Future of Work Redesigned – Empowerment

In the fifth newsletter regarding the “Future of Work Redesigned” we are going to explore the EMPOWERMENT point on the compass.

There are six points on my Future of Work Redesigned compass. These are the six directions in which you must head if you are going to redesign the future of work in your organisation.

Culture – improve the culture in the organisation so the benefits of hybrid working can be realised

Strategy – co-create a hybrid working strategy

Leadership – leadership requires an uplift in skills and competencies to lead high performing hybrid teams

Technology – optimise hybrid working now and into the future by using the best technologies available to you

Empowerment – employees need empowerment and autonomy over where, when, and how they work and there must be trust 

Wellbeing – provide every employee with a holistic and contextual platform for mental wellbeing and increased resilience

The future of work redesigned compass

Last week we wrapped up looking at one of the most neglected points on the compass – leadership. Without good leadership it will be difficult – nigh impossible – to move in the direction of the empowerment point on the compass.

Empowerment

Bosses (note my deliberate avoidance of the term ‘leader’) who want to continue to believe that productivity can be measured by the hours someone sits at a desk and that the best ways to get results is through micromanagement, are on the verge of extinction.

Just like the dinosaurs who did not have the necessary characteristics to survive in a changed environment or adapt to a new one, these bosses will become extinct. The catastrophic event leading to their demise may not be an asteroid or climate change, but a change in the way we work – a hybrid operating model.

These bosses are the ones that invested heavily in employee surveillance software in April and May 2020 under the disillusion that the only way to ensure productivity was by having line of sight of employees. When employees were plunged into the world of remote work, bosses lost that line of sight, and resorted to micromanagement by monitoring keystrokes. A decline in keystrokes or the change in status on collaboration platforms to ‘away’ was indication that intervention was needed. These bosses have just prolonged the agony of their eradication.

Surveillance, or observation of someone at a desk, is not an indicator of performance. Good leaders empower employees, provide autonomy, and operate from a position of trust.

I don’t think I can write about empowerment without also exploring autonomy and trust. They are inextricably linked with trust holding the trilogy together.

Definitions and connections

Many people confuse the terms empowerment, autonomy and delegation and use them interchangeably. Trust can mean different things to different people.

Empowerment is about giving another person decision-making rights.

Autonomy is having self-directing freedom.

Delegation is giving someone else duties or tasks to carry out.

Trust is the belief that someone is reliable, good, honest, and you have confidence in them.

You cannot have true delegation without providing empowerment and autonomy. You can delegate a task but unless you have empowered your employee to make-decisions and given them the autonomy to choose how they approach the task, you are still in the echelons of micromanagement.

You cannot genuinely empower or provide employees with autonomy if you do not trust them. Micromanagement screams “I do not trust you.” That is not a sound foundation for any team but even less so for a hybrid team.

Empowerment

Empowerment is the absolute opposite of micromanagement. When empowered, employees can make independent decisions and act upon them. Without empowerment, the bottleneck resulting from employees having to revert to their superior for decision-making in a hybrid working model will simply increase.

Remote employees may have to wait prolonged periods of time to get a decision made as they are not physically co-located with their manager. When co-located it is often easier to garner someone’s attention.

Empowerment does not mean that you leave your hybrid team to flounder. You set clear parameters around the decision-making process. Often these are called guidelines or guardrails. Just as the guardrails on the road are there to prevent us going off the road, guardrails around decision making are there to keep us from making risky decisions.

How do your employees know what decisions they can make without recourse to you?

You can apply the ‘Waterline Principle’ instituted by American engineer and entrepreneur Bill Gore, the co-founder of W.L. Gore and Associates, the maker of innovative products such as Gore-Tex fabrics.

Imagine your organization is a ship and you are the captain. You can empower employees to make decisions if they are shooting above the waterline. The decisions won’t sink the ship so the risk can be sanctioned. If the decision should go awry and results in a hole in the side of the ship above the waterline, it can be fixed.

If the decision is shooting below the waterline, it is a risk that cannot be sanctioned, as it could blow a hole in the side of the ship that is below the waterline and could sink the ship. Below-the-waterline-decisions need to be referred to the ‘captain’ so that risk can be assessed, and the right decision made.

Empowerment with guardrails such as the ‘waterline principle’ ensure that the hybrid team is effective and agile regardless of employee location. 

As the captain, you can also define where the waterline sits based on factors including an employee’s position, experience, and level of expertise. A junior employee will have a different waterline to that of your senior managers.

The waterline principle can also be applied to deciding what issues need your attention as opposed to those that can be left to your team to resolve. If an issue has occurred, the criticality can be determined by asking whether the damage is above or below the waterline.

If something goes wrong above the waterline such as a broken computer or a jammed door, the ship will not sink and therefore the issue can be dealt with by your team and does not need to be referred to you as the captain. If something goes wrong below the waterline such as engine failure, the ship could sink, and cause injury or loss of life.  This decision requires your attention. Once again, your team will be far more effective and efficient by following this principle.

Autonomy

Autonomy means having self-directing freedom. Your employees are free to make their own choices about how they carry out their work. Providing this autonomy is paramount in a hybrid working environment. Autonomy means freedom to decide when you work, how you work and where you work. The 5 day 9-5 working week is a thing of the past.

Autonomy allows employees to arrange ‘work’ around the rest of their lives rather than the other way around.

Jack Welch – past chairman and CEO of GE – summed up his role as a leader as it related to employee autonomy.

“Place the best people for the best opportunities and to properly distribute the monies to the right places. That’s all. Communicate your ideas, distribute the resources and get out of the way”

It is your responsibility as a leader to clearly communicate your expectations, make sure your employees have the resources they need including your support, and then get out of the way.

Providing employee autonomy is not ‘management by abdication.’ You are there to provide support and remove obstacles as needed. You are there to guide, not control.

This is a wake-up call for many bosses – as long as the work gets done, is done on time and to the expected standard, it is up to your employee to decide how to carry it out.

Autonomy increases employee motivation and engagement and decreases levels of talent attrition. Employees feel valued as individuals rather than a cog in the workforce mechanism.

 “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity” - General George S. Patton

Trust

As mentioned earlier if you are micromanaging you are just shouting “I don’t trust you. 

Trust is at the foundation of the success of hybrid operating models. There must be respect and mutual trust.

You need to build a culture of trust and responsibility and you can do this by increasingly delegating tasks, empowering and providing autonomy. This shows your employees that you trust them, they are valued and capable of working independently of you.

Trust is amplified when mistakes are embraced as learning opportunities and not labelled as failures accompanied with negative consequences. Foster an environment in which it is ok to have a setback and a shared belief that if you are not making mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.

Summary 

Every organisation must invest in leadership development and capability uplift if they are to retain and attract the talent they need for success. Employees are speaking up and making their expectations clear. They deserve good leadership.

Next week I will be exploring the TECHNOLOGY point on the “Future of Work Redesigned” compass.