100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS • 149When employees at all levels of a company are empowered to make
the decisions they feel are necessary, individual job satisfaction,
corporate effi ciency, and productivity soar.
The idea
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor, argues
that companies can improve performance by allowing employees
to make decisions without constantly consulting superiors. Such
empowerment releases the creative power of a team; given the right
work environment and level of responsibility, people will make a
much greater positive contribution.
When empowering team members you are letting them get on with
the job entirely: they are both responsible and accountable, within
certain agreed boundaries. Leaders need to set a clear, unambiguous
direction and to ensure that people remain on course, by offering
support without taking over. Empowerment involves:
- Letting each member of the team get on with their job.
- Letting those team members closest to customers take decisions
themselves. - Removing obstacles and unnecessary bureaucracy.
- Encouraging and enabling people to put their ideas for
improvement into practice.
By using empowerment, the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain improved
customer service and differentiated itself from competitors.