Oct 24 2012

POV: Empowerment As A Process. Engagement Too.

Empowerment As A Process

When I read about today’s “Engagement” I get the same cold chill as when I read yesterday’s “Empowerment” and other Silver Bullet strategies with tactics easily retrofitted to your situation. By our team of consultants.

But wait there’s more.

I instinctively reach for my wallet. Reassured that I haven’t been sold or stolen from, I may read on to see if it’s the same one trick pony refreshed. For not only is what’s old new again, there are plenty who haven’t seen this before and are the targeted fish.

Any of these might be, might be, might be, part of a solution set – that by it’s own potential variability, make retrofitting no easy task.

It takes a Process for establishing Empowerment, Engagement, Mentoring, Coaching, Informal Learning, Social Learning and Collaboration and Crowd Sourcing, and Talent Management and ERP Systems, etc., etc., etc.

And it takes seeing it as one of multiple Process streams. And that the Process needs to be as rigorous as Required and as Flexible as feasible.

For the sake of the business.

A Blend. In Balance. And for the business.

Too often that is lost sight of, in the pursuit for implementation on time and on budget.

My writings on this – Empowerment – were first published as “Empowerment is Work, Not Magic” in September 1993 in the Journal for Quality & Participation, then updated and republished in 2005 by ISPI in their monthly e-zine, PerformanceXpress, and then republished in 2008 in an HR publication from Indonesia.

The reference to What About Bob is a movie reference, from the title of the 1991 movie.

Maybe you had to have been there (and seen that).

Empowerment is Work, Not Magic

Journal Article

Empowerment is Work – Not Magic – JQ&P 1993 – 6 page PDF – published in the Journal for Quality and Participation in September 1993 – originally titled Empowerment as a Process.

Journal Cover

Here is the ISPI version – in 3 parts – from 2005.

All 3 links go to open areas of ISPI’s web site.

Empowerment – Part 1

by Guy W. Wallace, CPT

In Performance Express

September 2005:

Empowerment – Part 2

In Performance Express

November 2005:

Empowerment – Part 3

In Performance Express

December 2005:

And… finally…titled…

Empowerment as a Process

I was asked by HR Matters, a publication from Indonesia, for permission to publish it in their journal. They published their version in September of 2008.

The cover

The Article

Go here for a digital copy.

The bottom line message is – be adaptable, by design, in meeting the requirements of the Enterprise, in pursuing these types of Performance Improvement means.

It’s a big system out there, with plenty of sub-systems and processes, and people, and moving parts. Lots of variation. With continuous change.

And some things are just more important then others. Such is life in a constrained environment.

Design your Performance Improvement Solutions and Systems – to be robust to the likely need to continuously adapt – within certain parameters of course – maybe, if you’re lucky. Reduce their life cycle costs.