Strategies to Increase Team Empowerment and Innovation

Build Team Empowerment with These Strategies

Inspired by a recent conversation with an executive of a growing company, who said he wants his team to feel more empowered to embrace new ideas and make decisions, I delved into best practices for building team empowerment. Read on for some key findings.

What Forms of Decision-Making Are Your Organization’s Leaders Using?

Decision-making takes up a substantial percentage of management’s time. According to the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, for some C-suite executives, decision-making comprises as much as 70 percent of their time. So, it’s worthwhile to understand different types of decisions. McKinsey offers the ABCDs of decision making which classify decisions by frequency, risk, and importance.

• Ad-hoc decisions: narrow in scope and impact; unfamiliar and frequent

• Big-bet decisions: broad in scope and impact; unfamiliar and frequent

• Cross-cutting decisions: broad in scope and impact; familiar and frequent

• Delegated decisions: narrow in scope and impact; familiar and frequent

Delegated Decisions

When it comes to empowering team members, it’s important to focus on delegated decisions. These are frequently occurring decisions that are often delegated to the person or team that is closest to the issue. They have the potential to have a substantial impact because they happen so frequently.

So, how can organizations get better at delegated decisions? According to McKinsey, it’s essential to empower team members by developing their management skills and giving them the power to take action. Guidance and involvement from executives can help managers empower their team members.

Different Managerial Approaches

Some ways of managing are more conducive to building team empowerment. McKinsey outlines four different managerial approaches:

• The helicopter boss: level of involvement is episodic; style of leadership is controlling and autocratic

• The micromanager: level of involvement is frequent; style of leadership is controlling and autocratic

• The cheerleader: level of involvement is episodic; style of leadership is inspiring and coaching

• The coach: level of involvement is frequent; style of leadership is inspiring and coaching

Any idea which one is most supportive for building team empowerment?

Helicopter bosses and micromanagers tend to have a disempowering effect on employees. Meanwhile, cheerleading is problematic because it means infrequent involvement, and is too hands-off.

Managers as Coaches

The preferred approach to support effective delegated decisions is for managers to act as coaches. What does this mean? “Coaches don’t tell people what to do—rather, they provide guidance and guardrails for decisions and ensure accountability while stepping back and allowing others to make them.” (McKinsey, “For smarter decisions, empower your employees”)

Effective coaching is a learned skill. It takes time to coach, and it’s an investment.

Over time, the employee being coached learns to be more independent in their decision making because answers and not being handed to them. When organizations support coaching and learning, it pays off. “Organizations whose leaders successfully empower others through coaching are nearly four times more likely to make good decisions than those whose leaders don’t.” (McKinsey)

5 Key Actions to Empower Employees

According to McKinsey, there are five key actions to empower employees and enhance delegated decision making.

• Make sure the organization’s purpose and goals are well-defined.

• Ensure that you have clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

• Invest in coaching upfront so that managers know how to coach, and managers and employees have time to engage in coaching.

• Create a culture of empowerment.

• Decide when it’s OK to use the other managerial approaches.

How is your organization doing in terms of implementing these actions?

Higher Empowerment is Associated With Engagement & Productivity

High empowerment is correlated with high engagement, according to behavioral statistician Joseph Folkman, who reviewed data from more than 7,000 employees where his company Zenger Folkman measured empowerment along with employee engagement. Also, when employees are more empowered, they are more willing to put in extra effort.

What Creates an Empowered Team

To determine what creates empowerment in a team, Folkman reviewed data from three different organizations, which included approximately 19,000 employees. He found six common elements for empowered teams:

• Openness to new ideas - managers demonstrate receptiveness to new ideas.

• Developing others - providing employees with support to build their skills so they have the awareness, competencies, and confidence to do their jobs effectively and feel empowered.

• Supportive and trusted managers - managers build trust, demonstrate effective communication, and are not set in their ways.

• Recognition, rewards, and encouragement - managers show that they acknowledge the contributions of team members.

• Positive work environment - team members feel valued and respected.

• Giving team members authority - employees have decision making authority; the more control over one’s work, the higher the sense of empowerment.

Recap

To have an empowered team, it’s necessary for organizations to establish clarity around purpose, goals, roles, and responsibilities. This reduces the need for individual contributors to constantly check with management because they have a strong understanding of the shared mission and their authority.

By ensuring that team members have control over decisions that are closely related to the work for which they’re responsible, organizations can increase employee empowerment.

In addition, investing in the time and skill-building needed for effective coaching by managers can go a long way to improve delegated decision making and empowerment.

Employees need to feel that the organization values them, and one way to show this is by investing in their continued learning and development.

Through these actions, the executive I spoke with and his managers will be able to create a culture of empowerment that’s more open to new ways of doing things. And perhaps more ideas and decisions will be generated from team members, with less reliance on executives to move the company forward.

What Does Team Empowerment Look Like for You?

Share in the comments how you’ve felt empowered as part of a team, or how you have used certain practices to increase team empowerment.