Author - Jason McDonald

Sam was out on a fishing trip with his three buddies and was many miles out to sea. At some point during the trip one of the guys, we’ll call him John, pulled out a shotgun and started “skeet” shooting empty beer cans. Sam didn’t think it is a good idea and advises against it. Many beers later John finally got a little too relaxed (aka careless) and blew a good sized hole in the side of the boat. History tells us that holes and boats don’t mix well and, as expected, the boat began to sink.

Sam’s three buddies started to frantically bail water out of the boat using anything they can find – hats, plastic cups, their hands – but Sam just sat there. His buddies told him to help them bail and Sam only replied by saying he was against the idea to begin with and that he shouldn’t have to help clean up their mess.  The water was coming in fast enough that three people need to bail full time to keep the boat afloat. Eventually Sam’s friends began to tire and the water starts coming in faster than they can keep up.

The boat sinks and Sam drowns. Everyone else lives.

As the boat went down John took out the life preservers only to find that there were only three. Sam’s three buddies huddled up and decided that they were actively trying to save the boat, and their lives, so they should get the life jackets. As the boat continued to sink Sam held on for a while but eventually found himself treading water. Despite his efforts he couldn’t keep it up for long and eventually slipped underwater.

What Sam didn’t realize is that even though he was fundamentally against the idea and even though he played no part in the disaster, he was still on the boat. If the boat went down, so did he. Sam was too caught up in the blame game to recognize that the only way to save himself was to save his friends, regardless of whether he felt they deserved to be in their predicament or not.

There are a lot of Sam’s in business. Sam’s eventually drown. Especially when the economy is bad and every life vest is highly coveted. Don’t be Sam.

All companies should strive to empower their employees. This simply means that all employees should feel that they have the ability to make decisions on behalf of the company. Toyota, for example, gives every employee the ability to stop the assembly line at any time, for any reason. Stopping the assembly line is an extremely expensive task for the company, however Toyota realizes that the people on the line have the knowledge, ability, and desire to be able to stop the assembly line if they see a problem. In essence, Toyota empowers them.

Empowerment has prerequisites and consequences though.

The prerequisites are pretty simple to state but harder to live – empowered employees must be aligned with the goals, vision, and processes of the company. If the employee is expected to act on behalf of the company then he or she must understand what the company wants and needs. Being tightly aligned with the core values of the company and understanding the vision of the firm is essential to this. Using Toyota again, one example may be that a frame on the assembly line is severely damaged, which an employee may realize will damage the assembly line itself. Stopping the line furthers the vision and values of the company by enhancing quality and saving money.

Conversely, if you have a strong alignment with the goals and vision but lack knowledge of the process, empowerment can hurt instead of help. Using the same example as before, if the employee stopped the assembly line because of the bent frame but didn’t know that there was already a process for handling such things, stopping the assembly line could result in a needless loss of money. If employees are not aligned with the visions and values of a company then the resulting decisions may be out of sync with what is truly good for the company.

The quickest way to reduce empowerment is to not have it evenly distributed. By this I mean that not everyone has an equal understanding of their level of empowerment and the implications of it. This can be for a number of reasons – everything from poor communication coming down from management to low self esteem of an empowered employee.

When you have varying levels of empowerment a few different forces are at play that reduce the benefit of an empowered company.

First, empowerment is reduced for all because of a reduced understanding by some. If people have varying degrees of what they are entitled to you will ultimately have confusion. This confusion will ultimately lead to a reduction of perceived empowerment by the group. Sticking with the example of the bent frame on the assembly line, if one employee feels they have the right to stop the assembly line but another doesn’t it is a matter of sheer luck as to which employee notices the defect. If the empowered one notices then they stop the assembly line and set a positive example for the rest of the employees. If the non-empowered one notices then they ignore it, also setting an example for the rest of the employees, albeit a negative one.

Second, people escalate needlessly. When there is confusion over levels of empowerment people will naturally escalate to superiors in order to gain clarification. Continuing our assembly line example, if both the empowered and unempowered employee notice the defect at the same time there will likely be confusion and debate over whether to stop the assembly line or not. Clarification will likely be sought and the line manager will be needlessly pulled in. Had both employees understood their level of empowerment the right thing would have been done and the line manager would have never been pulled in.

Finally, money, time, or other resources are wasted and management locks down the empowerment rights. This is simply a case of management treating the symptom instead of the ailment. If the assembly line is stopped when the employee should not have stopped it then management may incorrectly choose to treat the symptom, the employee wrongly choose to stop the assembly line, instead of the ailment, the fact that the employee doesn’t understand his or her level of empowerment. Locking down the empowerment instead of increasing awareness results in a loss for the entire company.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but simply the primary ones that are likely to occur when empowerment is not evenly distributed. Empowerment is good and is something that all companies should strive for. However, it is a double edged sword that must be handled with care to prevent inadvertently getting cut.

I had someone that I reported up to at one time that explained the career cycle as a series of steps. The basic idea is that you spend some time at a given level, you learn and assimilate, then you move up to the next step and the process repeats itself. The basic idea is that there are a virtually unlimited number of steps and that everyone moves from step to step at a different pace. Each step encompasses a variety of factors, all of which are unique to the person, step, situation, and company. Sometimes people walk right up and hit their virtual ceiling while others stagnate at the same step year after year. Others still will find themselves rising quickly only to level out at some point.

 

Steps – moving regularly up through a career

The basic idea behind his metaphor is that you should always be moving up. If you look at a given employee (or yourself) and find that the person has spent a long time at a given step, then something is wrong. If a person is stalled out at a step they may need guidance – or perhaps they are just in the wrong position.

Slants – moving very quickly up through a career

Throughout my career I have seen three kinds of steppers. There are the people who follow the “norm” and step from one step to the next, regularly advancing their career. There are others who seem destined for the top and move almost along a straight line they move up the steps so quickly. Yet others skyrocket at first, only to find themselves slowing down the closer they get to the top. While many would pose that the regular steps are the most common, I would say that the quick ascent, followed by step is.

Slants and Steps – moving up quickly, to a point, only to level out

The reason is actually quite simple: people will generally excel when they are undertasked and not challenged. Almost everyone falls into this category as they search out the job that is right for them. So what does this mean? It means that if you see yourself, or others, following a trend of very rapid career growth, perhaps they would be better utilized in a different position. This different position doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be higher in the reporting chain, but simply more challenging and interesting to the individual charted.