The Portable Mentor Presentation Series

Empowermen
t
Some Practical Questions &
Answers

A Presentation for Hempstead Manor

Kendall L. Stewart, MD, MBA, FAPA
April 5, 2002

SOMCPress
What’s in this for me?
• Appropriate employee empowerment is
essential to organizational success in the
services industries.
• Everyone claims to empower employees, but
this is easier said than done.
• This presentation will explore some of the
myths of empowerment, and then offer some
practical guidelines for success.
• You may want to pay close attention.
• A failed organizational empowerment initiative
is at best a waste of time.
• At worst, such a failure will damage trust and
goodwill forever.
I have been building leadership teams at SOMC for 15 years.

What is empowerment?
• It is a management approach designed to give
frontline employees the authority they need to
do what needs to be done without having to
check with management.
• In spite of all the favorable buzz, there is little
hard evidence that it has really made much
difference in routine organizational life.
• Some empowerment does exist and, when
accompanied by accountability and appropriate
guidance, it can lead to increased employee
and customer satisfaction.
• Significant employee empowerment is rare,
and it is not easy to initiate or maintain.
When I suggested patient care teams in 1982, the administrator discouraged me.

What are some of the common

myths about empowerment?

• Everybody’s doing it.

• It’s easy.
• Every manager wants empowered
employees.
• Every employee wants to be empowered.
• All the manager needs to do is leave the
empowered employees alone.
 Physicians are empowered. Are you ready for a bunch of employees like us?

What are some guidelines for

effective employee empowerment?

• Select the right managers. • Share authority instead of

• Choose the right employees. giving it up.
• Provide training. • Encourage dissent.
• Offer guidance. • Give it time.
• Hold everyone accountable. • Accept increased turnover.
• Build trust. • Share information.
• Focus on relationships. • Realize that empowerment
• has its limitations.
Stress organizational values.
• Watch for mixed messages.
• Transform mistakes into
opportunities. • Face your own ambivalence
• Reward and recognize. • Involve employees in
decision-making.
• Be prepared for increased
variation.
An exasperated manager in a Leadership Team insisted on knowing who the boss was.

Chose the right managers.

• Why? • How?
– Not every manager is – Select leaders who are
capable of being a coach already empowering
instead of a boss. their colleagues
– Facilitators are born, not routinely.
made. – Confront dictatorial
– Controlling leaders.
micromanagers will – Give them a fair chance
always slip back into to change, but make it
their old ways. clear that their odds of
– Pick the wrong success are not good.
managers and everyone – Call attention to leaders
will see that you are who are doing it right,
only giving lip service to and encourage young
the idea. leaders to select them
as mentors.
Not every leader signed up to work on SOMC’s first book. That is okay.

Select the right employees.

• Why? • How?
– Not every employee – Identify those people
wants to be already taking the
empowered. initiative.
– Only a minority of – Explain the risks and
employees want to benefits of
work this hard. empowerment, and
– Announce that then wait for those
everyone is who want to stretch
empowered and to step forward.
watch the work come – Share information
to a grinding halt. openly, and then
– Only volunteers are identify those with
eligible. good instincts,
confidence and the
willingness to take
risks.
New physician leaders are a hoot. They think this is so simple.

Provide adequate training.

• Why? • How?
– The inclination to take – Identify the most
the initiative is common challenges
natural, but effective they will face.
techniques are – Demonstrate attitudes
acquired through and behaviors most
learning and polished likely to be successful.
through experience. – Point out that nothing
– Those permitted to works every time.
flail about aimlessly – Celebrate every
will quickly grow
discouraged and incremental
withdraw. improvement;
perfection is in short
– Training increases supply.
confidence and – Enlist them as
encourages risk- trainers ASAP.
taking.
I decided the mental stability of those with access the nuclear weapons in the Air Force.

Share information.
• Why? • How?
– Information really is – Begin by asking what
power. information is needed.
– Everyone – Encourage everyone
overestimates how to contribute to the
much leaders know. information pool.
– Sharing your – Except for personal
information stuff, avoid secrets.
encourages others to – Demonstrate
share too; their openness.
information may be – Invite questions and
the key. challenges.
– Data encourages
analysis and – Change your position
discourages impulsive readily when new
action. information demands
reconsideration.
I asked a nurse to come talk to me. Her nurse manager demanded to know why.

Hold everyone accountable.

• Why? • How?
– Authority without – Find out what happened.
accountability becomes – Ask why it happened?
self-centeredness. – Inquire whether, on
– Every little bit of power looking back, a better
is seductive. option might have been
– Unrestrained freedom is employed.
the seed from which – Let the emotion of the
tyrants grow. moment pass.
– Individual freedom – View mistakes as
introduces increased opportunities to grow
variation into key – Let the empowered
organizational associate come to that
processes. conclusion on her own.
Where can I learn more?
• Argyris, Chris, “Empowerment: The Emperor’s New Clothes,”
Harvard Business Review, May-June 1998.
• Nelson, Bob and Blanchard, Ken, Please Don’t Just Do What I
Tell You: Do What Needs to be Done: Every Employee’s Guide
to Making Work More Rewarding. Hyperion, 2001.
• Covey, Stephen R., “What is Empowerment?” Quality Digest,
January 1996.
• Byham, William C. and Cox, Jeff, Zapp!: The Lightning of
Empowerment: How to Improve Quality, Productivity and
Employee Satisfaction. Facwett Books, 1998.
How can we contact you?

Kendall L. Stewart, M.D.

Medical Director
Southern Ohio Medical Center

1805 27th Street

Portsmouth, Ohio 45662
740.356.8153
stewartk@somc.org
www.somc.org
What questions do you have?

Southern Ohio Medical Center

♦ Safety ♦ Quality ♦ Service ♦ Relationships ♦ Performance ♦
www.somc.org