Welcome to the November 2009 edition of Strategic Innovation newsletter, a free monthly newsletter on leadership, strategy and innovation. Delivered on the first Tuesday of each month.

Back issues are archived for free downloading at www.DanielLockConsulting.com.

Tips for improving business processes

• Duplicationof data from different parts of the organization can produceconflicting data and lead to the unbalancing of the organization. Forexample sales may generate a monthly customer production ship forecastand production control distributes a completely different forecast.
• Accrualmeans the value of the end product exceeds the accumulated costs. Valueadded=value after processing – value before processing.
• Valueadded assessment is an analysis of every activity in the businessprocess to determine its contribution to meet end-customer expectations.
• Value is defined from the point of view of the end customer or the business process.

Empowerment; More than a buzz word

Empowermentis more than a buzz word, it is a real management tool that ispragmatic and must be implemented if you are to build a high performingorganisation.

Whydoes empowerment have a bad name? Probably because of silly poppsychology techniques such left-brain/right-brain thinking. And thereare many others.

Adefinition: that employees are able to make decisions that areimportant to the results of his or her work. Or put another way, thatauthority is in line with accountability.

Why is empowerment important?

Fortwo reason, one, that it achieves better results (more on this later).The second reason is that it builds employee self-esteem, and intrinsicmotivation.

Builds Trust

InCovey’s famous book 7 Habits, he talks of trust, and building trustbank account. We all know that trust is often circumspect betweenmanagement and employees. A major reason for this is that employeesdon’t feel as if management trust them, and this is manifest in themisalignment between authority and accountability.

Howcan employees be expected to achieve the outcomes for which they haveaccountability if they don’t have the authority to make those decisions.

An Example:

Imaginean environment where an order for a client has gone missing, theshipping manager is responsible for getting the order to the client ontime, but the only person who can call the client is the accountmanager, who at this time is out of reach.

Asimple example where the shipping manager must now go to is boss forapproval to do his job and make a simple call to the client to verifyan order or sort out confusion.

Creates Better Outcomes

Toyotais a great example of an empowered organisation. Employees on theproduction line have the authority to stop he entire line if they see adefect. This reduces failure work, and a whole car being built whichcan’t be sold.

Ora completely different company, 3M, which empowers its people to takerisks in designing new products, giving them the freedom to fail. Iunderstand 3M to have a corporate metric to the effect that 25% of thisyears sales should be from products that didn’t exist 5 years ago.

How to Develop an Empowered Organisation:

1. Set boundaries: We all need boundariesfrom with in which we operate. Review the arbitrarily set boundariesand re-set them with rationally set boundaries. Challenge why theseauthority levels exist. For example why is it that an employee can onlyreverse fees of $20, when the average fee size for their customers is$100.
2. Develop the skills: Train yourpeople, your people probably have the product knowledge, but a frontline staff may need training in dealing with conflict and problemsolving skills.
3. Intrinsic motivation:Employees maybe sceptical at first, they may infer you are asking themto take on more responsibility with out more pay for example. Assumingthis isn’t the case, demonstrate how their lives will be made easierand the customer will be taken care of. Demonstrate how it is in theirbest interest to be able to make these decisions.
4. Build the systems:Design the systems and culture that will allow people to flourish, ifpeople make mistakes are they made to be wrong, or do address it aslearning and review the decision process.

Empowermentis a real world tool for a more effective organisation. With apragmatic approach, any manager no matter if they implement in a pocketwill improve their results by empowering their people.

Peoplewont give away the farm, this is the often cited defence againstempowerment. This thinking sends a clear message that you don’t youremployees. They will get it.

If customer interactions are part of the job, then it is the job of the manager to empower the person to do the job.

Technique of the month: Get to know your people

Empoweringyour people, is a process of finding out what they value. This way youcan appeal to their rational self-interest to find intrinsicmotivation.

Here’s 3 tips on how to find put what people value:

✓Talk to them about their private life, don't become the best friendnecessarily, but get to know them more personally. Show an interest.
✓ Observe their behaviour over time (don't take one example as a given,watch for a pattern), listen to how they speak, what examples they useand so on.
✓ Analyse their successes and failures, why did they succeeded or fail in one setting and not another