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EMPOWERMENT LOGIC IN THE EXECUTIVE SUITE, WORST-CASE SCENARIO, CIRCA 1997:
Executive A: "I want to talk about empowerment." [Waits for groans to subside.] "Look, I know it's touchy-feely, but I think we ought to do it. Our competition says they're doing it, and it would look good on our vision statement."
Executive B: "But you can't measure the damned thing and it has nothing to do with the bottom line."
Executive A: "Yeah, but we only have to tell our employees that they're empowered. It'll make them feel good and make things a lot easier for the line supervisors."
Executive C: "Besides, we can always phase it out if we're getting creamed next year. This empowerment stuff-why can't they leave HR out of it and let us run the business?"
Of all the glaring observations in the previous conversation, one happens to be accurate: Empowermentworker autonomy in business-as practiced by most companies has little to do with the bottom line. Organizations don't know how to measure it in practice, and they haven't a clue as to its impact on their costs and profit. Their kind of conventional, lip-service empowerment is much too lightweight for today's business requirements and is disastrous for the entire operation.
Are American workers themselves feeling more empowered these days? "In terms of their immediate manager empowering them, we are seeing no less of it than eight or nine years ago. But empowerment has gone up only slightly," says James M. Kouzes, chairman and CEO of TPG/Learning Systems, a company in The Tom Peters Group.
Feelings, however, are another matter. Workers are feeling more alienated from their organizations and less empowered now, says Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge and Credibility, both published by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers. "They are blaming the organization." It's true, as Kouzes notes, that things can happen to cause workers to feel less in control, without blaming their supervisors-their organization merges with another, for instance. They may be in charge of their own life, but their destiny is not in their hands. Says Kouzes, "Empowerment by default sprouts when management turns its back, pulls away resources and leaves workers to their own devices."
Most companies operate in just that fashion. Even slapdash empowerment has lifted all boats...