“Positive people get positive results because they are not afraid of problems.” – Ken Blanchard
How do the best-run companies beat their competition day in and day out? With a workforce that is excited about their vision and motivated to serve their customers at a higher level. According to Ken Blanchard, the only way to achieve this level of performance is by empowering your people.
In Ken’s great book, “Leading at a Higher Level,” he sets out four keys to highly effective leadership. They are:
– Set your sights on the right targets and vision.
– Treat your people right.
– Treat customers right.
– Have the right kind of leadership.
Once leadership has created clarity with the right targets and vision, they must engage and empower their people.
Empowerment is engaging the hearts and hands of your people in pursuit of the company’s vision. Blanchard lays out three keys to high performance through empowerment. The keys are shared information, autonomy through boundaries, and self-directed teams and individuals.
Shared Information
Throughout history, information has been hoarded as a means of protecting and preserving power. Empowering organizations share information to engage their peoples’ hearts and minds in pursuit of the vision.
Smart leaders know they can accomplish far more when they engage the intelligence of the team. Smart leaders embrace the truth that “no one of us is as smart as all of us.” Shared data creates a sense of trust and shared responsibility throughout the organization.
Sharing information well will require education so the team can understand the information and put it to use in solving problems as they pursue the vision. Many short-sighted leaders feel the education process takes too much time. This time investment has a tremendous return on investment because it creates organizational learning.
Great organizations grow by learning and sharing knowledge. Growth is impossible without learning and learning is impossible without the right information.
Autonomy Through Boundaries
Leaders must set boundaries as they empower their people. Think of boundaries as the lines on a tennis court. They help the players keep score and improve their game. Empowerment requires more structure, not less. This is an upfront investment in time from the manager that leads to better outcomes and time savings in the future.
For instance, The Ritz Carlton is known for giving its employees $2,000 to solve customer problems. Ritz Carlton employees are empowered to spend this amount on the spot, without manager approval to make a customer happy.
Educating employees on how to do this well takes time, but results in happier, more loyal customers and less involvement from managers. Blanchard tells the story about how Kentucky Fried Chicken liked this idea so much they gave employees the same mandate to make customers happy but with a $10 budget.
Could policies like these end terribly? Absolutely – when done without great training and follow-up. Training is key. So is reviewing results and learning what it looks like to spend the money wisely and when it is wasted. In the end, employees become more engaged and empowered. This leads them to make better business decisions. Better business decisions made at lower levels of the organization results in better bottom-line outcomes.
Replace Hierarchy with Self-Directed Teams and Individuals
When team members have clarity created by the right targets and an inspiring vision and have the authority to make good decisions within boundaries, an amazing thing starts to happen.
Team members need less and less managing. Team members and their teams become more and more self-directed.
Why? Because for the first time they have clarity about the organization’s goals, they have the information they need to make good decisions and they have been given the authority to make those decisions within clear boundaries.
“Situational Leadership” is a great Blanchard tool for managers to use as they determine the right leadership style for the varied situations they encounter in the workplace. We’ll lay out the situational leadership framework next week.
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Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey.
Curt and the team at FHRS help leaders build great companies through Virtual CFO, strategy, tax and accounting services.
Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker, and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and five children. (Welcome Baby Owen – June 2021!)
