Empowering or Abrogating Responsibility

Are you empowering – or abrogating responsibility?

There’s an old piece of advice to management from the military.  It goes something like this:  “Give a man a shovel and tell him to dig a ditch x feet wide and y feet deep.”  The message is that he’ll figure out how to do it. 

That works well for ditches and other fairly routine tasks.  BUT – as I’ve learned through the years, it doesn’t work well under many other circumstances.  For example: 

• ·       If the task is complicated and the person to whom it has been assigned hasn’t any experience with it.
• ·       If it’s too easy for someone not experienced to make it too complicated.
• ·       If the person to whom the task has been assigned doesn’t know the value of what’s being asked of her/him and sells it much too cheaply.
• ·       If you want it a certain way – and haven’t given them a model to work from.

I could go on with examples, but you get what I mean.  In my years of consulting I’ve seen so many examples of people doing work that is unnecessary or too complicated because no one taught them how to do it the simple way. 

Recently, I was at fault and lost some money because of it.  This situation (which I will describe in a minute) is what stimulated me to write this blog.  It’s not about the workplace – but I think it makes the point. 

I hired two people to do a garage sale for me.  I had a number of things that were no longer needed and were just cluttering up space in my townhouse.  Among the items I gave them were two small antique (eighteenth century) tables and 40 years accumulation of Halloween and Christmas decorations.  I didn’t put any value on these – and apparently they didn’t hear me say don’t sell them too cheaply.  Because they practically gave them – and a bunch of other stuff as well – away. 

I was given $125.00 for items that collectively were in the thousands.  They actually sold one of the tables for $1.00.  (Yes, one dollar!)

Clearly more my fault than theirs.  I should have put a minimum price on the items and told them clearly that if they didn’t get at least that much money they should return the items to me.  I trusted their intelligence and competence – my mistake.

OK – yes not a workplace example…..

Here’s one:  I was brought into a startup company to set up their bookkeeping, insurance, and filing systems.  Rather – to undue what someone had done badly and set them up correctly. 

As a new startup they hired one of the executive’s wives to be receptionist and administrative assistant.  She was lovely – but inexperienced.  They tasked her with setting up all administrative systems – and what she created was a complicated mess with checks and cross-checks and files for every day (rather than monthly) etc.

Here’s another one:   While consulting to a large transportation agency, I was in the finance department and noticed something that I questioned.  The accounts receivable clerk was taking an adding machine tape of the checks she was about to deposit.  I asked her why and she responded that’s what she had been taught.  Well, yes, I too was taught to take tapes back before computers.  We were taught to take a tape of the checks and another of the deposit slip to make sure they balanced.  Good idea when you don’t already have a total from the computer and another total from the check endorsing machine.  In other words she was doing double work.

These are simple examples of tiny things that waste tons of time.

Here’s another good one:

In a City permit department, I discovered that it took two weeks to get a certificate for something that did NOT require an inspection.  Why two weeks, I asked.  Well, we have to change the paper in the copier and we don’t want to have to do it every day.  My solution – which they followed:  Get a dedicated small printer (about $200.00) and leave it on the counter with the certificate paper.

I am sharing small and easily noticed wastes – imagine what you can find if you are looking into more complicated processes.

Empowerment

Everyone talks about empowering their staff, but I wonder how many managers actually do so.  To empower someone is to provide them with the opportunity to take on responsibilities and to have the authority commensurate with that responsibility.

Let me give you an example or two about what happens when you dis-empower people.

I was consulting to an American telecommunications company when they were purchased by a French company.  Prior to the purchase, managers and directors had responsibility and the authority to make decisions.  They had respect and visibility.  For example, if a manager (or even someone not in management) had a good idea, it was that person who presented the idea to the appropriate audience, including the CEO.  Responsibility and authority were pushed down to the lowest logical level and employees were given opportunity to shine and to grow their skills.  Promotions were based on the assessment of performance.

Well, the French company worked differently.  All decisions were made at the highest level (across the pond) and if you had a good idea, your job was to make your boss look better, and he made his boss look better, and eventually only the senior vice-presidents had public visibility and acclaim.

Another way you dis-empower people is to micro-manage them and step between them and the others with whom they are working.  It happened to me recently.  I am an ex-officio member of a board of directors and had assumed responsibility for finding a commercial realtor and starting the process of looking for new space for the organization.  Having worked with a fine commercial realtor before, I mentioned that I would contact him and set up a preliminary appointment.

A member of the board said he wanted to join me and I said sure.  Instead, he called my realtor, introduced himself as “in charge” and undercut my professional relationship with the man..  In addition, he showed up at the meeting, and took over, even going so far as to mention that he had information not available to me – and that he and I were only 80% in agreement (I have no idea where we were either in agreement or in disagreement.)  In effect, he pushed me aside.

When I called him on it – he did it again.  He wonders why the fun has gone out of the project for me.

Now, when you empower people, they get energized, motivated, and stretch their abilities to prove to you that your confidence in them was justified.

Which would you prefer?

Management's Responsibility

One of the key responsibilities of anyone in management - whether business owner, employee, or volunteer - is to delegate effectively. Effective delegation is quite different from either micro-managing (too tight control) or abrogating responsibility, which now has the buzz-word empowerment.

Effectie delegation requires an understanding ofthe delegatee's skills and understanding, coupled with management's responsibility for clearing outlining parameters and expectations. Maybe, like all soft skills, it is a combination of science and art.