“YOU CAN go right in,” smiled the woman at the desk outside Sandy Fitzwilliam's office. Michael found the Empowering Manager standing by the window looking out. She turned and greeted him with a firm handshake. “I'm Sandy Fitzwilliam. Nice to meet you.”
“Thank you for taking time to see me,” Michael began.
“Don't get too excited until you find out whether or not I can help you. Do you recall what I said as we hung up last week?” Sandy asked seriously.
Michael thought for a minute. “Frankly, no.”
“I told you that you were starting a journey.”
“Oh, yes,” said Michael. “Something about a journey to the Land of Empowerment. Sounds more like a ride at Disney World than anything else. I honestly don't know what you mean by it.”
“It's not a fantasyland,” she clarified. “It's real.
What do you think it might mean?”
“Well,” said Michael, letting his mind roam, “the word journey suggests that it might take some time to get there.”
Sandy nodded.
Encouraged, Michael went on. “It also conjures up tales of adventure, where one follows roads that lead over steep mountains and through dark forests. Unexpected things happen. There are lots of tests along the way. Something like that.”
“Very good,” she nodded. “And, what about the phrase Land of Empowerment?”
“Sounds like a land different from the one where I'm living now, that's for sure—one where the customs of the inhabitants are not the ones I was raised with and have become accustomed to seeing. It's foreign.”
“You've done well,” Sandy said, smiling with obvious satisfaction. “Even though you resisted the concept at first, it feels like you've grasped the main ideas, the time it takes, and the degree of difficulty. I particularly like the fact that you think of the Land of Empowerment as being foreign. Most of us who try to empower others get in our own way because of our traditional thinking. We are modern and sophisticated in so many technological ways and yet traditional and naive in our beliefs about people and organizations.”
“But come on, now—is it really that hard?” asked Michael.
Sandy just stared at him with no reply, so he added, “Well, there's my answer. I wouldn't have come here if I'd had an easy time of it. I was hoping you could just hand me a ready-made formula.”
Sandy smiled. “I'd be doing you a disservice if I gave you a pep talk about empowering people, handed you a set of rules, and said, ‘Go do it.' As you've already learned, you may want your people to take the initiative, but at first they may not be able to act empowered. This shouldn't be surprising. To use your analogy of a foreign land, they don't yet know the language or the customs of the Land of Empowerment.”
Michael nodded as he began making some notes.
“And neither do you.”
Michael looked up from his notes, and Sandy continued, “You and your managers may not yet be ready to deal with an empowered workforce. It means learning a whole new way to manage—managing project teams, cross-functional teams, and even self-managed teams rather than work groups.
“Remember what I told you on the phone: Empowerment is not giving people power—they already have it!”
As Michael nodded, Sandy pointed to a large plaque on her wall:
People already have power in their knowledge and motivation!
Empowerment is releasing and focusing this power!
Michael's solemn look told her that he was mulling this over.
“Whatever happens, it's going to take time for you to get to the Land of Empowerment, and this journey is going to test you and others in your organization time and time again. You'll be impatient because of the lack of quick results, and you'll suffer setbacks.
“You or your associates will question why you ever started or whether the destination is worth it. The only thing that will keep you going is a huge amount of faith and trust in the journey and a genuine desire to create a better company for yourself and others.”
She continued, “Have you ever tried to put into action something you believed deeply in, only to find out later that you'd been going about it all wrong?”
“Quite a few times,” Michael admitted.
“You'll have that same experience with empowerment. In fact, you've come here because what you've tried to do so far to empower people in your organization hasn't worked. You reduced layers of management and authorized people to make more decisions, but now you see that is not real empowerment. So the question now is ‘Are you willing to let go of what you still think is true about empowerment and about how organizations work?'”
Michael pondered the question. “Yes,” he said, “if I understand what you mean.”
“My own experience,” Sandy said, “and that of others, suggests that this journey will be a series of discoveries. One of those discoveries may be that the path you have chosen won't get you there. The energy and intention you've already devoted to empowering people will have to be rechanneled.”
“That's what you mean when you say that I have to have trust in the journey itself?” questioned Michael.
“Exactly.”
“OK, I'm beginning to get it,” said Michael. “I see that empowerment is not going to happen suddenly; I'm going to have to hang in there. But how will we know if we're making any progress along the way? My board will want to know that for sure.”
“That's tricky, too. In the early stages, gains will be small. Yet it's important to keep an eye out for them and to celebrate every one. You see, the nature of success itself has changed. There used to be clear signposts, but in these times of constant change and threats to survival, managers can no longer count on the traditional benchmarks for success.”
“Sounds like I'm going to have to convince my board that although it may be difficult to know we're getting there, it's not impossible to measure progress. We'll just have to find a new way to look for the signs,” Michael ventured.
“That's exactly right,” Sandy said. “And there are other, less obvious payoffs that are significant and long lasting. An example is the feeling of ownership that comes over people in an empowered culture. If you're open and receptive, even the times when you seem sidetracked will yield important findings. Also, right in the midst of all that frustration, you'll learn that you are being changed into an empowering person. It's as if the journey and the destination are one and the same.”
“That sounds great on the surface, but I still have some serious reservations about the whole idea of empowerment,” said Michael. “Being empowered as a manager isn't very exciting if you're wondering about what you will be doing once the work force becomes empowered. To be honest with you, my managers and I worry that empowering the workforce will lead not only to our loss of power and control but also to loss of our jobs.”
Sandy nodded, acknowledging her appreciation for Michael's concern. “I understand that's a fear,” she replied, “and it's a common one. When I first got into empowerment, I was also fearful of losing my job, at least the managerial job I thought I should do. I was afraid that if my people made all these decisions that I used to make as a manager, there would be too little managing left for me to do. Then I realized that you don't lose your job from empowering people; you just get a different one. Rather than directing, controlling, and supervising your people as in the past, you serve as a linking pin between your people and the rest of the organization. Your role actually becomes even more vital and engaging.”
“What do you mean by linking pin?” puzzled Michael.
Sandy explained, “Your new role as an empowering manager is coordinating efforts, acquiring resources, strategic planning, working with customers, coaching people, and the like. Everything you do is to help your people be more effective in developing and using their talents and energy to achieve company goals. Now you work for them rather than them working for you.”
The two leaders sat quietly deep in thought. This was obviously an important issue.
Finally, Sandy broke the silence. “Trust me. This new role will become clear to you as you learn more about empowerment.”
“OK—for now,” smiled Michael.
“Are you ready, then, to begin the journey to the Land of Empowerment?”
“As ready as I'll ever be,” replied Michael. “Where do I start?”
Sandy pointed in the direction of her office door and said, “You have to start out there, with my colleagues in this organization.”
“Your colleagues?” Michael repeated.
Sandy nodded. “The people I work with in this organization, no matter what position they may occupy, are my colleagues, my associates, my partners. If I create an environment that allows them to make this a great organization, they have the potential every day, through their every action, to make that happen. So they are the real source of the understanding you seek—not me.” With that, she stood up and ushered Michael out the door.
Michael found himself standing outside the office, bewildered. He walked over to the woman who had shown him in. “I'm Michael Hobbs,” he said.
“I know,” smiled the woman.
“Are you Ms. Fitzwilliam's secretary?”
“Actually, I'm her colleague,” came the reply.
Michael found himself thinking, how did I know she was going to say that?
Then the woman added, “My name is Amelia Engel. How may I help you?”
“I want to find out about how empowerment works around here. So I guess I'd like to talk to some of your, um, colleagues.”
“We're all involved in making this an empowered organization,” replied Amelia, “so anyone here could help you.”
“Perhaps I should start at the bottom. That's where empowerment really has to go, isn't it?”
“Not really,” smiled Amelia. “Anyone who interacts with our customers is considered to be at the top.”
“OK, OK,” laughed Michael. “Then maybe I should start at the top.”
“Let me suggest that you talk to Robert Borders in our Billing Services Area,” said Amelia, picking up the phone. “They've made tremendous progress in the last year by reducing billing errors by 37 percent and response time to customer billing inquiries by 50 percent. I'll see whether Robert is available.”