Empowerment - that’s the way to do it!

I mentioned to a colleague that I was thinking about doing an article on empowerment and he joked, "How dare you do that without asking permission first!"

The dictionary defines empowerment as “the authority or power given to someone to do something.” To me, it’s about bringing decision-making closer to the work and giving power to your people. You can also empower your customers to self-serve, but that will be the subject of a future article.

When I was appointed Head of Customer Relations for an organisation renowned for its world class service, I was tasked with reducing the cost of goodwill gestures. Instead of lowering the complaint handlers’ authority levels, I increased them from ￡50 to ￡500! I reasoned that it would enable them to deliver a better customer experience, reduce referrals, and achieve earlier close-outs. It also freed up time for the team and me to identify the root causes of complaints and take preventative action. As a direct result of this change, there was positive movement in all of our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - fewer complaints were received, escalations fell through the floor, the amount paid out went down, and my advocacy for empowerment went up!

The show must go on!

I’ve worked with lots of great people, and I’ve always tried to channel their talent rather than harness it. If you treat people like puppets, you’ll end up with a wooden performance. You don’t always have to be pulling the strings in the background. If you’re constantly telling people what to do, they'll think you’ve turned into Mr Punch - the eponymous anti-hero in Punch and Judy shows, and that’s not "the way to do it!"

Punch and Judy puppet shows are a staple of great British seaside traditions alongside ice cream, fish and chips, donkey rides, knotted hankies, lettered rock, and building sandcastles.

Surprisingly, I realised that I could use the Punch and Judy characters and props as fun and, hopefully, interesting reference points for this article. I don’t want to fall into the trap of being too prescriptive about empowerment, but here are some of the things you should consider:

Punch

Who says there’s no show without Punch? Instead of using a carrot and (slap)stick approach, which will leave them feeling punch-drunk, you should look at ways to empower your people. Give them the opportunity to punch above their weight without fear of reprisals.

Judy

Just like Punch’s long-suffering wife, you may not trust everyone to take care of your ‘baby’. One of the hardest parts about moving up the ladder is letting go of the things you enjoy doing. If you're concerned, try empowering people one step at a time, so they can gradually develop their skills and experience. It will also help to increase your confidence in their baby-sitting abilities!

Make sure you don’t go from one extreme to another by giving people too much empowerment too soon - you don’t want them to throw your baby out with the bath water!

The Police Officer

Some organisations struggle to move away from the safety of a Command-and-Control culture but, if you don’t, it will stifle creativity and innovation. I had a lightbulb moment early in my career, when I realised that my attention to detail and tendency to micromanage was denying my people the opportunity to achieve their own intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction.

I started to give them the autonomy to make their own decisions and improve their own processes. I asked them to keep me informed and they knew I was there for them if they needed my support. Their subsequent growth as leaders fuelled my belief that you should empower people rather than lay down the law. You don’t have to police everything they do - it’s difficult for people to reach for the next level in their development if they’re feeling handcuffed all the time!

You may consider empowerment to be just one step away from anarchy, but it's not laissez-faire management. You can sample the quality of your people’s decisions to ensure there are no showstoppers. If there are, you can remove or reduce individual levels of empowerment, so that’s your get-out-of-jail-free card!

The Sausages

Ensure you cater for all tastes. Not everyone wants empowerment and not everyone can be empowered. People have to earn the right to be trusted based upon their previous performance, attitude, and experience.

You’ll find that at least some of your team are hungry for more responsibility so apply situational leadership and feed them appropriate opportunities.

Hopefully, this gives you some food for thought. The end results could be music to your ears - in fact, they could be bangers!

The Crocodile

Don’t hide behind policies and shed crocodile tears when people ask for more autonomy - look for ways to give them some extra bite and empower them to make snap decisions.

If you try to make every decision yourself, you’ll probably get swamped and find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew!

Throw them something to sink their teeth into and then step back - you don’t want them to be constantly looking over their shoulders and wondering if you’re behind them.

The Clown

You might be worried that your people will do something to make you look foolish, so you end up being risk averse. People learn from their mistakes as well as their successes, so if you don’t give them the chance to make any, how will they develop?

Start cutting some of their strings and see if they fall over. If they land on their feet and prove they can juggle with the additional responsibilities, you can keep cutting. You should also agree a clear set of KPIs so you can measure the success of their empowerment.

Instead of the tears of a clown, you could end up with a big smile on your face, but I’m not sure about the red nose, colourful wig, and oversized shoes!

The Skeleton

Give people the bare bones of an idea and leave them to flesh it out - they often don't need any body to help them! Make it worth their while and give them an incentive to bring it to life and overdeliver - it’s easier to go that extra mile when you’ve got some skin in the game!

Manage upwards and ensure your bosses know that you’re empowering your people within your devolved authority - you don’t want any skeletons in your closet!

The Doctor

If you’re too prescriptive and tell people exactly what you want, it's likely that you'll get exactly what you asked for, but they won’t exceed your expectations. Empower them to tackle a task in their own way - don’t rob them of the opportunity to gain that sense of achievement, pride, satisfaction, praise, and recognition that you get from a job well done.

I realised a long time ago that I don’t have the monopoly on good ideas. In fact, I often find that if I delegate with broad instructions, people will usually come up with a better solution than I would have done or prescribed, and that’s just what the doctor ordered!

The Devil’s in the detail

Empowerment is not an excuse to just give people extra work or delegate more tasks. It's a conscious choice to put your trust and faith in your people. It's about giving them the authority to make decisions and take appropriate action. Don’t subject them to a long, drawn-out approval process just so you can check the fine print each time they have an idea or want to implement a change.

Senior Leadership Teams should share their vision, provide direction, and focus their efforts on building the type of culture where people aren’t afraid to step forward, experiment, and make mistakes.

You get a feeling about an organisation’s approach to empowerment during the recruitment process. How many rounds did you have to go through and who made the final decision? I recall one business advising me, after seven interviews, that they’d decided to pull the role. I’m sure it was a lucky escape, and it was certainly a valuable lesson learnt.

If you have a selection committee or a multi-stage sign-off process, you’ll generally end up with a safe option so no wonder your new hires don’t pull up any trees. I’ve always allowed my direct reports to recruit their own teams. They can ask me if they require a second opinion, but I’ve found that people get better at recruiting if they’re held accountable for their own decisions.

Create pioneers not puppeteers!

Ultimately, empowerment shouldn’t be seen as a novelty sideshow or a box-ticking exercise. It’s giving people the opportunity to take centre stage, use their judgement, and think outside the box (or booth!)

It will help you produce future leaders, remove the bottlenecks and single points of failure, which are symptoms of a Command-and-Control organisation, and improve your customer experience.

I’ve summarised the above points on a slide - I hope you find it useful. Please click on this link to view it on SlideShare.

So, if you get empowerment right within your organisation, I bet you’ll be pleased as Punch with the results!

Thanks for reading - please feel free to react, leave a comment, and/or share my article with your network.