On
previous occasions we talked about the the
connection between motivation and productivity. No doubt: if you get your
employees motivated you get also more engaged, more optimistic and
even happier employees. At the end when we feel comfortable in our working environment we
work more and better.
There
is much talk these days of happiness at work and the optimistic organizations,
though often these concepts are addressed in a much more personal and less
corporate. Well, this time I would like to reflect how these concepts can
affect to the business.
Two
of the core values for a person full development are freedom and
responsibility. With greater autonomy comes greater responsability, so the best
way to motivate an employee should be working hard on this and promoting a
strong sense of ownership of the profesional project. But this is a two-way
street. To do this it is essential that senior management is willing to develop
their employees and allow them to achieve a higher level of maturity and also
the employee is willing to engage and commit more.
How
do you get that? Let's face it: this approach is valid for any company but not
for any people. It is not an easy task but even so there is a concept that can
help us move in this direction: the empowerment.
Empowerment
implies the delegation of authority to the professionals and granting them a
strong sense of ownership of their own work. It is therefore a strategic
process that seeks a partner relationship between the senior management and the
employees. It transcends the typical boss-employee relationship where the manager
gives an instruction and the employee is strictly limited run, to reach a point
where there is a greater value contribution and a higher level of commitment between the two parties.
But
empowerment is not a one-way from the head to the employee. The employee (or
group of employees) should take a very active part and be aware of their own
contribution. From this perspective, empowerment is an exercise in strengthening
one's own abilities and increase its visibility within the organization. That
is, the professional must assume that personal growth is also an exercise of personal
responsibility and therefore should not be passive and wait for the boss or the
company to assume the leadership of his/her own development.
It
is imperative, therefore, that the employee understands that the times in which
professional development, training, risk taking and initiative were the sole senior
management responsibility thankfully are over.
Empowerment
helps people to lose their fear of change and and also to be more proactive and
enthusiastic. Put another way, people are happier when they are empowered. They
feel more engaged, flexible and creative as they feel more secure and
recognized. Somehow the empowered professional becomes an “active
problem-solver” instead of a mere executor of instructions.
The
main barriers to empowerment are primarily psychological and are based on fear.
From the business perspective leaders are quite often afraid of empowering
employees. From the employees perspective fear feelings are often linked to
self-esteem (Will I be able to do it? Where do I start? What my boss will think
about it?) and lack of consistency.
The
only way to successfully implement a process of this type in a company goes
through the full involvement of the owner and the senior management who must lead
the cultural change. Involve middle management is also crucial. For this, a
good recommendation is to opt for constant training (and, especially,
self-training) and for a leadership coaching exercise (business tool to
identify potential improvement areas and to implement the action plans).
In
any case, as in many other professional fields, the key to success in a process
of empowerment lies in having a clear goal and be consistent in the effort to
achieve it. It is therefore important to ask the right questions and find
honest answers from which to undertake the necessary action plan:
Self diagnosis: Where am I? How do people see me?
Goals: Where do I want to be? How I want people to see me?
Action Plan: What do I have to do and
when? Who can help me?
Evaluation: How will I know if I have
succeeded? How I can improve?
As
my admired Haile Gebrselassie used to say "if you have a plan, you know
what to do."
