CHP 9: Empowerment in the workplace and the quality imperative

rewarding their honest behavior

Leaders can prevent employees from being untruthful by

caring leadership

leadership marked by two principal aspects—commitment to a task and concern for people. The component of caring is the underlying requirement for successful leadership. See commitment, concern, and Level 5 leadership.

Structure

A review of the organization chart may be necessary to determine which channels are being used and which exist only on paper. Analysis of informal work relationships may give ideas for modifying and clarifying the chain of command. In some instances, such a review can form the basis for a new and more effective organization chart.

the empowerment of people a caring leadership

According to robert greenleaf, what are the key factors to the success of private, public, and nonprofit sectors

communication

An essential element of an empowered and high-performance workplace is good

a closed office door can communicate a powerful message. Communication is the most important tool we have to get work done, and the best leaders are those who acknowledge this and work on communication effectiveness. These leaders tailor communication methods to the audience, knowing that some people learn best with visual cues and others learn best with audio cues. If they are explaining something verbally and the recipient says, "I don't see what you mean," they will draw a picture rather than repeat their words. If they are illustrating something visually and the recipient says, "I don't hear what you are saying," they will switch to the audio mode to communicate more effectively.

Effective leaders realize that it is impossible to not communicate, even when you are not speaking. For example,

Fear

Employees may find it hard to be truthful with leaders because of fear of punishment. If they have made a mistake, it may be difficult to communicate this information for fear of the leader's reaction. Leaders can best circumvent this by showing appreciation for employees' honesty and candor, even when they have made mistakes. Fear can be reduced by building a record of rewarding honesty.

criticize their own performance

Employees who possess and inferiority complex tend to excessively

(1) have a vision, (2) be demanding, (3) check small things, (4) share credit, (5) be calm and kind, (6) fix what you break, and (7) remember that perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Former four-star General and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is known for his leadership ability. He is universally admired as an empowering and effective leader. In My American Journey and It Worked for Me, he identifies rules gleaned from his years of experience:

the various factors causing conflict need to be diagnosed

How to resolve conflict that results from communication problems?

quality challenge faced by companies struggling to compete in a global marketplace. Simply, quality products and service are demanded by consumers, and providing them requires a talented, committed, and empowered workforce.

If there is a single most important factor in efforts to empower employees, it is the

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

In 1987, U.S. Congress established the _____ to promote quality awareness, to recognize quality and business achievements of U.S. organizations, and to publicize these organizations' successful performance strategies. Now America's highest honor for performance excellence, the Baldrige award is presented annually to U.S. organizations by the president of the United States. Awards are given in the categories of manufacturing, service company, small business, education (added 1999), healthcare (added 1999), and nonprofit/government sectors (added 2004).

Trust

Upward communication depends on what employees believe leaders do with reported information. If they think bad news results in disciplinary action or public criticism, employees will be reluctant to report bad news. If they think reports are not acted upon, few reports will be submitted voluntarily. Here, again, the answer is to reward employees positively when they convey information and to let them know the results of their communication efforts.

suggest opinions and be taken seriously

Welch's workout process had the effect of teaching people in organizations that they had the right to

Empowerment

is the expansion of employee knowledge, tasks, and decision-making responsibilities.

Total Quality Management

, "This is a cooperative form of doing business that relies on the talents and capabilities of both labor and management to continually improve quality and productivity using teams."87 Implicit in this definition are three essential ingredients: (1) participative leadership, (2) continuous process improvement, and (3) the use of groups.

Deming Chain Reaction

-Improve Quality -Costs Decrease -Productivity Improves -Increase Market Share with Better Quality and Lower Prices -Stay in Business -Provide jobs and more jobs

Lean manufacturing.

An increasingly popular approach to improving business performance is lean manufacturing, developed by Toyota as a way of achieving quality, flexibility, and cost effectiveness. The essence of lean is commonsense management. It emphasizes the use of accurate data, insightful analysis, creative thinking to design work processes, the reliable measurement of important inputs and outputs, and the workforce discipline to do this without exception. In a lean operation, rejects are unacceptable, overhead and inventory costs are kept to a minimum, and employees are empowered to halt production to correct problems at their source so that future problems can be avoided. With a well-managed lean process, an organization can develop, produce, and distribute products with significantly less staff, space, tools, time, and overall costs.113

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the quality movement became the catalyst for joining these two management views. Here was one management technique that combined participative leadership practices with a problem-solving orientation, and it was being fervently employed in a real-world lab by the industrious Japanese as they outstripped competitors and set new standards of quality.107

As business schools and colleges expanded during the 1970s, old-line professors steeped in classical principles of management distilled from Frederick Taylor had to defend their theories against the onslaught of young behavioral scientists oriented toward human relations. Some time passed before both groups came to understand that there is no single best way to manage in a complex environment. Both the classicist and the behaviorist had to find that there was good in both points of view.

communication

The best leaders are those who view ____ as the most important tool used to complete work

leaders become accessible to employees

The communication problem of distance is solved when

Likewise, by focusing on employee empowerment and personal growth, and by using group process techniques, quality improvement activities satisfy the needs of managers who trace their philosophical roots to Elton Mayo, Kurt Lewin, Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert, and other figures in the human relations and behavioral science school. These "soft-hearted" managers are especially pleased with the "in-process" benefits of improved morale, quality of work life, and the experience of community.

By focusing on quality goals and using problem-solving tools and methods, quality improvement activities satisfy the needs of managers whose values lie with Frederick Taylor, the management classicists, and quantitative analysis. Such "hard-nosed" managers are drawn to the "end product" benefits of better products and services.

Distortion

By the time leaders act on communication problems, frequently the problems are distorted. They have not been handled while they were still simple, easy to understand, and easily correctable. When the problems finally are addressed, so many people have said so many things over so long a period of time that it is difficult to separate fact from feelings and truth from fiction. The best solution is for leaders to solve communication problems as soon as they arise—before distortion occurs.

Step 1 PLAN desired change based on empirical data. Make pilot test, if necessary. Step 2 DO implement the change, or make a small-scale test. Step 3 CHECK what happened after the change occurred, or during the test. Step 4 ACT on lessons learned after study of results. Determine if predictions can be made as basis for new methods.

Deming thought quality could be improved by acting on the basis of hard data. The process for doing this is the PDCA cycle, a plan-do-check-act cycle using reliable data for continuous improvement:

Customer focus—learning and addressing customer needs and expectations. Leadership—establishing a vision and goals, establishing trust, and providing employes with the resources and inspiration to meet goals.Page 179 Involvement of people—establishing an environment in which employees understand their contribution, engage in problem solving, and acquire and share knowledge. Process approach to work—defining the tasks needed to successfully carry out each process and assigning responsibility for them. System approach to management—putting processes together into efficient systems that work together effectively. Continual improvement—teaching people how to identify areas for improvement and rewarding them for making improvements. Factual approach to decision making—gathering accurate performance data, sharing the data with employees, and using the data to make decisions. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships—working in a cooperative way with suppliers.

ISO 9001 standards of performance are set in eight areas:

one in the private sector, one in the public sector, and one in the nonprofit sector.

In his work on servant leadership, Robert Greenleaf proposes that the world can be saved as long as three truly great institutions exist—_____He believes that these organizations will achieve success through a spirit of community and that their success will serve as a beacon for the world.

(1) have a meeting only if a meeting is needed; (2) decide the objectives and make an agenda; (3) invite the participants and provide pertinent materials in advance; (4) pick a time and place that are convenient and conducive to productive work; (5) encourage active participation by everyone present; (6) agree upon action steps and responsibilities; and (7) write and distribute minutes of the meeting.78

In most organizations, meetings are necessary to exchange information and coordinate work, yet the example in the box is not unusual. It shows the need for leaders at all levels of responsibility to know how to plan, conduct, and use meetings effectively. Seven simple rules should be followed:

American companies have reappraised the traditional view of quality and have adopted what is known as the total quality management model in running their businesses.

In recent years, a number of U.S. companies have found that they could not achieve world-class quality by using traditional approaches to managing product and service quality. To enhance their competitive position,

Hawthorne effect

In the 1920s, Elton Mayo, Fritz Roethlisberger, and a team of researchers from Harvard University conducted a series of studies at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company in a suburb of Chicago. These studies were to profoundly affect management theory and practice. The term ________ is still used today to describe an artificial change in behavior due merely to the fact that a person or group is being studied. The Hawthorne studies marked the beginning of what would later be called the human relations school

distance

Leaders may be too removed from employees, either physically or emotionally. Infrequent face-to-face contact results in insufficient information, lack of loyalty, and reduced employee support. Leaders may waste time looking for gimmicks and techniques to overcome this communication problem when the best solution is readily available—frequent, visible, and meaningful personal interaction with employees. If leaders are accessible, both physically and psychologically, communication with employees will improve.

Create consistency and continuity of purpose. Plan products with an eye to the long-range needs of the company; don't succumb to the pressures of the quarterly report. Set high standards. No company can compete in the world market until its management discards old notions about acceptable levels of mistakes, defects, and inadequate training and supervision. Eliminate dependence on mass inspection for quality. Use statistical controls for incoming and outgoing goods. Reduce the number of suppliers. Buy based on statistical evidence of quality, not price. Recognize that there are two sources of quality problems: faulty systems (85 percent probability) and the production worker (15 percent probability). Strive to constantly improve the system. Improve job training. Make continuous learning a way of life. Teach statistical techniques. The rudiments can be learned in a five-day intensive course. Provide a higher level of supervision. Focus supervision on helping people to do a better job, and provide tools and techniques for people to have pride in their work. Break down barriers between departments. Encourage problem solving through teamwork. Create a team consisting of design, research, sales, purchasing, and production personnel to eliminate errors and waste. Stamp out fear by encouraging open, two-way communication. Abolish numerical goals and slogans. Use statistical methods for continuous improvement of quality and productivity. Remove barriers to pride of work. Institute a vigorous program of education and training to keep people abreast of new developments in methods, materials, and technologies. Clearly define management's permanent commitment to quality and productivity.

No discussion about leadership, empowerment, and quality is complete without including Deming's 14 points for a successful workplace. These points or practices can be applied in both private and public organizations.

WHERE PEOPLE GO FOR INFO immediate supervisor grapevine policy handbook

One of the best ways to achieve effective communication is to recognize where most people prefer to get information, as opposed to where they actually receive it.

Six Sigma Quality.

One of the most important developments in quality management has been the introduction of statistical tools to analyze the causes of product defects in an approach called Six Sigma Quality. Originating at Motorola in 1986, Six Sigma became popular in the 1990s after it was embraced by General Electric. The term is now widely used to describe a variety of performance improvement efforts (improving quality, increasing efficiency, cutting costs, and the like). In essence, Six Sigma seeks to remove variability from a process, thus avoiding errors and defects. Six Sigma quality is defined as having no more than 3.4 defects per million. At Six Sigma, a product or service is defect free 99.99966 percent of the time. The mantra of Six Sigma practitioners is DMAIC, standing for design, measure, analyze, improve, control for quality excellence.

Conflict

Personality differences sometimes create communication breakdown. Sometimes, too, power struggles to gain control of a group or situation can cause communication to become almost nonexistent. The factors causing conflict should be diagnosed, areas requiring improvement identified, and action taken to solve the problem as Page 168soon as possible.

Checklist procedures.

Physician Atul Gawande has an interesting prescription: Every professional should write—in her field or out, for others or herself, but by all means write. Taking his own medicine, Gawande has written a trilogy of books on medicine today (Complications, Better, and The Checklist Manifesto). Gawande's third book is a must-read for leaders and organizations challenged to get things done right, especially when tasks are complex and specialized knowledge and skills are required.

"consistency of purpose," the need for statistical measurement to reduce variation, and the value of teamwork between workers and managers. They listened, they learned, and they practiced what Deming preached. Japanese manufacturers became profitable, well managed, and competitive.

Quality was Deming's message to the Japanese. Specifically, he taught the importance of

Develop a science for each element of an employee's work that replaces the old rule-of-thumb method. Scientifically select, train, teach, and develop the worker. (In the past, the employee chose the job and was self-trained.) Heartily cooperate with employees to ensure that all work is done in accordance with the principles of the science that has been developed. Divide the work and responsibility between management and employee. Managers should take over all work for which they are better fitted than the worker. (In the past, the worker took almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility.)100

Taylor is recognized today as the father of modern management and of the industrial engineering discipline. His scientific management philosophy is summarized in four basic principles

Companies that adopted quality management practices experienced an overall improvement in business performance. In nearly all cases, companies that used total quality management practices achieved better employee relations, higher productivity, greater customer satisfaction, increased market share, and improved profitability. Companies did not use a cookbook approach in implementing successful quality management systems, but common features that contributed to improved performance can be identified: Corporate attention was focused on meeting customer needs as a first priority; senior management led the way in building values into company operations; all employees were suitably trained, empowered, and involved in efforts to continuously improve quality and reduce costs; and systematic processes were integrated throughout the organization to foster continuous improvement. The diversity of companies studied showed that quality management is useful for small companies (500 or fewer employees) as well as large companies, and for service companies as well as manufacturers. Many different kinds of companies benefited from putting quality management practices into place. However, none of these companies reaped those benefits immediately. Companies improved their performance on average in about two and one-half years. Management allowed enough time for results to be achieved rather than emphasizing short-term gains.

Results

Trust in people. Assume they will work to implement organizational goals if given a chance. Invest in people. View people as the organization's most important resource, which, if cultivated, will yield positive returns. Recognize accomplishments. Symbolic rewards are extremely important. Show people that they are valued. Decentralize decision making. Put responsibility for making decisions where the information is and as close to the customer as possible. View work as a cooperative effort. Model and reinforce the idea that by working together, people accomplish more

Robert Cole, influential author and educator, identifies five principles of leadership that empower people. Implicit in these principles is the assumption that broad participation in the decision-making process is necessary for success.

Better employee relations were realized. Employees experienced increased job satisfaction and improved attendance; employee turnover also decreased. Improved quality and lower cost were attained. Companies increased the reliability and on-time delivery of their product or service, and they reduced errors, product lead time, and their cost of quality. Greater customer satisfaction was accomplished, based on the companies' survey results of their consumers' overall perceptions about a product or service, the number of complaints received, and customer retention rates.

Specific findings revealed U.S. companies can improve performance through quality efforts.

Complexes

Status and role problems can also affect communication. When employees feel they have low status, they may be overly critical of their own ideas and correspondingly reluctant to communicate information upward. They may feel inferior. Conversely, a leader who is status conscious may act superior and may fail to listen to employees. The solution is to treat all employees with equal respect, to listen to the ideas of Page 167all employees. More than any other leadership action, willingness to listen opens communication channels, raises employee pride, and results in employee loyalty.

the immediate supervisor, small group meetings, top executives, the policy handbook, orientation programs, and member newsletters.

The actual and preferred rankings of where people go for information show that people want accurate, timely, and complete information, and that their most preferred sources are

ISO standards.

The influence of the quality movement has become even more important with the emergence of ISO standards. ISO is a series of voluntary quality standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization, started in 1947. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO is a network of national standards institutions in more than 190 countries. Its purpose is to promote worldwide proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards. The number of companies receiving ISO certification continues to grow as hundreds of thousands of companies in manufacturing and service industries throughout the world are ISO certified.

immediate supervisor policy handbook

The most preferred sources of info for people in organizations are

Quality is defined by the customer. Senior leadership creates clear quality values and builds these values into the way the organization operates. Quality excellence derives from having well-designed and well-executed systems and processes. Continuous quality improvement is part of the management of all systems and processes. Goals are developed, as well as strategic and operational plans, to achieve quality leadership. Shortening the response time of all operations and processes of the organization is part of the quality-improvement effort. Operations and decisions of the organization are based on facts and data. All employees are suitably trained and involved in quality activities. Design quality and defect and error prevention are major elements of the quality system. Quality requirements are communicated to suppliers and the organization works to elevate supplier quality performance.

The most widely accepted definition of what constitutes quality exists in the criteria for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award:

Size

The size of an organization influences the communication process. Sometimes the distance between policy makers and action takers may be too great. Those who implement a policy or decision may have no role in establishing the policy and thus may feel little responsibility for its success. A rule of thumb is to set a limit on the size of work units. Once an autonomous work unit exceeds roughly 200 members, the quality of work and the quality of work life usually go down. The atmosphere is not as friendly, because people do not know each other as individuals, and employee motivation decreases. People do not seem to care as much as they used to when the work group was smaller.

(1) They need to know the grand plan—the purpose, values, and strategies for success for the organization; (2) they need to know what is expected of them personally, and why; and (3) they need to have feedback on individual performance, with recognition for their efforts.

There are many books and articles on how to communicate; the question is, What should be communicated? Employees from the executive suite to the shop floor have three "needs to know":

high personal energy, the ability to energize others, the edge to make tough decisions, and the ability to execute strategy

Welch believed that the best strategies would not work without the right leaders. So he selected, trained, and held leaders accountable to the four E's of leadership:

workout process

Welch wiped out entire layers of bureaucratic management, and he launched the famous ___, in which employees at all levels of an operation gathered for "town meetings" with their bosses and asked questions or made proposals about how the place could run better—80 percent requiring some kind of response then and there.

check small things be calm and kind share credit have a vision

What are the rules of leadership identified by former US secretary of state colin powell?

a limit must be set on the size of a work unit

What is the rule of thumb that should be used to address the communication problems arising from an org's size?

coordinate work in the organization

Why do we need meetings?

empowerment

authorization and enablement; the awakening, liberation, and inspiration of people. Principles of empowerment include trust in people, investment in people, recognition of accomplishment, and decentralized decision making. Empowerment is closely associated with the concepts of democratic and participative leadership. See democratic and participative leadership.