Empowerment or Discipline?

by Andrzej Gorecki

[As published in Retail Directions, Issue 11, 1997]

Over the past 10 years, many 'miracle cures' have been promised to the business world: process re-engineering, downsizing, awesome customer service, etc. Staff empowerment is said to be one of them.

One of the key notions of staff empowerment is that organisational discipline needs to be traded for employee initiative in order to create a better enterprise. Since it is line employees who have direct contact with the customers, it is claimed that they know best what the customers want — and can therefore make better decisions for the business.

It seems to make good sense: put the power in the hands of those who are at the 'coal face' — those who actually have to serve the customer. Yet many managers instinctively feel that something is not right with this approach. How can it be that their specialist knowledge and years of experience now count for nothing? Do rank and file employees have the capability to make decisions that may even impact on the survival of the organisation?

The truth is somewhere in between, but it has been difficult to conduct a rational debate on staff empowerment. Some managers have been reluctant to offer critical views, for fear of being accused of self interest, in trying to preserve their managerial powers. But the issue must be discussed; either staff empowerment has merit and should be adopted as a standard management practice, or it is a flawed concept and should be avoided.

Can empowerment go too far?

Imagine a nurse injecting you with medication of her own choosing, because she felt it would be better for you than what the doctor had prescribed. Imagine a pilot taking off without checking the engines, because he decided that being on time was more important than following bureaucratic checklists. These examples may be extreme, but they make the point: empowerment has no place in some situations. But who decides which situations? In the hospital scenario, should it be the nurse, the doctor, or the Chief Executive Officer?

Obviously, it can't be the nurse. So it has to be the doctor or the CEO. But then what happens to staff empowerment? Does this mean empowerment is unworkable?

Not so. When deployed using the principles of Total Quality Management, Staff empowerment can become a powerful business tool. Let me explain how.

Elements of Total Quality Management

One of the core concepts of TQM is the business process, which is defined and executed through a set of policies and procedures (sometimes unwritten). By following the procedures and policies, people execute the processes and achieve their outcomes.

Another core concept of Quality Management is continuing improvement. By continually working on the process to increase its capacity and stability, companies can deliver consistently better business results.

There are many other aspects to TOM, but for consideration of the staff empowerment issue we only need to mention one more: that it is management which is responsible for the business process, not staff.

In this context, the following must be occurring in order to achieve predictable, ever improving business outcomes:

People within the organisation ought to be acting according to the rules laid down in the policies and procedures.
Mechanisms ensuring universal compliance with the policies and procedures must be in place.
All processes need to be the subject of continuing, critical review in order to generate ideas for improvement.
Improvement ideas must be assessed and used as part of the continuous review and adjustment of policies and procedures.

Staff empowerment and quality management

Using the above model, we can now clearly define the responsibilities of staff and managers:

All people within the organisation (especially management) must diligently follow the policies and procedures.
Management must ensure that the policies and procedures are followed by all.
All people within the organisation must continually look for ways to improve business processes, and communicate their ideas to management. This is the key area where staff must be fully empowered and actively encouraged — to challenge the old methods and to propose new solutions.
Management must continually analyse the communications from staff, making policy and procedure changes where warranted.

The above can be shown as a continuous loop:

Using this approach to staff empowerment, it is no longer necessary to worry about finding the right balance between empowerment and discipline. When it comes to the execution of business processes, stringent discipline is the way for everyone, including managers. At the same time, when it comes to review and improvement of the business process, democracy is the best way. The ideas and observations of employees need to be an integral part of the continuing review and adjustment of company policies and procedures. Such an open approach will invariably yield better results than relying on management alone.

A note of caution here. People within organisations often get upset when a manager asks them for their view, and then acts differently. We need to understand that this is normal; during the decision-making process, the manager has to consider various facts and opinions. Hence, the manager usually develops a wider perspective than any single person consulted in the process. Furthermore, in the end it is the manager who has to accept responsibility for the decision.

Empowerment and discipline

There can be no doubt that by using the business process approach, staff empowerment can benefit any organisation. The key is to aim for 100% compliance with the prescribed business processes, and I 00% participation in their continuing improvement.

If you allow people to decide themselves whether to conform to the rules, you are inviting chaos. At the same time, if you leave staff out of the business improvement process with an autocratic management style, you will lose touch and eventually make serious errors in judgment.

In summary, we don't have to choose between empowerment and discipline. There is a need for both — they just have to be deployed in the right places.

Andrzej Gorecki is a Director and principal consultant with Melbourne-based Retail Directions Group, which develops and supplies state-of-the-art software solutions for retailers worldwide.

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