The key to better performance is encouraging employees to take personal

responsibility for their own behavior. This means that when workers see a problem,
they know it's their job to tackle it...and figuring out how they might be
contributing to the problem. The only thing that restricts empowerment is because
the concepts are never questioned and employees are encouraged not to reflect on
their own behavior and attitudes. By assigning all the responsibility for fixing
problems to management, they encourage managers not to relinquish the top down,
command and control mindset that prevents empowerment. People follow rules but do
not take initiative, they are very unlikely to take risk and unlikely to engage in
double loop learning. They will not adopt the new behaviors needed to keep their
companies competitive. Companies struggle with transition from command and control
to employee empowerment and organization learning. Its not the Employee surveys and
focus groups that encourage employees from learning to understand their own
behavior. What does encourage employees is genuine employee empowerment.
Some ways to encourage employee responsibility:
This involves asking questions to oneself like the following:
How long have you known about this problem?
What have you done to address it?
What prevents you from questioning and correcting problems?
How would you redesign our company to encourage more initiative?
It is also important to understand that managers In the name of positive thinking,
often censor what everyone needs to say and hear. . .they deprive employees and
themselves of the opportunity to take responsibility for their own behavior. Each
time a CEO says ‘I promise you’, it undermines the goal of creating internal
commitment, intrinsic motivation and genuine empowerment.

Don't make promises you can't shouldn't keep.

Point out unreasonable employee requests.
Highlight the challenges of your markets as well as respect the employees.

Failure to do so generates externally committed employees who believe that

management manipulates them and see loyalty as allowing the manipulation to take
place.

CEO’s promise more power to young managers the next time they had a problem. This
builds external commitment. What the CEO does not do is to encourage the young man
to build permanent empowerment for himself on the basis of his own insights,
abilities and prerogatives. This produces superficial honesty and single loop
learning. For companies to change, employees must take active role in not only in
describing the faults of others but also in drawing out the truth about their own
behavior and motivation.Demand that all employees take personal responsibility for
the organization's success by focusing on their insights, not your solutions.

Intense competitive pressures require that managers need employees who think
constantly and creatively about the needs of the organization. They need employees
with as much as intrinsic motivation and a deep sense of organizational stewardship
as any company executive. -corporate communication must demand more of everyone
involved. -Leaders and subordinates must all begin struggling with a new level of
self awareness, candor and responsibility.