Management Chapter 9: Empowerment and Quality

Chapter 9: Empowerment and the Quality Imperative

• Empowerment is the expansion of employee knowledge, tasks, and decision-making responsibilities
• Employee participation has a positive impact on business success, nearly always resulting in a positive outcome
• Ownership of stock combined with participation can improve employee motivation
• Questions to diagnose the need for empowerment include:
  • Are employees uninterested in their work?
  • Are absenteeism or turnover rates high?
  • Do employees lack loyalty or team spirit?
  • Is communication lacking among individuals and groups?
  • Is there a low level of pride?
  • Are costs high due to waste and inefficiency?
  • Does product or service quality need improvement?
• Empowerment is generated by efforts to improve performance
• Global competition necessitates long and challenging paths to success, requiring strong management
• Strong leadership is needed to overcome large obstacles, assisted by employee attention and effort that addresses smaller obstacles
• Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, believed effective strategies require the right leaders, who need high personal energy, ability to energize others, the capacity to make tough decisions, and the ability to execute strategy
• Welch reformed practices and company culture, including eliminating bureaucratic management, launching the "workout process," spreading ideas company-wide, rewarding employees with good ideas and implementation, and borrowing ideas from other companies.

Principles of an Empowered Workplace

• Trust employees to meet organizational goals with a chance to succeed
• Value employees as the most important resource of the organization
• Recognize employee accomplishments - symbolic rewards are valuable
• Decentralize decision-making, placing responsibility close to the customer whenever possible
• View work as a cooperative effort; reinforcing teamwork for greater accomplishments

Workplace Empowerment (Table 9.1)

• Unempowered: Leader makes all decisions, plans, and fixes problems
• Out of Control: No one takes responsibility for decisions, plans, or problem-solving
• Empowered: Employees make decisions, plans, and solve problems together

Workplace Empowerment (Table 9.1, Part 2)

• Unempowered: Employees do only what they are asked
• Out of Control: Many people work on the same task without communicating
• Empowered: Employees work together, inform others, and initiate improvement

Importance of Communication

• Employees prefer accurate, timely, and complete information from their immediate supervisor
• Effective leaders always communicate, even when not speaking
• A closed office door can communicate a message of disengagement
• Tailoring communication to the audience is key

Filling the "Need to Know" Gap

• Employees need a grand plan (purpose, values, strategies), understanding of personal expectations, and feedback/recognition
• Top-down communication must be effective, with clarity and understanding for everyone
• Leaders need to be accountable for communicating effectively

Communication Problems and Solutions

• Meetings should be necessary and have defined objectives and agenda
• Participants and pertinent materials should be invited and available in advance
• The meeting time and location should be convenient and conducive to productive work
• Encourage active participation from everyone
• Action steps and responsibilities should be agreed upon and documented

Communication Problems and Solutions (Part 2)

• Communication issues such as distance, distortion, fear, trust, size, complexes, and conflict need to be addressed

Leadership Challenge

• Rene McPherson, former president of Dana Corporation, stated people are the most crucial asset
• Leadership character and actions are paramount
• Colin Powell's leadership principles include having a vision, demanding accountability, checking on small details, sharing credit, being calm and kind, fixing problems, and embracing optimism

The Quality Movement

• Global competition necessitates companies to focus on quality
• Consumers demand quality products and services
• To meet these demands, companies require a talented, committed, and empowered workforce

The Quality Movement (Part 2)

• Joseph Jablonksi identifies three essential factors for quality management: participatory leadership, continual process improvement, and use of groups
• Quality expertise resides with those who perform the work and should cultivate further development and contribution within the organization
• Rene McPherson advocates for recognizing the expert in every role to unleash the full potential of each individual

W. Edwards Deming

• Deming's influence was integral to the quality movement impacting the restructuring of the Japanese economy
• The Deming Prize annually recognizes achievement in quality control
• Deming's influence fostered statistical quality control skills for production workers, delegated tasks, organized projects and work impacting quality
• Management became aware of the importance of personal involvement and commitment
• Deming stressed the importance of building quality into products, effective systems and processes, consistency of purpose, statistical measurement to reduce variation, and effective teamwork

The Deming Chain Reaction

• Quality improvements led to decreased costs from fewer mistakes and delays, and better use of time and materials
• Productivity improves, firms gain market share with higher quality and lower prices and, therefore, stay in business and generate more jobs

The Deming Way

• Emphasis on consistency of purpose, high standards, reducing reliance on mass inspection, fewer suppliers, acknowledging faulty systems, improvement in job training, and increased supervision

The Deming Way (Part 2)

• Eliminating barriers between departments, encouraging open communication, abolishing numerical goals and slogans while utilizing statistical methods
• Emphasizes empowerment through removing barriers to pride of work, instituting training programs, and securing management commitment towards quality

Philosophical Roots of the Quality Movement

• Frederick Winslow Taylor's work, Principles of Scientific Management, recognized him as the father of modern management and industrial engineering disciplines
• Taylor developed the first monetary incentive system, fundamentally changing productivity and management norms
• Taylor's ideas became foundational for worldwide scientific management

Scientific Management and the Model-T

• Henry Ford's sequencing of machines and workers, along assembly lines, dramatically improved automobile production efficiency

Human Relations School

• Harvard University researchers studied the Hawthorne Plant to understand the influence of environmental conditions on employee productivity
• Their findings demonstrated the critical roles of social factors and group norms on productivity and motivation

A Human Relations Pioneer

• William Procter stressed the importance of psychological commitment for increased employee productivity
• Practiced employee engagement through a stock ownership plan

Experiments in Participative Management

• Texas Instruments, AT&T, General Foods, and Proctor & Gamble experimented with methods like work simplification, job enrichment, teamwork, and group work
• These initiatives aimed to address manufacturing problems, improve productivity, and foster employee motivation

Experiments in Participative Management (Part 2)

• Successful participatory management emphasized positive worker attitudes, workforce as valuable assets, expanded scope and control, and opportunities for skill-building and career advancement, leading to increased productivity and morale

Quality Synthesis

• No single approach to management is best suited for complex environments; effective management often involves combining elements from classicist and behaviorist viewpoints
• Leadership philosophies in quality improvement rely on both scientific management and the human relations perspectives
• Balancing both perspectives is key to manager acceptance

Improving Performance through Quality Initiatives

• Traditional approaches to quality focused on final inspection; however, US companies found limitations
• Total Quality Management (TQM) focused on building quality into the process and has greater adoption among companies
• TQM companies have experienced improvements in business productivity, better employee relationships, greater customer satisfaction, higher productivity, increased market share, and increased profitability

Improving Performance through Quality Initiatives (2)

• TQM strategies emphasized prevention-based methods rather than just inspecting quality at the end of a process

Explore the concepts of employee empowerment and its critical role in enhancing quality within organizations. This chapter discusses the importance of employee participation, ownership, and communication in driving business success. Answer questions that help diagnose the need for greater empowerment and understand its impact on motivation and performance.