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 centre