The “Course Topics” series from Manage Train Learn and Slide Topics is a collection of over 4000 slides that will help you master a wide range of management and personal development skills. The 202 PowerPoints in this series offer you a complete and in-depth study of each topic. This presentation is on "From Directing to Delegating".

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From Directing To Delegating
Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
From Directing to Delegating
DELEGATION AND
EMPOWERMENT

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From Directing To Delegating
Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
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COURSE TOPICS FROM MTL
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From Directing To Delegating
Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
ARE YOU READY?
OK, LET’S START!

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From Directing To Delegating
Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
INTRODUCTION
The last decade has seen important shifts in the way many
organisations see themselves. In the face of competition
and in the light of changed expectations of customers and
employees, many organisations no longer see themselves as
they once did: structures in which power was a preserve of
the few. Today, through delegation and empowerment,
power is used to help others do their job better and at the
same time develop themselves and their skills. Instead of
being hoarded by the few, power becomes one of the keys
to organisational survival.

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Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
DEFINING DELEGATION
The following are definitions of delegation:
Delegation is NOT dumping, NOT dodging, NOT ducking.
"Delegation is a process of giving jobs to others which they
don't normally do in order to free the manager and develop
the knowledge and skills of the team member." (Robert
Maddux)
"People have changed. They know more, they want to know
more, they expect more, they want to be more, they want
to fill up their lives with work that has meaning. There's no
time to worry about keeping everybody in line. Control is an
illusion only achieved when people are controlling
themselves." (David Firth)

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Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
DEFINING EMPOWERMENT
To empower =
to authorise, to allow, to imbue with power.
Empowerment is a process in which employees are given
power in their jobs so that they can...
provide better customer service
manage new and changing situations without having to
refer back to others
take a more responsible view of their jobs
achieve greater job satisfaction.
Empowerment can range from how an individual manager
leads his or her own team to how the organisation itself
sees its style and culture.

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Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
THE PLUSES OF DELEGATION
When carried out successfully, delegation benefits
employee, manager and organisation.
For the employee
Delegation improves and broadens knowledge and skills and
thereby makes the job more interesting and more
challenging.
For the manager
Delegation increases the abilities in the team and frees up
the manager to do more valuable things.
For the organisation
Delegation adds to the skills bank in the organisation which
in turn allows the organisation to develop itself.

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WHY EMPOWERMENT?
When carried out successfully, empowerment has significant
benefits for the employee, the manager and the
organisation.
1. employees have greater control over what they do. This
can reduce levels of workplace stress, increase the
contributions people make and so improve job
satisfaction
2. managers can get the most out of the potential of their
staff by releasing the power people have to make a big
difference in the way they do their jobs
3. organisations can replace outdated and ineffective ways
of working with empowered structures and systems
that are more relevant to the needs of customers and
staff.
The benefit of empowerment is that an organisation stands
a better chance of surviving into the future.

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Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
PARADIGM SHIFTS
Delegation and empowerment are both attempts to find
new ways of managing people at work in a time of extensive
social, organisational and personal change. They require
changes not just in the way people are managed but in the
way that managers see work and people at work. They are
the result of new ways of seeing, or paradigm shifts, in our
attitudes towards others.
When it works, delegation and empowerment can make
work exciting, challenging and enjoyable at all levels. When
it doesn't work, through being embraced only half-heartedly
or as a gimmick to trick people into giving more for the
same or less, it is dangerous.
A change programme of delegation and empowerment
requires understanding and commitment from the top.

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THE AGE OF PEOPLE
There are a number of reasons why delegation and
empowerment are appropriate models for today's
organisations.
These include...
1. the inappropriateness of command-and-tell models of
management
2. competition from organisations where the commitment
and contribution of staff is greater
3. flatter organisation structures
4. team power
5. changes in employee expectations
6. the liberalising effect of information
7. the need to develop people.
"The twentieth century was the age of the machine; the
twenty-first century will be the age of people." (Rosabeth
Moss Kanter)

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WE ARE ALL MANAGERS
Many of our organisations were formed in times when a
totally different social order existed from that of today.
Work patterns, social patterns and management patterns
reflected a completely different attitude towards life. But
this has all changed. Today people are freer, more socially
mobile, more educated and more resourceful.
"The average adult now has to manage what is in effect a
dynamic business in their domestic lives. They have
mortgages to manage; money to manage; relationships to
manage; children's educations to manage; households to
manage; and social lives to manage.
And yet when they come into our shops, offices and
factories, we not only give them simple and meaningless
tasks but, as an added insult, we appoint someone to watch
over them with the implicit message that they're not up to
it." (Paul Neate)

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MTL Course Topics
COMMAND-AND-TELL IS OUT
Organisations are social structures which can only operate
with the consent of the people in them.
Authoritarian models - which were the only imaginable
kinds of organisation fifty years ago - are no longer
acceptable to most people. People are better educated,
more informed, more aware of their rights, more tuned in
to the expectation to be treated equally and decently and
more knowledgeable about what is fair and unfair in the
workplace.
This is a trend reflected in widespread attitudes towards
other traditionally authoritarian organisations, such as the
State, the monarchy, schools, and institutionalised religion.

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COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Organisational survival is more than ever dependent on
meeting customer needs. Old structures of command-and-
tell management are notoriously inefficient at being flexible
and responding to customers.
This is because of the thinking that says...
1. the person who deals directly with the customer cannot
be trusted to make the right decisions
2. unless we, the top management, control everything,
there will be chaos
3. if managers don't control what's going on, the customer
will take advantage of us.
"Competitive advantage will be gained only when
employees trust their company, when their aspirations
match the company's strategy and when their hopes stand a
chance of being met." (Dr Lynda Gratton, London Business
School)

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FLATTER STRUCTURES
In the days when hierarchical structures were the
unquestioned model for organisations, numerous layers of
supervision and management were built up. This satisfied
employees' desire for steps on the ladder and the
organisation's need to reinforce its "command-and-tell"
structure.
As this old structure becomes inappropriate, layers of
management have been removed, forcing responsibility
back down to employees, from where it originally came.
This process has become known by a host of euphemisms,
ranging from delayering to downsizing. The effect is that
people are once again responsible for their own standards
of work, effectiveness and results.

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MTL Course Topics
THE POWER OF THE TEAM
It is now widely recognised that the most productive unit in
the organisation is the Team.
1. The team together can work with each other in a much
more powerful way than the individual and the boss
can. This is because there are no barriers of status, no
distinctions of rank, and no blurring of purposes. The
team can, quite simply, focus exclusively on their goal.
2. If managed well, teams can produce ideas,
opportunities to achieve and a synergy that surpasses
the contributions of individuals on their own.
3. Old "command-and-tell" approaches to people were
based on managing people one-to-one; new
approaches focus on the team.

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GLOBAL CHALLENGE
In his book "Global Challenge", Humphrey Walters recounts
his participation in the BT Global Challenge round-the-world
yacht race. Each yacht consisted of 13 volunteers and a
professional skipper but Walters' crew on Ocean Rover
decided early on that they would not put all the
responsibility for leadership on their skipper's shoulders.
They therefore proposed their own code of ethics and
behaviour.
Three of the key rules were...
1. strict punctuality. Nobody could miss their stint on watch.
2. a willingness to apologise early if anyone made a mistake
3. no gossip behind the backs of fellow crew members.
The crew all agreed to respect the rules. Ocean Rover was
one of the few yachts that came home with the same crew
that it started out with and also one of the happiest.

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WHAT EMPLOYEES EXPECT
The huge social changes of the past few years, changing
expectations of the role of the organisation in our lives,
mean that employees now have different needs in a job.
Gone are the "job for life" mentalities, in which loyalty to
the organisation was rewarded with a job from 16 to 65. In
its place, people expect their jobs, however long or short-
term they are, to give them a level of interest, development
and autonomy.
When surveyed in a 1991 Gallup poll, 64% of workers rated
"the chance to work independently" as the most important
feature of a job.

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WHY PEOPLE LEAVE JOBS
When studies are carried out into why people leave their
jobs, the top reasons are rarely about money. They are,
however, about the lack of growth and challenging work,
issues that delegation and empowerment directly address.
The Harvard Business Review study's top 5 reasons why
people leave their jobs:
1. job content
2. level of responsibility
3. company culture
4. calibre of colleagues
5. salary.
The California Strategic HR Partnership study's 5:
1. low growth potential
2. lack of challenge
3. lack of autonomy
4. not enough money
5. work environment issues.

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GENERATION X
"Generation Xers" has become the term used to describe
people born between 1965 and 1981 who are now in
positions of power in most organisations.
As these Generation Xers were growing up, they saw the
jobs of their parent's generation axed by rationalisation or
delayering. In many cases, this resulted in swathes of people
being unable, untrained and disempowered from finding
work in new industries and in new working patterns.
As a result Generation Xers neither want nor expect to
spend their whole working lives in the same organisation.
They will work hard and put in long hours but only for as
long as it suits them, moving on once they have learnt what
they can from each organisation. Such people are far more
willing to manage their own jobs and careers than their
predecessors of the past.

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THE INFORMATION AGE
The changes going on in our organisations and workplaces
have been brought about by an unprecedented access to
information.
We now know what goes on in our organisations to an
extent never known before. It is instant - at the flick of an e:
mail screen - it is constant, and it is huge. Moreover, and
more significantly, it is not restricted to those in traditional
positions of power. It is anywhere and everywhere in the
organisation.
According to one estimate, more information has been
generated in the last 30 years than in the whole of the
previous 5000. And, according to Richard Saul Wurman,
author of "Information Anxiety", it is set to continue,
doubling for each of us every five years.

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MTL Course Topics
TRAINING THE TEAM
One of the best analogies of how everyone gains when
people are developed is the professional sports team, such
as a football or rugby club. Most successful clubs spend
huge amounts of money on developing their players.
This is in order to...
develop up-and-coming talent
keep today's stars at peak performance
work on practising individual and team moves
develop the whole team as an interdependent unit
improve team spirit as well as team skill.
"In football clubs, players are truly human assets....training
and development become vital, because, if you can increase
the productive potential of the asset, in a short time you not
only have greater productivity but an appreciated asset in
terms of capital value." (Charles Handy)

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TRADITIONAL VIEWS
Many of the traditional views of work and organisations
were unquestioned for years. These are now "old" views.
"Managers manage, workers work."
"I work for the organisation."
"I expect rewards from the organisation."
"I'm not there to like what I do."
"It's a job."
"You have to do what you're told."
"The aim of work is a job, a position, a wage, a living, a
pension, a career.“
These views of work are the views of a mechanistic,
industrialised and technological approach to work. They see
people in a robotic, non-thinking and limiting way. While
such attitudes may have been necessary in the prevailing
conditions of the past, they are unlikely to be relevant to the
prevailing conditions of the future.

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OUTDATED MODELS
The traditional view of command-and-control organisations
has four features that are detrimental to the development
of people:
1. the belief that the views of employees are of little or no
importance in senior management decision-taking. All that
counts is what top management can see at first hand: the
behaviour and performance of other senior managers.
2. the assumption that people are like empty vessels and
that to change them, all they need is a top-up of skills or
information.
3. the idea that managers are only accountable for achieving
volume, quality and financial targets, not the development
of the resources.
4. the belief that the manager-employee relationship is like
a customer and supplier, so that, if the manager doesn't like
what he gets, he can quickly change it for something better.

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EMPOWERED VIEWS
If we want our "old" organisations to adapt to the future,
we need to change our views of work and the role of
employees in the workplace.
"We are partners in the organisation."
"I work for me."
"The rewards I get are down to me."
"I own my job."
"My contribution is unlimited."
"The job gives me chance to grow and develop."
"The aim of work is to serve others, to find fulfilment, to
come alive.“
It is widely thought that many people, if not most, are
capable of views such as these and that it is down to the
organisation to put in place forms of managing that can
release and realise them.

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ADDING VALUE
Delegation, in the sense of management style and attitude,
and empowerment, in the sense of how an organisation can
change itself, offer ways to bring people into partnership
with their organisations and so add value.
A study by the New Learning for Work consortium has
identified seven principles by which partnership and added
value can be achieved. These are...
1. listen to what people at all levels have to say
2. ensure everyone is clear on what the organisation expects
of them
3. create an environment where everyone focuses on results
4. move accountability, responsibility and authority to
where it can do most good
5. offer competent support
6. recognise that everyone has their own unique talents
7. back up support with encouragement and review.

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MTL Course Topics
THAT’S
IT!
WELL DONE!

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Delegation and Empowerment
MTL Course Topics
THANK YOU
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn