Transcript Empowerment Some Practical Questions & Answers

The Portable Mentor Presentation Series
Empowerment
Some Practical Questions & Answers
A Presentation for Hempstead Manor
Kendall L. Stewart, MD, MBA, FAPA
April 5, 2002
SOMCPress
What’s in this for me?
• Appropriate employee empowerment is
essential to organizational success in the
services industries.
• Everyone claims to empower employees, but
this is easier said than done.
• This presentation will explore some of the
myths of empowerment, and then offer some
practical guidelines for success.
• You may want to pay close attention.
• A failed organizational empowerment initiative
is at best a waste of time.
• At worst, such a failure will damage trust and
goodwill forever.
I have been building leadership teams at SOMC for 15 years.
What is empowerment?
• It is a management approach designed to give
frontline employees the authority they need to
do what needs to be done without having to
check with management.
• In spite of all the favorable buzz, there is little
hard evidence that it has really made much
difference in routine organizational life.
• Some empowerment does exist and, when
accompanied by accountability and
appropriate guidance, it can lead to increased
employee and customer satisfaction.
• Significant employee empowerment is rare,
and it is not easy to initiate or maintain.
When I suggested patient care teams in 1982, the administrator discouraged me.
What are some of the common
about empowerment?
myths
• Everybody’s doing it.
• It’s easy.
• Every manager wants empowered
employees.
• Every employee wants to be empowered.
• All the manager needs to do is leave the
empowered employees alone.
Physicians are empowered. Are you ready for a bunch of employees like us?
What are some guidelines for
effective employee empowerment?
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Select the right managers.
Choose the right employees.
Provide training.
Offer guidance.
Hold everyone accountable.
Build trust.
Focus on relationships.
Stress organizational values.
Transform mistakes into
opportunities.
Reward and recognize.
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Share authority instead of
giving it up.
Encourage dissent.
Give it time.
Accept increased turnover.
Share information.
Realize that empowerment
has its limitations.
Watch for mixed messages.
Face your own ambivalence
Involve employees in
decision-making.
Be prepared for increased
variation.
An exasperated manager in a Leadership Team insisted on knowing who the boss was.
Chose the right managers.
• Why?
– Not every manager is
capable of being a coach
instead of a boss.
– Facilitators are born, not
made.
– Controlling
micromanagers will
always slip back into
their old ways.
– Pick the wrong
managers and everyone
will see that you are
only giving lip service to
the idea.
• How?
– Select leaders who are
already empowering
their colleagues
routinely.
– Confront dictatorial
leaders.
– Give them a fair chance
to change, but make it
clear that their odds of
success are not good.
– Call attention to leaders
who are doing it right,
and encourage young
leaders to select them
as mentors.
Not every leader signed up to work on SOMC’s first book. That is okay.
Select the right employees.
• Why?
– Not every employee
wants to be
empowered.
– Only a minority of
employees want to
work this hard.
– Announce that
everyone is
empowered and
watch the work come
to a grinding halt.
– Only volunteers are
eligible.
• How?
– Identify those people
already taking the
initiative.
– Explain the risks and
benefits of
empowerment, and
then wait for those
who want to stretch
to step forward.
– Share information
openly, and then
identify those with
good instincts,
confidence and the
willingness to take
risks.
New physician leaders are a hoot. They think this is so simple.
Provide adequate training.
• Why?
– The inclination to take
the initiative is
natural, but effective
techniques are
acquired through
learning and polished
through experience.
– Those permitted to
flail about aimlessly
will quickly grow
discouraged and
withdraw.
– Training increases
confidence and
encourages risktaking.
• How?
– Identify the most
common challenges
they will face.
– Demonstrate attitudes
and behaviors most
likely to be successful.
– Point out that nothing
works every time.
– Celebrate every
incremental
improvement;
perfection is in short
supply.
– Enlist them as trainers
ASAP.
I decided the mental stability of those with access the nuclear weapons in the Air Force.
Share information.
• Why?
– Information really is
power.
– Everyone
overestimates how
much leaders know.
– Sharing your
information
encourages others to
share too; their
information may be
the key.
– Data encourages
analysis and
discourages impulsive
action.
• How?
– Begin by asking what
information is needed.
– Encourage everyone
to contribute to the
information pool.
– Except for personal
stuff, avoid secrets.
– Demonstrate
openness.
– Invite questions and
challenges.
– Change your position
readily when new
information demands
reconsideration.
I asked a nurse to come talk to me. Her nurse manager demanded to know why.
Hold everyone accountable.
• Why?
– Authority without
accountability becomes
self-centeredness.
– Every little bit of power
is seductive.
– Unrestrained freedom is
the seed from which
tyrants grow.
– Individual freedom
introduces increased
variation into key
organizational
processes.
• How?
– Find out what happened.
– Ask why it happened?
– Inquire whether, on
looking back, a better
option might have been
employed.
– Let the emotion of the
moment pass.
– View mistakes as
opportunities to grow
– Let the empowered
associate come to that
conclusion on her own.
Where can I learn more?
• Argyris, Chris, “Empowerment: The Emperor’s New Clothes,”
Harvard Business Review, May-June 1998.
• Nelson, Bob and Blanchard, Ken, Please Don’t Just Do What I
Tell You: Do What Needs to be Done: Every Employee’s Guide
to Making Work More Rewarding. Hyperion, 2001.
• Covey, Stephen R., “What is Empowerment?” Quality Digest,
January 1996.
• Byham, William C. and Cox, Jeff, Zapp!: The Lightning of
Empowerment: How to Improve Quality, Productivity and
Employee Satisfaction. Facwett Books, 1998.
How can we contact you?
Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.
Medical Director
Southern Ohio Medical Center
1805 27th Street
Portsmouth, Ohio 45662
740.356.8153
[email protected]
www.somc.org
What questions do you have?
Southern Ohio Medical Center
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