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By
Paul Deis, CEO, PROACTION
Article Summary - This article discusses the common thread of ownership of
work activity, or process ownership – a Best
Practice common thread that runs through all of the
4 Essential Factors on the Path to Best Practices.
Here, we discuss how this powerful concept acts as a
catalyst and powerful leverage of excellence in each
of the 4 Essential Factors.
Topics include:
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Work Ownership – the continuum.
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How Ownership Supports the 4 Essential Factors
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Alternatives
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Powerful Results
Work Ownership – the continuum.
One of the most fundamental issues in understanding
how organizations work is the question of who owns
the work – i.e., who has felt or perceived
responsibility for the work itself and the results
it engenders. In a full-fledged, many-layered
bureaucracy, there may be thousands doing work,
being busy, creating documents, etc., but actual
approval for actions, signatures, and therefore the
“real” authority and responsibility is highly
centralized. By contrast, in a highly decentralized
company, people either doing the actual work of the
company, or those very close to it, have final
decision authority, and may bind the company in
various ways.
These contrasting ways of organizational functioning
can be said to comprise a continuum, with
bureaucracy at one end, and a high-performance,
highly decentralized, highly delegated organization
at the other. Of course, most organizations are
somewhere along this continuum. Let’s explore the
ends of this continuum a bit further with examples.
Bureaucracy style - In a traditional military bureaucracy, historically
everything was done “in the name of the King.” This
translates in more modern settings to everything
being done in the name of the commander. People who
are essentially clerks prepare documents, but have
no real authority, and so no real responsibility.
These documents are sent, often through a series of
reviewers, to a final “approver” who has the actual
authority, and therefore the responsibility for the
action. Each reviewer will “endorse” the action (or
sometimes not), and then forward it to the next
person in the chain.
Consequences of this method include:
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Diffused actual responsibility – since many prepare and review a document, they are to a
degree “involved” in it. However, since there
are others “downstream”, the perceived or felt
ownership is minimal.
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Time-delay
– it takes a while to “process” an action
through multiple steps. This aspect also reduces
flexibility, since actions are tied to the
organization structure.
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Paperwork intensive
– since all communication is via written
document, the document is THE thing, adding to
the preparation time. Reviewers, endorsers and
approvers must have all the information they
need for their actions, so it has to be in the
document, or attached to it. There are no
informal, or oral communications with this
method.
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Approval authority remote from action point – the initiator of the action is always in the
best position to know the most about the
situation, what action is needed, and why.
However, since all of this must be written down,
then forwarded “up” the chain of command, subtle
aspects are lost, and there is a CYA aspect to
the whole process. Finally, the approver simply
cannot know enough to insure the best possible
action in every case.
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Senior level approval
– this is a highly desirable method for
accomplishing actions that have a major impact
on the organization as a whole, bind it in a
major way via a contract, or are strategic in
nature. These are the kinds of actions that
should NOT be delegated down to the front line
levels of a sizeable organization. |
Highly Decentralized / Empowered style – this method is often referred to as an
“empowerment” model for an organization. This means
that the authority and responsibility to act are in
close alignment, and as close to the “front line”
workers as possible. In many cases, those on the
production line, for example, will have authority to
initiate what are considered capital projects in
other companies, responsible for the return on
investment it involves. Or, for customer-facing
workers, the person may have what is essentially a
blank check to do what is needed to take appropriate
care of the customer.
Southwest Airlines became the most profitable
airline in the US, earning more total profits than
all of the other airlines combined. They buy their
aircraft, parts, fuel and airport gates at the same
places as all of the others, so what are they doing
differently? In a word – employee empowerment –
focusing on their people, what they need to do well,
giving them authority and responsibility, plus the
room to try and fail.
One of the most remarkable success stories with
empowerment is Harley Davidson, which made business
history by transforming its failing, over priced,
bottom-level quality motorcycles of the 1970’s and
early-mid 1980’s into the business power-house we
know today. Here is a link to an excellent article
describing why the company won the
Catalyst Award in 2004. (PDF)
The highly decentralized / empowered style involves
pushing authority and responsibility as far down the
organization as possible. Leadership, rather than
management control, is emphasized. The result is
that individuals “doing the work of the company”
feel personally responsible for its success, for the
achievement of its vision and mission. In a word,
they “own” their jobs and the activities it
involves, regardless of where in the organization
they function. Other examples of these companies
include Whole Foods Market, the Container Store, and
SAS Institute.
How Ownership Supports the 4 Essential Factors
We view the issue of work activity ownership as the
common thread running through each of the 4
Essential Factors on the Path to Best Practices.
When the level is high, there is the opportunity for
true excellence in each of these areas, and for
gaining the maximum benefit and synergy with the
other Essential Factors. With a low level of
ownership, it is quite difficult to achieve anything
like excellence in the 4 Essential Factors. Here’s
how each is “powered up” by high work activity
ownership:
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Effective Enterprise Systems & Processes – in the bureaucratic model, system
implementation is experienced as something
people are doing for the “higher ups” in the
company. Often, they have no notion that the
system is there to help them in their jobs at
all. Conversely, with high levels of ownership,
implementation is not even considered until
everyone at the “lowest” levels of the
organization fully understands and has enrolled
in the benefit the system will bring the
company, and sees how their work results will
fit into the overall structure. Then, even the
most challenging implementation will go well.
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Continuous Improvement Process
– this area is, in truth, very difficult without
high levels of work activity ownership
throughout the company. If people at the line
level have little authority, responsibility or
involvement, improvements must be generated by
“experts” – i.e., staff-level people such as
industrial or manufacturing engineers,
consultants, business process engineers, or
teams of managers. Companies attempting to
achieve improved performance this way seem to
never quite make it. Witness the current
situation in the US with the auto industry.
Those that have mastered the empowerment
culture, and with it, have generated powerful
continuous improvement processes, are literally
slaughtering companies that have not – the “Big
3” of Detroit, still stuck in the command &
control culture of decades ago.
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Education & Training
– if individual workers are just carrying out
instructions, narrowly defined guides for what
and how they do their jobs, they feel like
uninvolved cogs in a machine. As one such worker
told us years ago, “You are confusing me with
someone who gives a s___.” Adding education
and training into this non-fertile field is
typically a waste of money, as the worker has
little he/she can do with the new knowledge.
Conversely, in a highly empowered culture,
education and training is like adding oxygen to
an already hot fire – leverages the fuel already
present to intensify and speed up the combustion
rate.
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Effective Leadership & Culture – When a person with otherwise good leadership ability
assumes leadership of an otherwise bureaucratic
organization, most of what he/she has to offer
ends up being wasted or so completely diffused
as to accomplish little. Exciting visions of the
future for the organization are filtered “down”
through layer after layer of entrenched
bureaucracy before ever reaching the line level.
This is why putting a new Cabinet-level official
in a government agency typically has so little
effect, or why a new leader in a big-city school
system seems to accomplish little. In the private
sector, we have seen truly exciting leaders step
into CEO roles at large corporations only to
accomplish little, due to their inability to
change the ponderous, change resistant
non-empowered organization culture. By contrast,
if the new leader is able to substantially alter
the culture towards a highly empowered work
environment, then the vision for the company’s
future, its possibilities and potential, and
mission, can all serve to inspire and motivate
the empowered, now-capable individual workers in
the company to become individually
high-performing, collaborating team oriented
contributors towards that success. |
Alternatives
Since leaders of organizations are faced with the
reality that their company is somewhere along the
bureaucracy – empowerment continuum we outlined
above, the alternatives facing them are simple on
the surface, while involving some difficulty at the
detailed level. Having engineered several of these
organization culture changes ourselves, plus our
research, we can offer some suggestions:
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Move now
– delay, extensive consideration, deliberating,
all convey a not-too-subtle message of fear,
lack of confidence in both yourself and in your
coworkers. Success seems to go to those who act
boldly, expeditiously, and with courage.
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It’s not as hard as you think
– much of the details of how to operate
effectively in a newly empowered culture can and
will be effectively worked out by those who do
the work. You do not have to resolve every issue
a team of left-brained thinkers comes up with.
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Act from the heart
– inspiration, courage, and confidence do not
come from the logical, left-brained parts of our
beings. People have an inherent desire to make
something of value with their lives –
leadership’s job is to give them the chance to
do this. When one actually takes in an
inspirational vision articulated by a good
leader, something powerful within them shifts.
Remember that there are tears of inspiration,
joy and meaning – altogether different from the
tears of sadness, grief and loss. Do not confuse
them – allow the former to occur.
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Ask for help
– an effective leader, who “gets” the servant
leadership concept, confesses his limitations
frankly and openly, asking for those he is
leading for their involvement, caring about
results and performance, and their knowledge and
effort to achieve the vision for the
organization. This is where each person’s
inherent desire to be useful, valuable, if not
blocked by cynicism and resignation, comes into
effective play. |
Powerful Results
Increasingly we are seeing a global world where
companies that have mastered the principle of work
activity ownership – of empowerment cultures, are
leading the way into the future in their industries.
It is vital in seeing this to not be distracted by
short-term successes, of companies who are, for the
moment, leading in their industries because they
went to China first (or to Bangladesh), have a ring
of patents around their processes, or other such
historical or strategic advantage.
The fundamental fact is that, even in these
situations, there is an untapped advantage,
potential that is not being put to use, in making
the most of each person in their organization.
Moving to a low-cost country, such as China, will
give a temporary advantage – very temporary,
however. When high levels of empowerment and work
activity ownership are added, the advantage is the
same as in a higher cost environment – better
performance, higher profitability, growing market
share, more secure, predictable performance.
We welcome your feedback and comments. Send us your
questions and we’ll answer them in a future
Newsletter. Please type in the address.
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Paul
Deis
