do more and more, where does that leave us as humans? How will leaders build integrated human teams that can compete in a business world with constant evolutions and disruptions while remaining productive, marketable and sane? We explore the demographics, technological advances, work structures, organizational priorities, leadership models, individual career paths and human roles coming to fruition in the immediate years to come.

 

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“The speed with which information populates the online world means with one wrong move, your organization’s reputation could be in jeopardy.” -Alexandra Levit

 

As you look at the workplace of the future, what are a few of the major changes we will see?

10 Ways to Lead Like a Human

This is a guest post by Andy Swann. Andy is the author of The Human Workplace: People-Centred Organizational Development.  He is the founder of Simple Better Human, a creative organization development consultancy.

 

Lead Like a Human

There’s a lot of talk about the move from management to true leadership, as well as the need to be human in the face of data and the impending rise of the robots. It’s easy to get lost in it all and hard to really understand why any of it matters.

The truth is that when people thrive, our organizations thrive too, so the sole function of leadership should be to enable people to be their best and do their best work. Leaders today are the creators and custodians of platforms for human success.

Here are 10 ways every leader can contribute to the platform, enable people to thrive, drive organizational success and get more from their own role. These are inspired by research which has encountered leaders across organizations of all shapes and sizes, with common factors in success shining through.

 

Listen

Things move fast in modern business, and the people who have the greatest insight are those closest to the customer. Insight is the evidence that should drive strategy, and the faster we can access it and use it, the more plugged-in our organization is to what the world needs from it. Take time every day to talk to your people, find out how they are doing, and what issues they face. Then offer support and congratulate them on their success. In workplace change, one of the major factors that contributes to things going wrong—which happens in 70% of cases (McKinsey, 2015)—is the feeling that management isn’t listening. Give people a voice!

 

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“Insight is the evidence that should drive strategy.” –Andy Swann

 

Trust

Your job as a leader is to ensure you have the right people, in the right places, doing the right things. If your recruitment process is right, then the people are right – there’s no need to micromanage every task. Trusting the individual to find their own best way to succeed, within the most basic parameters that they need to operate in, not only empowers them, but allows them to do their best work. It also reduces the workload of the leader – instead of box-ticking, you can be out there involved with your people and collecting valuable insight.

 

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“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” –Ernest Hemingway

 

Learn

Essential Business Advice from One Generation to the Next

mba

From a Mom

Karyn Schoenbart is CEO of The NPD Group, a global provider of information and advisory services to the world’s leading brands. A working mom, she often gave career advice to her daughter Danielle as she was growing up. By the time Danielle entered the workforce, she joked that she had received a “Mom. B.A” giving her a tremendous competitive advantage. Now years later, Karyn has written MOM.B.A: Essential Business Advice from One Generation to the Next, based on her “lessons” to Danielle as well as on her thirty years of experience building a successful career. The book, filled with wise advice and numerous personal anecdotes, is noteworthy for Karyn’s candor and her delightful sense of humor. I recently spoke with Karyn about her favorite tips for those just starting out or climbing the corporate ladder.

 

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“Your integrity is your biggest asset.” –Simon Chadwick

 

Make a Good First Impression

What’s the best way to make a good first impression?

It starts with how you show up.  It’s important to dress appropriately for the occasion.  But that doesn’t mean it is a “one size fits all” rule.  Dress the way that matters to the people who matter. And when in doubt, find out! A few years ago, we were looking for someone to fill an executive position that would report to me. One of the candidates came to the interview in a very low cut dress. She was clearly qualified, but we didn’t know what to make of her choosing that particular dress for the interview. In the end, we all agreed: The candidate’s attire demonstrated a lack of judgment, and we didn’t want someone with poor judgment helping to run our company. We didn’t hire her.

How you speak is also a reflection on you.  Avoid bad vocal habits like the dreaded up-speak (where every sentence ends as though it is a question).

In my experience, people like it when you call them by name – it shows you care.  Make it a practice to remember and use people’s names.  My tip for remembering names is to use it three times when meeting them; when introduced, during the conversation and finally when saying goodbye.  It really works!

 

How do you build a good relationship with the boss?

Be the person your boss can count on. Step up and go above and beyond.  Every positive interaction that you have is like putting money in the bank. Then if there is a problem, you have something to withdraw. Think of criticism as an investment in you.  Your boss is taking the time to help you be better.

It’s also a good idea to get to know your boss as a whole person.  Find out what matters to him or her and show an interest.  One way to break through is to check in on a Monday or Friday, which creates an opportunity to interact on a more personal level (i.e. do you have any interesting plans for the weekend?).

 

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“Focus on being a good listener, which includes being patient and attentive.” –Diane Bowers

 

Survive the Bad Boss

What advice do you have for surviving the occasional bad boss?

How to Increase Team and Company Morale and Performance

people skills

Increase Company Morale

 

People issues. Many leaders will tell you that people problems keep them up at night. From dealing with the under-performers to retaining and motivating the superstars, people problems dominate a leader’s thoughts.

One primary difference between a great culture and a poor one is this: a great culture has stars in every seat and a poor culture tolerates under-performers.

That’s what Trevor Throness explains in his new book, The Power of People Skills. His book teaches how to make the right people decisions. Don’t let the difficult people problems slow you down. His book is a helpful guide to everyone in management. I recently spoke with him about his work. Trevor is a coach who has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and organizations fix people problems and build exceptional cultures.

 

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“The one quality that all successful business leaders have in common is tenacity.” –Trevor Throness

 

Attracting A Players. Many say they want to do this, but they don’t put the time and resources in to show it’s a priority. Why is it so important?

It’s important because A Players are up to 300% more productive and valuable to you than others.  Think of your best person; wouldn’t you rather lose three other weaker players than lose him?  One great employee is worth three adequate employees.  The irony is that often the best employees cost nearly the same as the worst.  50% of medical doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class, but they all charge the same!

 

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“A-Players are up to 300% more productive and valuable to you than others.” –Trevor Throness

 

2 People Myths

What are some of the people myths that affect many companies?

Here are two of the biggest myths:

  • People’s basic weaknesses will change if they’re coached

Often leaders believe that, through their expert intervention, the basic construct of someone’s personality will change.  “Sure, today they’re a quiet, detail-oriented person who prefers to work alone, but once I show them the way, they’ll become an aggressive leader!”  The truth is that leopards don’t change their spots.  The best case scenario for any employee is that he will become a better version of who he already is.  If you’re unhappy with the fundamentals of who he is, coaching is not going to fix that.

  • The point of coaching is to help people fix their weaknesses

The focus of coaching should be to capitalize on strengths, not to build a set of strong weaknesses.  When I’m coaching someone, and we’re discussing weaknesses, I’m hoping that the person will grow in self-awareness so she can see how her weaknesses affect her team and then moderate that behavior.  Mostly, however, I’m looking to adjust her role so that she can spend more of her day capitalizing on her strengths, doing what she was born to do, what makes her feel strong, and what accounts for most of her results.

 

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“One great employee is worth three adequate employees.” –Trevor Throness

 

Which myth most surprises people?