Long Range Planning, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 13 to 21, 1993 0024&6301/93 $6.00 + .

OO 13
Printed in Great Britain 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd

The Deceptive Allure of

Empowerment
Tony Eccles

Empowerment has become a favoured way of seeking to utilize Despite its appeal, empowerment can be trivial. One
the talents of employees. The article takes a sceptical view of
well-known retail chain encourages its store teams
the practical application of empowerment, since its basic
techniques have been available, but underused, for decades.
to show initiative and responsibility. But they
Given this, is the average Western firm in a position to take cannot alter prices, product specifications, decor or
advantage of the benefits which can flow from empowering fittings at store levels and have virtually no say over
employees? A management would have to be prepared to re- the product range or which items are stocked in the
shape the power structures and processes of the organization
store. What initiative means is that, if they see hot
and build up a hierarchy of empowerment practices if
significant gains were to be made. Contrary to many assump-
weather approaching, they should order up more
tions, empowerment in no way diminishes managerial re- sandals, sandwiches and soft drinks. All that they arc
sponsibility for leadership, judgement and decisive action. empowered to do is to carry out the closely specified
task with maximum responsiveness to given signals,
with minimal discretion in their consequent actions.
They simply have to keep things going, using minor
‘Empowerment’ has become a vogue word for the discretions to pacify complaining customers and to
process of encouraging employees-including tweak store operations ever more efficiently.
managers-to utilize their skills and experience
more by giving them the power to use more Similarly, the much vaunted ‘Workout’ pro-
judgcment and discretion in their work. At its best, gramme at GE results in such supposedly note-
empowerment provides employees with enough worthy items as the moving of factory pipes so that
authority, resources and latitude to be able to work the product no longer spilt onto the floor and in
effectively in the service of the organization. persuading a manager to open closed windows to
ventilate an over-hot workspace.’ In neither case
But is empowerment in practice much more than could the employees do those things without
dclcgation m-visited, a new word for normal managerial authority. More interesting were
process improvement, a re-matching of authority suggestions to adopt a cheaper in-house design of a
and responsibility in an era when customizing of protective shield, source paint from one not two
products and services requires that discretion must suppliers to reduce inconsistency, and to connect
be available at levels all the way down to the cash registers to speed up the opening of new
customer-facing staff? Empowerment has become customer accounts. Again, the cmployecs were not
fashionable, not from any moral imperative about empowered to do anything-only to recommend.
involving employees in the schemes of the com- Decision and resource power remained jrmly with
pany, nor is it a response to higher values of management. The only alteration was that, with
democracry. The motives are instrumental rather ‘Workout’, the responsibility for the burden of
than heroic, as managements respond to the needs of proof shifted, so that rather than the employees
the business when they realize that their employees needing to prove their case, the onus of decision lay
have rich and varied, if incoherently organized and on the manager, who could only kill the idea by
underused, insights and experiences. To inflate these explicit rejection. Yet it was still the managers’
practical factors into a grandiose crusade of power decision and the employees remained supplicants.
re-distribution does little service to the merits of
empowerment because, in practice, its limitations These examples remind us that much of empower-
arc often all too obvious. ment is ordinary common sense activity and simply
resurrects recognizable past fashions in a new guise
Tony Eccles is Professor of Strategic Management and Director of the (see Figure 1). The stlggestion schemes which were
Senior Executive Programme at London Business School. favoured 30 years ago have been revived as a way of
14 Long Range Planning Vol. 26 December 1993

l ‘Suggestion Involvement’ = Suggestion Schemes (30 years)

l ‘Job Involvement’ = Job Enrichment (25 years)

l ‘High Involvement’ = Worker Participation (15 years)

(but not Industrial Democracy)

Figure 1. The history of empowerment

tapping workers’ direct experience at the sharp end Suggestion Involvement

of the organization where products and services arc
made and delivered. Similarly,job enrichment, touted ‘Suggestion involvement is akin to the suggestion
some 25 years ago as the route to capturing workers’ scheme examples already quoted. Employees propose,
latent skills in the service of the organization, and hut the management disposes. Ideas come from
then sidelined as having insufficient productive employees and management decides whether to
effect, is now recommended again as another aspect adopt them. Empowerment in this mode is quite
of empowerment. Those who advocated worker close to the Japanese technique of Kuizen; the
participation 15 years ago as the route to harmony continuous, everyday, small-step improvements in
and productivity at work, only to see the appeal of all aspects of a business, which encourages everyone
mutuality-as power sharing was christened- to get involved in improving every day.
-crumble under the impact of free market econ-
omics and the unremitting hostility of Anglo-Saxon An example would be the training of operators to
managements, can be permitted a wry smile. Now, carry out self-maintenance of equipment rather than
as a branch of empowerment, it is deemed to be a wait for the attentions of specialists with elaborate
prospective salvation for companies which arc maintenance routines. Employees’ suggestions
struggling to compete with fierce international emanate from the context of their current jobs,
competition. though in terms of Quinn’s logical incremcntalism
the cumulative effect might have strategic con-
notations. Kuizen’s approach is one of problem
These three elements (suggestion schemes, job solving and management’s job is to provide struc-
enrichment and worker participation) have been rc- ture, systems, resources and control and planning
packaged to form a spectrum of empowerment for functions for the people to add value.’ The people
service companies analysed and codified by Bowen do not do as they like, do not operate in a vacuum
and Lawler in a three part range consisting of and suggestions have to be accepted by the firm
‘suggestion involvement’, ‘job involvement’, and before they can be actioned. Kuizerl could be
‘high involvement’.’ (See Figures 2 and 3.) summarized as ‘Policy down and micro-solutions up’.

High

Empower
Need

Suggestion Job High -

Empowerment Options

Figure 2. Options and needs

 The Deceptive Allure of Empowerment 15

Top Management
Senior Management
Professionals
Middle Management
Technical
Supervisors
Team Leaders
Customer-facing Staff
Team Members
Shopfloor Staff

Suggestion Job High _

Empowerment Options

Figure 3. Options and levels

Kai~en may be prevalent in advanced Japanese anything else. The answers are that the suggestions
companics but there is a huge gap to be straddled by could only be assessed and actioned at the level of
Western firms, as the following examples indicate. first-line supervision unless the employees were
A few years ago, a group of senior executives of a given the licence to implement their own sugges-
medium-size Western electronics company were tions without reference to even their supervisor.
being addressed by an industrial specialist lately on How clsc could you deal with 5000 to 16,000 ideas
the staff of a Western Embassy in Tokyo. Did their per working day?
firm have suggestion schemes, he asked, and if so,
how many suggestions did they receive in a year? This leads to the next question. How many Western
Yes, they replied; hundreds of ideas were proposed, companies are geared up with supervisors and employees
some being implemented. How many suggestions capable and empowered to deal with such work at that
did they think Hitachi got from 80,000 personnel, intensity? Why would opening some closed vents in
he asked? They guessed at between 5000 and GE ever get to the level where a manager had to
100,000. Last year, he told them, it was 4.15m--an consider and adjudicate on such a minor problem?
average of one suggestion per employee per week. There These examples reveal just how adrift Western
was a stunned silence. Then the executives recov- companies can be from believing that suggestion
ered and began to tight back against the inference of involvement is all that they need to have. Tom
this riveting news. ‘Bet some of the ideas were not Peters has claimed that companies where there is
any good’, they claimed. ‘Bet some of them were empowerment have dramatically higher rates of
the same’. ‘Bet management had already thought of employee suggestions. But do they have anything
some of them’. ‘Bet some of them were only put more? In order to gain the advantages from
forward in order to look good’ (as though that was employee involvement, there would have to be a
an offence). He nodded each time before eventually fundamental shift in managerial power, communi-
responding, ‘You can slice up 4.15m several times cations, working practices and assumptions for
and it is still a very large number’. They agreed, companies to obtain and leverage the latent expert-
gradually coming to terms with the implications, ise embedded in employees’ cxpcricnccs and judge-
though little action ensued (that firm was later taken mcnts-which is what GE has been seeking to do.
over after several more years of lacklustre perform- But it faces a monumental task.
ance). Similarly, Garratt wrote of another Japanese
company which implements 5000 staff suggestions That such a shift would be fruitful is not in doubt.
per day, or 1.25m/year.4 Toyota has been reported The Japanese companies which have relied on the
as receiving 2 million suggestions a year in 1987 triple thrusts of cost reduction, quality cnhancc-
from its (then) 84,000 staff, 97 per cent of which ment, and product innovation have been greatly
were implemented. helped through harnessing the intelligence undcr-
pinning the vast numbers of suggestions and the
The transfixing question which arises is not about worker commitment that lies behind them. Not
the bald number of suggestions-daunting as that only have many Japanese companies taken
is-but the issue of process. How could a company employees and their suggestions seriously; they
actually deal with the e&t of such a torrent of ideas? have fostered a managerial climate in which Kaizcn
Who would consider and action them all? Clearly has flourished. Some Western companies have
not the management, for it would have no time for embraced these notions in theory; in some casts,
16 Long Range Planning Vol. 26 December 1993

such as Xerox, they have sought to put them into and committed, its mcmbcrs must have perched on
practice; but the limited extent to which ‘suggestion the Chief Executive’s shoulders, so to speak, and
involvement’ has become second nature is worry- become intimately involved and knowledgeable
ing. about the firm’s strategy. It must bc disappointing to
those who peddle this line, that many employees
wish for nothing of the kind and would simply

Job Involvement prefer to bc told what the company’s goals arc, how
it intends to pursue those goals, what that means for
The second Bowcn and Lawlcr category was that of them and their jobs and what, in consequence, they
‘Job involvement’ in which job rcsponsibilitics arc will bc required to do and how it will bc mcasurcd
enriched and teamwork is encouraged, all within and rewarded. In short, there are large numbers of
the framework of the tasks which are to be employees who might be flattered to be taken into
performed. Employees have some autonomy over the firm’s confidence but feel no more than a cosy
how the job is to be done, but not much freedom to glow of voyeurism, almost unrelated to their
choose what to do. Typically, that discretion is quite specific jobs.
limited. It may encompass giving a complaining
customer a benefit, deciding whether a customer The growth of professional practices, the influcncc
request is reasonable to meet, but cmpowcrment is of collcgial gatherings such as academic groups, has
often simply giving employees some autonomy led observers who inhabit those domains to believe
over limited fluctuations in their work and improv- that the whole world already works like that too.
ing their immediate working collaborations. In Or will shortly. Yet there arc cmployccs who
‘Building the Empowered Organization’, all the cannot count, some cannot read, a few arc thieves,
examples quoted are of people, typically in multi- others can’t cvcn organize their private life with any
function teams, improving the performance of their marked degree of sophistication. It is worth listen-
existing operational tasks, not of rc-designing what ing to the often maudlin sentiments cxpresscd by
the task should be nor deciding anything strategic.’ employees in VOX pop television interviews outside
Usually, what is being saved is time or manpower, factories when some drama unfolds, and rcflcct on
with a resulting cost dccrcasc. In less favourablc the insights which are on display. Quite how thcsc
cxpcrienccs, workers below the level of team leader pcoplc could contribute readily to the strategy of
arc more likely to rcscrvc their positions, withhold Ford is not clear.
their full commitment and retain traditional non-
managerial pcrspcctivcs. In 1985, at a Motorola plant in Illinois which had an
experienced and productive workforce, the
Yet, as with suggestion involvement, job involvc- employees wcrc given a test which average 12 year
mcnt has great potential for enhancing productivity olds should pass. Questions included ‘What perccnt-
and quality through finding better ways of organ- age of 100 is lo? Sixty per cent of employees failed
izing and carrying out tasks. The managerial the test. Similarly, the state telephone company in
commitment needs to be of open communication, Illinois found that 11 out of 12 school lcavcrs failed
team building, high-quality conflict resolution its entrance test, involving basic sentence construc-
systems, openness to new ideas, candid dcbatc, tion and skills such that they could convcrsc with a
budgets for explorations and experiments and a customer in explaining a bill, itemizing charges or
gcncral managerial willingness to relinquish some of looking up data in a basic data resources document.”
the command and control impositions which shape
a traditional administration. Yet in the 197Os, it was thought that worker
participation held the key to fruitful partnership
between workers and managers, although many

High Involvement managcmcnts

idea of sharing
were sccptical,
power and
hostile
tended
even, to the
to talk of
The third Bowen and Lawler empowcrmcnt catc- involvcmcnt rather than participation in decision
gory was that of ‘High involvement’, which is akin taking. In Britain, unions implausibly sought power
to ‘Job involvement’ but goes further in that at the strategic level in firms, while rejecting the idea
employees participate in work-unit decisions. To do that they should then share responsibility for the
this effectively they need to have more open decisions which they would jointly make.’ If the
information, business and team skills. Thcsc high power without responsibility which they sought
involvement schcmcs, wrote Bowcn and Lawler, was, in Stanly Baldwin’s cutting phrase ‘the role of
are as yet uncertain in their feasibility or in their the harlot throughout the ages’ (he was talking of
cffcct on the performance of the organization. popular newspapers at the time), it was not
surprising that employers wcrc less than ecstatic
With a restricted focus on participation at work- about worker participation. Much of the talk about
unit lcvcl, this is still light years away from having worker participation within the organization abated
those cmployccs become involved in the company’s as recession and rising unemployment clipped the
strategy. There is this odd idea among cmpowcr- bargaining power of workers and as the conflicts of
mcnt zealots that for a workforcc to bc motivated interest for organized labour became more obvious.
 The Deceptive Allure of Empowerment 17

Yet, as economies have become more open, the last unfamiliar with the costly nuisance of trying to
decade has seen major alterations in the attitudes of produce a non-standard, uncxpccted, short-order
trade unions as the growth of international competi- product promised to a customer by a salesperson
tive pressures has curtailed their chances of controll- who was trying to bc helpful. A car company which
ing events in any one economy, and as rivalries and empowers factory production workers may not be
self-interest have prevented any effective cross- grateful if the ensuing extra output cannot be sold,
border alliances between unions. Their acceptance despite marketing’s best efforts. Job cmpowcrcd
of competitive markets has led to radically revised workers will not necessarily spot the costs of extra
assumptions about the nature of the world of work. inventory and stock obsolcsccncc which will result.

Given these changed attitudes and circumstances, a Yet without an irretrievable (in the short term)
resurgence of managerial interest in high involve- handing over of discretion and autonomy, em-
ment is unsurprising, though high involvement powerment will be just hollow, not necessarily a
usually means sharing work-unit decisions and does conscious hoax by senior managers upon those they
not involve joint corporate decision making. But is seek to ‘empower’ below them; but a self-deception
there any sign that managements are willing to hand in which responsibility is down-loaded on to less
over much power to low-level employees? And if senior personnel, but the real autonomy which
they did, would it help? The assumption underlying would enable them to ‘own’ their empowered jobs
worker participation and high involvement is that is withheld. The power would remain with he or
the resulting decisions and activities will be of higher she who empowered. Employees can scnsc when
quality, and less likely to be contested, than if they, and their managers, are disempowcrcd. One
management specifies the rules which must be particularly bitter labour dispute was noted for
followed. The participative solution to a problem, middle management’s use of ‘the magic phone’, that
be that modest or strategic, may be different but is the phone calls made to senior management when
should be better-for three reasons it is thought. the middle management had no discretion to agree a
Firstly, that the lower level employee will be better demand. In the end, the disgruntled employees
able to gauge what should be done; secondly, that simply refused to deal with them and insisted,
he or she will be better motivated than if mcrcly successfully, on dealing direct with senior manage-
carrying out procedures designated by managc- ment. Soon after the dispute the middle managers
ment ; thirdly, that lower level employees arc closer joined a trade union and themselves united to
to the customer. This raises a number of questions. negotiate with the company. They had become lost
to management through being disempowcrcd.

From studying Japanese management in Britain,

The Local Perspective Dclbridge, Turnbull & Wilkinson have claimed that
Many organizational experts are convinced that Total Quality Management is meant to ‘empower’
with wider ownership of solutions, change becomes workers to police their own performance, but not set their
easier and solutions to problems more appropriate. own goals or target levels, and that this really means a
But will the different solution be superior? It may be management goal of ‘total management control’ because
technically inferior, more parochial, though prob- of ‘increased surveillance and monitoring of
ably easier to achieve. One fundamental assumption workers’ activities . . hcightcncd responsibility and
about management hierarchies is that, the further up accountability, the harnessing of peer pressure
the organization you are, the wider and wiser is within ‘teams’ . . pushing back the frontiers of
your perspective. The lower level employee may be control. . . such that any gains made by workers arc
more familiar with the detail of the problem being noticed and appropriated (by the firm)‘. This
faced, but more ignorant of the subtleties of the particular view may not be wholly persuasive, but it
problem, more self-interested in the shape of the does illustrate the sccpticism which cxccssivc claims
outcome, more short-sighted about its effects, more about empowerment can evoke.’
unlikely to come to a considered view. A persistent
complaint from corporate managements which The opposite of havingpower without responsibility is to
hold discussions about performance with the be given responsibility without power-the role of the
employees of units is the blinkercd perspective and, scapegoat throughout the ages. At its worst, this is just
as one Human Rcsourccs director bemoaned, ‘In delegating blame. The dilemma for a management is
three years oftaking our corporate results road show where to set the limits of autonomy. As Hayek
round each of our units, we have never had a single wrote ‘Freedom is a matter of choosing the right
observation or question about the Group. All the kind of constraints’. To solve this dilemma, Watcr-
questions were about their own unit’. man recommended a combination of direction and
empowerment so that guidelines and parameters are
A further problem with delegating power to low set by management.” In short, cmpowercd workers
levels is that a micro decision made parochially by have to bc orchestrated by management. The
an empowered employee can have costly conse- orchestration might take the form of a phased
quences if it impacts adversely on another part of the relcasc of power and discretion. For employees to be
organization. No one who has run a factory will be empowered, they have to ‘earn’ the right to the next
18 Long Range Planning Vol. 26 IIcccmbcr 1003

lcvcl of self-responsibility; i.c. they have to show service busincsscs whcrc junior staff not only meet
that they dcrervc and can bc cntrustcd with it. customers, but dclivcr the service. It is at the frontier
Effective empowcrmcnt is thus delivcrcd through a of the scrvicc organization that knowlcdgc and
combination of power release and responsibility, flexibility arc rcquircd, with the low-lcvcl
with measurable performance criteria to gauge the cn~ploycc knowing enough to agree or decline to
cffccts. Empoll~m4 crriployccr rrmi wilrlnpial support nicct particular requests. Similarly, in factories,
rather than being offcrcd fine phrases and then being cmployccs riced to bc able to inter-relate in ways not
left to get on with it. required when closely specified tasks wcrc pcr-
formed in Taylorian style by narrowly focused
Thcrc arc circunlstmccs in which empowcrmcnt, specialist workers. Multi-skilling and team Lvorking
like delegation. is difficult to arrange. A govcrntnent requires inter-personal skills and the use of judge-
dcpartnicnt supplying statutory services \vill want nient in uncertain circunistanccs.
its customer-facing staff to bc consistent in the
application of spccificd rules. IIiscrction in the Druckcr is less pcrcuadcd of this need and nlakcs the
provision of public service can bc risky and lead to distinction between ‘knowlcdgc workers’ and
,lnomalics, rule drift and recrimination as initintivcs ‘cn~ployccs who work in subordinate and menial
become cnlbcddcd aj new practices. Charities, like occupations’ who, hc wrote, inay see littlc change in
govcrnmcnt dcpartnlcnts, have ;1 wider rang of their work front cnlpowcrmcnt.” It is the know-
stakcholdcr constitucncies~~~iIlcludinS govcrnmcnt, lcdgc workers who may need enhanced autononly
general public, media, volunteers, and donors. quite to sustain their motivation bccausc, as Druckcr
apart from the normal OIICS of staff. trurtccs and poiilts out, ‘they c:ulnot bc supervised cffcctively.
clicnta. Most actions by a charity will rcquirc at lcast Unless the); know nlorc about their specialty than
tacit approval from thcsc diff;rcnt groups. Such anybody clsc in the organization, they are basically
procedural rcquircrncnts inhibit cn~powcrmcnt in uscless”~.
practice.“’
Thcrc is a snag in IIruckcr’s distinction. If Garratt is
If cvcn tlic cmpowcrin g ofcmployees in a straight- right, thcrc nlay come to bc only four bands of
forward coniincrcial firm dots iiot rcinove many of pc~)plc in organizations of the fiitlturc~--directors,
man~gemcnt~ traditional tasks of mediating both inanagcrs, supervisors, and customer-f3cing staff.”
\tithin the organization and with the outside urorld This last group nlust contain imany of the pcoplc
of customers and suppliers, then is the ganlc worth whose work IIruckcr sees as changing little as a
the candle? 1Iespitc the overblown rhetoric of result ofciiipc~\,vci-inciit. Yet it is prcciscly thcrc that
cnlpowcrnlcnt, the unequivocal answer is. yes. The flcsibility is rcquircd, ccrtaiiily in service industries.
need for involvcmcnt has intcnsificd. The reasons The need to respond to inlnlcdiate, tact to fact,
for this arc clear. It is a long time since Henry Ford custonlcr dcnlands for unanticipated scrvic-c activ-
said ‘any colour you like as long as it’s black’. No~v. itics, rcquircs knowlcdgc, confidence. judgenlent,
\j,ith 3O,OOO dif&-ent spccitications avnilablc for a discretion and autonomy. The three ‘nicnial’ cx-
BMW 3 scrics car and 12m variants in a Japancsc dniples hc gives arc of supcrmarkct salts-clerk,
bicvclc makers range. the idea of custoniizcd hospital cleaner, and dclivcry-truck driver. But all
pr&~uctj and m-vices within a low-cost production of thcsc scrvc custonlers f:icc to fact and need some
system is \vcll established. I3ut how then do you discretion to do thcirjobs well. As one senior service
organize to cnsurc flcxiblc rcspo~~~cs within the industry nlanagcr put it ‘En~powcrmcnt is ilatural
productioii systcni and hoxv do you treat custonlcr and ncccssary for customer-filcing oqqanizations’.
rcqucsts that cross the boundary bctwccn what is Thcsc ‘nlcnial’ job5 may change signltlcnntly; for
proffcrcd by the supplier and what is dcmandcd by instance, the dclivcry driver nlay bccornc ;I goods
the cu\tomcr? Thu-c has to bc wmc latitude given nlcrchandiscr alld salcspcrson at his delivery points.
both within the firnl and to the customer-facing
staff. With the growth of service economics, the
nunlbcr of‘ staff who meet customers has riscm, for
scrvicc is often face to fact or voice to voice. The
l3uilding Capabilities
ignorant, the socially unskilled, the dimwittcd, arc The task for organizations is fornlidablc. Not only is
handicapped in the starch for cnlploymcnt; prc- thcrc a conlpctitivc and custonler-driven need to bc
viously they could bc given spccificd tasks and kept zmorc cfficicnt and nlorc responsive, but cmployccs
iii factories well out of sight, not meeting a can bc sccptical as well as reluctant to take on nlorc
custo~llcr. responsibility. As one fi:nl put it, ‘thcrc is a dcnland
front below for cmpo\\;crnlcnt bcforc you give it,
Now organizations arc more likely to bleed bright, but then the dcnland evaporates when you do’. Yet
pcrsoilablc, well trained and knowlcdgcablc staff, cniployccs do hold priceless information as well as a
confident and able to USC‘ discretion in making key position in the cffcctivc dclivcry of outputs to
speedy judgclncnts~~~oftcn under prcssurc from custoniers, and cnipowcrnicnt provides a context to
dcnlandins custonlcrs. It is just as well that tap the value of their cspcrtise and expcriencc. Like
educational st:lndards have risen to crcatc a nlorc an oil field, it is 3 niatter ofacccssing it to raise the
capable pol_7”lacc~~whicli ir particularly valuable in yield and the rate of cstraction.
 The Deceptive Allure of Empowerment 19

The conclusion would surely be that a gentle and relates strongly to top management; job involvc-
protracted switch to an empowerment style would ment to middle management, technical and pro-
be sensible where management has the luxury, or fessional staff and suggestion involvement to super-
foresight, to begin the process before a crisis arrives. visors, technical and ordinary staff-with some job
The reason is that there is a hierarchy for empower- involvement also in work teams. A gauge of the
ment. If the organization does not have suggestion extent of an empowerment power shift is whether it
involvement at shop floor level, then can it move to changes the organization’s agenda or whether it
job involvement when still lacking the basic changes the organization’s decision proccsscs and
mechanisms of continuous improvement? A firm criteria. What happens when empowered
like that might be able to introduce job involvement employees want to do things with which the
at team-leader level and above because managers arc management fundamentally disagrees? A test ~?f
more used to cross-functional liaisons, but its chance meaning/ii1 empowerment might be how much employees
of doing so at operator level would surely be bleak? can decide what they do rather than just how they carry
And without job involvement, could the organiza- out (speci_fied) tasks.
tion move further to high involvement? (See
Figures 4 and 5.) The qualms about empowerment’s implications arc
not constrained to the shop floor but extend to
It would seem that high involvement normally middle managcmcnt also (see Figure 6). Changing

High

Job

Suggestion

Time

Figure 4. Empowerment sequence

Suggestion

t_
Figure 5. Empowerment hierarchy
20 Long Range Planning Vol. 26 Dcccmbcr 1993

Managers enthusiastically embracing the concept,

while having considerable difficulty in achieving it.

l Needs lots of resource

l Top management has to be persuaded/unified
l Middle management is wary and sceptical
9 Team leaders are enthused (their way up)
l Employees are prepared to take part, but not
transformed in perspective
l Different interpretations top to bottom

Figure 6. Empowcrmcnt problems

the (previously successful) habits lcarncd over many Analysis leads to a number of hypotheses which
years is not easy and ‘the more you dcvolvc, the need to bc tcstcd and debated more cxtcnsivcly.
more those in the middle need to know what those
above them want. It’s a big jump from top to (1) Empowerment is a functional rcsponsc to the
new demands of competition, markets and
bottom and thcrc is fear at all Icvcls’. Working out
customers, not a moral embracing of values.
new bchaviours at lcvcls unused to much autonomy
can take a long and painful time, so managcmcnt has (2) Most cmpowcrmcnt programmcs arc of
to coax and guide the process. If, at the same time, suggestion involvcmcnt and job involvcmcnt,
the organization has been dc-laycrcd, the fcwcr not high involvcnicnt.
cxpcricnccd intcrmcdiatc managers there arc to
decode the signals and fit them into the organiza- (3) Suggestion involvcnicnt is part of normal
practice for any competent managcnicnt.
tion’s new framework.” It can bc a tricky task for a
dcplctcd managcmcnt to help pcoplc begin to feel (4) Job involvcmcnt is gcncrally about how work is
embcddcd confidently in a new o&r. to be carried out, not what tasks should bc
undertaken.
Tapping workers’ talents for improving their own
(5) High involvement only occurs, when at all, at
work still lcaves managcmcnt to cope with the
the professional and managerial levels in larger
dilemmas, boundary managcmcnt issues, scrvicc
(Western) organizations.
lcvcl dilemmas and the like. The cmployccs may
have been cmpowcrcd, but the managers have not (6) Outside professional partnerships, cmpowcr-
been discmpowcrcd. Empowcrmcnt dots not mcnt does not extend to strategic powcr-
oblitcratc the continuing responsibility of managers sharing.
for the cffcctivc govcrnancc of the organization.
(7) Thcrc is a hierarchy of cmpowcrmcnt in that
Though their residual power may bccomc less
organizations arc unlikely to be able to move to
obvious, more latent compared to the prc-
high involvcmcnt without first engaging suc-
cmpowcrmcnt period, one bccomcs queasy when
ccssfully in job involvcmcnt, and suggestion
nianagcrc claim that they arc mcrc cnablcrs;
involvcmcnt should prcccdc the introduction of
orchcstrators of the self-managed; mentors, guides
job involvcmcnt.
and coaches. Orchestration may seem to imply mcrc
shcphcrding of dctcrmincd, knowing and The best new thing about cmpowermcnt is itself,
indcpcndcnt pcoplc. But who is in charge of an the word cmpowcrmcnt, which is so positive that it
orchestra? Agreed the conductor cannot lead in the has cnablcd managers to cmbracc old, well-known,
fact of the players’ mutiny, but he brings their more productive, ways of managing which had
contributions in and out, shaping their pcrformancc previously languished. The process is fascinatingly
through his judgcmcnt. Empowcrmcnt in commcr- inward-looking.
cial organizations dots not dissolve the need for
managerial lcadcrship, judgcmcnt, rule making, Rcforc they can market cmpowcrmcnt to their
control, dccisivc action and the allocation of cmployccs, managcmcnts have a more introvcrtcd
rcsourccs. task. They have to market it to themselves. Having
flocked to the banner of cmpowcrment, Western
Perhaps cmpowcrmcnt can only work when a managements arc now beginning to do what
powerful managcmcnt is confident enough of its scnsiblc Japancsc managcmcnts have been quietly
grip on the organization that it can devolve sonic doing for dccadcs. But what a fuss some Wcstcrn
power in order to hasten the implementation of its companics make about it. No wonder that there are
own overall policies. now firms which arc too cmbarassed to use the
 The Deceptive Allure of Empowerment 21

word empowerment-even when they begin to (6) The Money Programme, BBC, 17th January (1993).

practice it. (7) Tony Eccles, Industrial Democracy and Orgamzational Change.
Personnel Review, 6 (2). (1977).

(6) Rick Delbrrdge, Peter Turnbull and Barry Wilkinson, Pushing

back the frontiers, New Technology, Work and Employment, 7
(2). Summer (1992).

(9) Robert H. Waterman, The Renewal Factor, p. xiii, Bantam, New

References York (1988).

(1) fortune, p. 19, 12th August (1991).

(10) Natasha Owen, MBA report on strategy implementation
(2) David E. Bowen and Edward E. Lawler, Ill, The Empowerment of (unpublished), London Business School, June (1993).
Service Workers; What, Why, How, and When, p. 31. Sloan
Management Review, Spring (1992). (11) Peter Drucker, The New Society of Organizatrons, Harvard
Business Review, Sept-Oct. p. 100. (1992).
(3) Industrial Management, p. 14. June (1992).
(12) Drucker, op. cit., p. 101.
(4) Bob Garratt, Creating a Learning Organization, p. 72. Director
Books (1990). (13) Garratt, op. cit. p. 63.

(5) Building the Empowered Organization, Kinsley Lord, London (14) Tony Eccles, De-layering Myths and Mezzanine Management,
(1992). Long Range Planning, 25 (4). September (1992).