to "Think on This" CHANGE LEADERS MEETING - IPSWICH - 16TH MARCH 1993
EMPOWER
Authorise
License to do
Enable
ACCOUNTABILITY
Made bound to give account
Responsibility
Liability
COMMITMENT
Involvement
Engagement
Pledged to undertake
Responsibility
C J Mackie SLIDE 1
1 THE COMPANY VISION AND TQM
The company vision states that we will be a quality company. Maybe we have yet to define, or understand, what being a quality company means. However if we think in terms of Total Quality Management (TQM) then this can be depicted by this model. SLIDE 2
Quality requires management commitment, from the top, and all the way down the line. It also requires a quality system, which we have spent the last four years establishing. However in common with other companies who have installed quality systems we have found that a quality system by itself is not enough to achieve real quality improvements. More important, and what we have been concentrating on for the last year, are the people issues depicted as the foundation of TQM. Teamworking and communications on the one hand, giving people the tools and skills and ability to do the job on the other. Enabling people to do the job is very much what empowerment is about.
Thus total quality is not a technical system. Instead it builds on the awareness, motivation
and commitment of employees at all levels. The development of team-working is shared by both the concepts of total quality and of empowerment. Indeed they are parts of the same equation.
2 EMPOWERMENT
A fuller definition of empowerment could be:-
Giving people the power, authority, responsibility and freedom to get on with their work in the way they best know how, for the benefit of the company, and to their own satisfaction and well-being. SLIDE 3
The concept of empowerment is based on a view that wealth is not the overriding objective for an employee. Recognition, self-esteem and the chance to exercise creativity have greater significance and motivational value. Implicit in this view is the need to transfer power in a controlled manner from management to employee in the long term interest of the business as a whole. The empowering of employees allows them greater responsibility not only for their own performance but for the development of their own careers.
The key components of empowerment are clear direction through the establishment of clear goals and performance measures; knowledge and skills through planned experience, training and development and the communication of information; adequate resources including money and materials; support in terms of coaching, feedback, approval and encouragement. Team working is seen as a logical extension of the empowerment of individuals. Teams are seen as means of increasing the transfer of power from management to staff by allowing teams a degree of freedom to select their own members, establish their own goals, and even have some say in establishing their own terms and conditions within company defined parameters, eg hours of work, holiday arrangements, allocation of overtime etc.
Empowerment places the employee at the centre of a range of influences which diminish outwards. The most influence-able being the employee's direct supervisor or line manager and the least being the organisation and its systems. Thus it becomes management's role to ensure that those with the most influence are fully trained and committed to the process and to set in place a supportive environment which encourages the transfer of power downwards. From this stems the need to reduce tiers or layers of management from the hierarchy.
Empowerment is concerned with giving staff a sense of their own value and importance within the organisational context. Thus they should be treated as such through the seeking of their help in solving work related problems. Supervisors need to develop listening skills and be able to respond with understanding.
Some progress has already been made at Company with the agreement on the Initiatives Package. This should facilitate means of giving staff greater freedom and responsibility. The agreement already contains provisions for work enhancement, upgrading to foremen, 'the teamwork for performance approach', development of staff to posts outside current negotiating group, personal enhancement not necessarily related to the job currently performed. In concept, these provisions are imaginative and wide ranging. In practice, we need to ensure that they are actually applied and are witnessed as so being by the staff.
3 WHY SHOULD MANAGERS WISH TO EMPOWER STAFF?
In a slimmed down company, with a broader flatter structure, each manager has a wider span of control. In a complex technology, in a quickly changing environment, and with external pressures of competition made more difficult by political interference, managers can no longer direct and control every activity that goes on. A manager with a wide span of control cannot know everything that is going on below him, he needs to delegate more work and devolve authority downwards. When asked by a superior he should have the confidence to say "I don't know the answer to that, but I have a man who does." Managing in a flatter structure also means it is more difficult to allocate work, and even take decisions. Having more people at the same level requires more democratic decision making and the emergence of natural leaders. If we wait for high managerial decision making, direction and control then many essential activities or necessary changes will not take place and the organisation will atrophy and die.
Studies have shown that companies have a variety of reasons for introducing increased employee involvement. These are summarised as:-
information and education - direct lines of communication, understanding of business position, importance of customer.
commitment - identification with the company and work towards its success.
securing enhanced employee contributions - tapping into employee knowledge and ideas.
recruitment and retention of labour - financial schemes linked to service and creating a favourable impression in the job market.
conflict handling - less direct objective, better informed workers are more likely to understand management's rationale. Safety valve mechanisms.
external forces - 1980s facilitative legislation, importing best practice from other companies, competition and politics.
One of the comments made by participants on an Empowering Leaders course was that empowerment is difficult in a threatened environment. I know that doing nothing is not an option and that our staff understand this. However, the feeling of impotence (dis-empowerment) is widespread in the face of the present politician's debate.
The Company needs to move towards a different management style, away from the purely directive style and towards a more supportive coaching style, if we are going to utilise peoples abilities to the full, increase productivity, continuously improve quality, reduce costs and gain competitive advantage.
The aim of team building programmes is to move from a manager/supervisor centred problem solving approach to a team centred approach. Development Dimensions International (DDI - the people who own the Zapp! copyright) illustrate this move from one to the other along a 'team development continuum' using a seven point scale where 1 is defined as 'supervisor decides and announces decision, through 3 where, 'supervisor presents problem and asks for ideas, makes decision, and 5 where 'team takes responsibility for productivity and quality, to 7 where, team is fully autonomous.
Our Chairman has said:-
"We should display a positive leadership style, create an environment of mutual trust, be open and participative, communicate face to face and listen to our staff. We must encourage and support their ideas, praise not blame, facilitate their activities, coach, train and develop them to the fullness of their abilities....Our role as managers is to achieve results, not by ourselves but through our staff working in effective and cohesive teams..."
Programmes of empowerment, total quality, team-working etc. all begin with the need to capture the commitment of senior management before they are delivered to the staff. It is then incumbent upon senior managers to continually demonstrate their commitment throughout the programme. Management need to show how the programme will contribute towards the organisation's business objectives and constant reinforcement of this message is essential. Our staff who recently visited Florida Power and Light were impressed with the general level of awareness that staff had of the Business Plan. This implies a sharing of information to a degree not yet practised by our middle managers.
I will just use a few Kinsey Lord slides to summarise why managements should be interested in empowering their staff.
SLIDES 5, 6 AND 9
4 WHY SHOULD STAFF WISH TO BE EMPOWERED?
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO EMPOWERED STAFF?
Everyone enjoys having power to influence what they do, and especially power to choose how to do it. Empowerment should give people the ability to remove the frustrations which inhibit work and destroy job satisfaction. Inability to influence events, or have any say in decision making, causes people to turn off, cease to see deficiencies, inefficiencies and waste, and moreover it makes them cease to care. Involvement in decision making, participation in problem solving, and power to influence the way they do their own jobs rekindles interest. It increases productivity, leads to greater job satisfaction and a heightened sense of well-being at work. In fact it is true to say that after a long period of stagnation, staff experiencing empowerment almost feel reborn! The increased responsibility, autonomy and teamworking and the ability to exercise personal power and influence can be very invigorating.
SLIDES 7 AND 8
The experience will also make career moves (horizontal or vertical) more possible. Fundamental changes like this require good communications, and even staff counselling. A counselling service is not pure altruism - in many ways it is central to the concept of empowerment, providing support to help people cope better and achieve more control over their environment. It can help improve morale by providing a means of expressing and defusing frustrations; improve organisational feedback by identifying areas of conflict or frustrations (this would be on the basis of common themes, rather than a set of specific, individual circumstances); help reduce absenteeism and accident rates. It can enhance the existing employee benefits package and provide clear evidence of the concern for our employees' well-being. Senior management should at least have an awareness of the nature of counselling and the skills involved if they are to support and understand such a provision.
5 SO WHY HAS EMPOWERMENT GOT SUCH A BAD NAME?
In some peoples minds empowerment is a bad joke. This is partly because empowerment has been misunderstood and wrongly applied by some managers. It is partly because there are genuine concerns which need to be addressed if empowerment is to succeed. And it is partly because of the very real practical difficulties of introducing empowerment into our power station organisations and culture.
Taking these one at a time:-
i) Wrong application
Some managers have told a member of their staff "I am making you entirely responsible for a certain task. I will give you a free hand, I will not interfere, just get on with it. However I will hold you accountable for the success of the task." Thereafter of course they do interfere if they think the job is not being done in the way they would have done it. These managers still control the resources. Without adequate resources the delegated staff member is hamstrung. These managers also criticise failure and blame the individual without establishing whether that staff member was adequately equipped to stand any chance of accomplishing the task successfully.
Empowerment requires a careful and clear explanation by the manager of the objectives to be achieved, and the framework or constraints within which the empowered person has to work. Empowerment requires the manager and his empowered staff jointly to conduct a careful analysis of the resources which will be required and the ways in which those resources will be made available. It also requires the manager to evaluate the empowered persons skills and ability to carry out the task. Any shortfall needs to be rectified by further training, or other means, if that person is to be suitably equipped and enabled to carry out the task.
Objective setting, resource allocation, coaching, monitoring, support and recognition of achievement is what enables empowerment to work.
SLIDE 10
ii) What are the Concerns SLIDE 11
Anarchy - not if managers clearly specify the objectives and constraints.
Abdication - no. Empowerment as described above is not a soft option.
Middle managers - genuine concern. Need to rethink their role carefully.
Concern has been expressed at Company that our Quality Improvement Teams (QITs) need greater freedom to act. Section Heads or Supervisors who have differing priorities can impede progress. A common set of 'ground rules' should be drawn up to specify the powers of the QITs to carry out their activities and put into effect their recommendations. This would signal to all concerned the status and importance of the QITs.
Members of the Company QITs have experienced the frustrations of attempting to implement actions which had been decided upon by the team. The culprits were often the section heads whose priorities were elsewhere. This gap between a decision and its implementation was demoralising for the team. There have been occasions where Team Leaders have felt it necessary to use the 'power of their persuasion' to ensure that the teams proposals were given effect. To overcome this problem it has been suggested that section heads should be co-opted onto the QITs at strategic times. We have also discussed the merits of some form of steering committee which could arbitrate in disputes between teams and section heads. Such a body would meet only as required and would not have any supervisory powers over the QIT teams. It is considered that such a body would reinforce the authority of the QITs.
Abuse - a chance worth taking.
Staff only interested in money - may be true for some - so harness the energy of the rest.
Commitment in doubt - motives suspect - can only be proved by the long haul.
However sometimes short term crisis need directive and controlling management to ensure survival. Thereafter a sounder basis for the longer term future can be built upon more enlightened management styles, which include empowerment. However even in a crisis people respond better if they understand the compelling reasons.
An interesting extension of this argument is to consider the concept of empowerment within this framework. It seems to me that the philosophy of empowerment is the sharing of power amongst the wider workforce and the idea that a consultative style of leadership will facilitate an increased sense of ownership amongst the staff, and a willingness to accept greater responsibility. However, if the goal is immediate, clear and urgent then the roles, procedures and behaviours may, more appropriately, be better determined fairly autocratically. I acknowledge that this may, unfairly, be confusing tactics with strategy, but I cannot escape a mental picture of a battleground scene where the combatants are busy discussing how they can each make a worthwhile contribution, whilst the shells are flying over their heads. The situational aspect of leadership could be in danger of being ignored.
Empowerment also seems to neglect issues of personality and preferred style of leadership. The old classification of tell, sell and consult is still relevant. The idea that an individual's basic attitudes can be altered through a few training sessions is clearly nonsensical. Consider the suspicion that is naturally aroused in staff where the basic 'tell personality' attempts to use an unnatural consultative approach. At what point is he going to revert to kind and dispose of the consultative mantle, is probably the concern uppermost in many minds and will shape the response provided.
iii) WHAT ARE THE MAIN DIFFICULTIES?
Empowerment does not mean that managers just hand control to the workers, it is not an easy option. Like anything worthwhile it needs time, effort and understanding by all levels of management to make it work. In fact empowerment is very like good leadership, and not all of our managers make good leaders.
SLIDE 12
As mentioned earlier, problems arise which are related to time and resource pressures wherever peoples jobs are planned for them and they have to account for their time to a Foreman. Releasing QIT members, for instance, to carry out agreed actions is not easy. New frustrations are introduced in getting identified work actually undertaken because of the lack of priority placed upon it by planning staff. Empowered staff have to realise that all work must be related to the business plan, and since resources are limited, some selection, rejection and prioritising of issues is inevitable.
There are also Industrial Relations difficulties inherent in establishing more flexible working practices. With this in mind it is important to involve staff representatives in these issues and not make them feel excluded. At Company we feel that section heads and lower tiers of management are more of a block to empowerment than the industrial staff representatives.
Other blocks to empowerment - SLIDE 13
- in a word - CULTURE.
The guidelines for self empowerment shown on SLIDE 15
indicate that empowerment requires work, it requires effort, and it requires real commitment.
There are clear lessons for the next phase of the change programme. There is some evidence to suggest that staff feel unwilling to consider further wide-ranging changes whilst the present political uncertainties continue unresolved. A less charitable explanation may be that it provides a convenient excuse. However, I sense a feeling of impotence in the face of arbitrary decisions taken for political, rather than economic reasons. At the heart of this malaise is the feeling of being powerless to make a difference. It is interesting that the concept of empowerment is the exact reverse. I believe that our staff at Company are able, intellectually, to recognise the dangers inherent in this response, but emotionally find it difficult to disengage.
Getting involved with further changes requires commitment. It is assumed that commitment leads to more positive behaviour at work including higher levels of performance. However research studies have found difficulty with this. Apart from the difficulty in measurement, there are suggestions that, "commitment is rarely given at anything more than the calculative level." Other studies have indicated that commitment comes from a sense of belonging to the organisation, excitement about the job, and confidence in the leadership of management (Martin & Nichols 1987).
6 MOVING TOWARDS AN EMPOWERED CULTURE
I can quickly use Kinsey Lords slides again to illustrate what is required.
SLIDE 16 (2 pages)
The move towards an empowered culture is a daunting challenge, and not one to be embarked upon lightly. SLIDE 17
This slide summarises what is required.
Empowering Leaders
A message to Directors, middle managers and first line supervisors / team leaders:-
- Think longer term and more strategically and allow your staff to get on with the day to day operations.
- Display a clear vision and set objectives and tasks accordingly.
- Have values which accord with the company values and display this through your behaviour to the rest of the world. Walk-the-talk!
- Practice management by walk-about and actively listen.
- Seek feedback on your own performance from your staff (also peers and customers).
- Appraise, counsel, mentor and coach your staff.
- Realise that your staff are likely to have more knowledge of their own work situation at the operational level than yourself.
- Regularly ask for feedback, criticisms and ideas and take these seriously and do something positive about them.
- Say that your staff work with you rather than for you.
- Encourage learning, encourage triers and do not admonish mistakes.
- Realise that failings elsewhere in the organisation are likely to inhibit high level performance among staff, and actively seek to remove obstacles in their path.
- Be demanding of high quality performance and expect continuous improvement.
- Expect and encourage staff to demand training / development to enhance their capabilities.
- Invite contributions to plans, and participate in strategic thinking and problem solving.
- Take time to explain your decisions in the wider context so that staff understand the circumstances and constraints.
- Be prepared to be proved wrong and be receptive and willing to take alternative views on board.
- Engage in teamwork with peers rather than try and protect your position by holding on jealously to knowledge and skills.
- Leave your staff to get on with the job, specify the what and the when, but not the how. However, be aware of what is going on, you cannot delegate responsibility and you are ultimately accountable. Expect reporting by exception of any deviation from plan. Remind your empowered staff that they have their half of the bargain to keep.
- Do not give the same task to more than one person. (Nothing can be more demotivating to the individual if they find out, and if they are any good, find out they will!)
- Give regular praise and encouragement.
Empowered Staff- How to Recognise Them
They :-
- take responsibility eagerly
- look for ways to contribute and improve
- are versatile and flexible
- seek training and development
- are proactive
- ask for help when it is needed
- network around the organisation
- extend their boundaries of skill and influence
- work in teams in the group and with other departments and functions
- give their ideas for improvement freely
- manage upwards and keep the boss informed (particularly of exceptions and deviations from the plan)
- look for new ways of doing things
- make mistakes, are not fearful of retribution, and learn
- are honest and open in their communication
- trust their colleagues on a professional and personal level.
7 EXAMPLES OF EMPOWERMENT IN PRACTICE
Empowerment has worked well at Company in cases where it has been properly applied.
i) First of all the Task Forces for Change set up in January 1992 (Organisation Structure, Day working patterns, Shift working patterns, Stores and Training). This was the first time staff at Company had encountered the freedom and the challenge of empowerment. Not surprisingly the team members floundered at first like fish out of water. Nevertheless it was a valuable learning experience, the results which have subsequently been achieved are remarkable, and a number of staff members involved have gained immeasurably in stature.
ii) Certain staff members in the lower/middle management tier who have been empowered to develop their own areas have also been remarkably successful. Two examples are the Visitors Centre, whose throughput of visitors has increased from 9,961 in 1991 to 30,675 in 1992, and the Stores Procurement Section whose average time for processing orders has been cut from 2 weeks to 2 days!
iii) Another success story is the clean up of our IFE Cooling Ponds. For years this has operated in C3 conditions. We have had special Ponds Attack Teams to tackle the clean up for as long as I can remember. Many notable luminaries, including Mr H and Mr S have attempted to solve the problem. The last team to try has been successful. Our Ponds conditions have been consistently C2 since the beginning of December 1992. What was the difference? Why has the present Ponds manager and his teams succeeded where others have failed. Because he demonstrated leadership and was empowered and adequately supported by the Station and Production Managers.
In his own words, "Previously others have tried and failed so I was not sure when I started whether and when the target was attainable. This only became clearer as the project progressed. I feel that simple, clear targets are important - which does not mean that they should not be ambitious. It is most important to have a target and be very sure of what you're doing. Decision making and adequate reasoning are also most important. Constant focus on the overall goal is important. This means that any peripheral activities should be no more than a means of helping to achieve the objective. I believe that jobs should be 100% completed and that resources have to be allocated right to the end. Failure to do this risks a regression and the undermining of what has already been achieved. Teamworking is important - a no blame approach has always been adopted. I give staff a sense of fun to help the motivation."
iv) Some of our Quality Improvement Teams have been very successful in implementing MCPs and meeting Site Licence requirements. These are the ones which have operated as empowered teams. Others have not been successful. These are mainly the ones which have been led by a Department Manager, Branch or Section Head who has been unable to relinquish power or control to other team members or delegate authority. In short, the unsuccessful QITs were not empowered!
Team-working provides opportunities to transfer influence from management to staff. If this is to work properly a number of factors must be present. Team members need to be selected carefully, recognising the different team as well as functional roles they will adopt. Skills, knowledge and personal attributes need to be balanced; direction and objectives provided; time, space and training allowed for the team to develop and become mature. Cross-functional teams, focussed on major contributions to business objectives, must not degenerate into committees. There needs to be a shared understanding within and without the team about their freedom to act.
The issue of deciding resource priorities needs to be considered. The teams will need access to a variety of resources and judgements will need to be made on their competing claims. The QIT Team leaders could manage this process through a forum established for this purpose. This would encourage them to further identify with the station's business objectives.
A suggestion has been made that a number of middle management staff could act as 'sponsors' or 'mentors' to particular teams. Their role would be to help teams circumnavigate organisational blocks which might appear. The facilitator's role, by contrast, would be to help with the internal working of the team and help it make progress when difficulties are encountered.
v) The latest example of empowerment is the Company Workforce Representatives campaign to persuade politicians to support the balanced energy policy and our efforts to keep Magnox Stations open. There has been plenty "networking" with other sites, numbers of letters generated, and lobbying of MPs at the Houses of Parliament. This is an example of "Industrial Action" which would not have been seen in our industry only a few years ago.
8 CONCLUSION
Empowerment should be demonstrated through practical initiatives rather than spoken about in vague or academic terms. The various power stations Initiatives Packages already contain scope for demonstrating what this concept actually means. We should now make every effort to translate the present words about "The Way Forward" into deeds to show that we are serious about this matter. 'TfP', 'Culture Change ' and 'Change Programme' should simply be the summation of a set of practical activities, rather than some esoteric concept. In fact we should avoid using this terminology whenever possible, particularly when discussing issues with the staff. More relevant is how they can contribute to the key business objectives. J F D I.
Other Sources of Information
Zapp, The Lightening of Empowerment, William C Bytham, Century Business
Teaching The Elephant To Dance, James A Belasco, Business Books
The Tom Peters Experience, Video
Team Skills Training by Management Teams International, East Grinstead
Acknowledgement to Mr M and Mr K for their assistance and help, C J Mackie.
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