How to Maximize the Risk-Reward Relationship in Corporate Settings

Learn to empower your team members

Manufacturers know the high cost of defects—the direct and indirect costs of manufacturing the recalled items, the cost to restock, the unquantifiable loss of consumers, and (at times) the need for a publicity campaign to rebuild product confidence and brand reputation. These costs provide a strong incentive for manufacturers to empower each employee on the factory floor to stop the production line when he or she sees or feels that something is wrong. Regardless of rank, line employees feel safe that there will be no reprisal, even if at the end there was no valid reason to stop the line.

The high cost of defects helps promote and support an environment in which everyone is encouraged to take responsibility for the product and given the authority to determine when quality is being compromised. This is a perfect example of a high-risk/high-reward relationship, since staff willingly engages in the high-cost risk of stopping the production line without fear, and the manufacturers benefit from reduced defects leaving the plant.

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Empower vs Emancipate

Hi Maxine,

Taking your POV to the "next" [higher-order] level, I'd like to ask whether you might think/believe that a better term for what employers and/or members of an organizations management team ought to do for (as opposted to) their lower-ranking, fellow employees would be "emancipate" rather than "empower?" Why might I ask that question you wonder? Well, if we look at the dictionary defintion for each term this is what we find:

> empower - 1: to give official authority or legal power to <empowered her attorney to act on her behalf>; 2: enable; 3: to promote the self-actualization or influence of

> emancipate - 1: to free from restraint, control, or the power of another; especially : to free from bondag; 2: to release from paternal care and responsibility and make sui juri; 3: to free from any controlling influence (as traditional mores or beliefs)

In the context of attempting to motivate employees to perform at their utmost in the work environment, the word "empower" might be appropriate when it comes to promoting and/or influencing an individual's self-actualization. HOWEVER, it also connotes a transfer of "POWER" (i.e., controlling influence over another) from a higher-ranking role to a lower-ranking role. And IF we (all human beings) are to buy-into the old, traditional notion of a hierarchically-structured, and command-and-control driven organizational structure, then such use of the word "empower" may be appropriate.

On the other hand, IF we are inclined to embrace and pursue a more apt and progressive perspective on what constitutes the "best" (i.e., most competitive and sustainable) type of work environment, then we might want to reconsider the terminology we employ relative to how members of organization's management hierarchy respond to other members of the organization. In this regard, IF there is a recognition of the need for and value in having all employees exercise their utmost "discretionary" (as opposed to minimum acceptable) behavior while on the job, then it might be more appropriate to make use of the term "emancipate." In this regard, employees are NOT being given (on a temporary or adhoc basis) the power to do what might be expected of them. Rather, by emancipating them, they are being give the FREEDOM to exercise their own free will in deciding to what extent they are willing and able to make the maximum contribution they can in the pursuit and subsequent attainment of an organization's mission (i.e., purpose or reason for an organization's being/existence - and BTW that has nothing to do with shareholders), vision (i.e., how the organization views its longer-term/future-state/foreseeable destiny and the sort of individual and collective behaviors needed to turn that vision into a reality), and objectives (i.e., those performance objectives that can and will serve as indicators of progress toward that desired/targetted future-state).

In other words, organizations that are most likely to consistently perform at levels superior to their competition and sustain a leadership position within their industry/industries over an extended period of time (i.e., a hundred or more years) are the ones capable of unleashing the maximum discretionary behavior of ALL their employees. In so doing, they are ones most likely to embrace what's known as a "leader-leader" modus operandi versus the traditional "leader-follower" modus operandi. Under the former (as opposed to the latter), each employee - regardless of rank or position within an organization's hierarchy - is groomed/supported so as to not only be capable of leadership behavior whenever necessary, but also is encouraged to exercise that behavior whenever and wherever needed. That said, the best leaders are those who know when and how to lead and when and how to follow. And the best way to pursue and attain this higher-order capability is to free employees from the schackles of the old/out-dated/out-moded management paradigms. And to my way of thinking, using the term "empower" is out-dated/out-moded.