The balance between management and employee empowerment
has to be struck, not by thinkers, but by practicing managers.
Turning their
aims into successful actions, forces managers to master five basic
operations:
▪
setting objectives,
▪ organizing the group,
▪ motivating and communicating,
▪
measuring performance, and
▪
developing people, including
yourself.
These Management by Objectives (MBO)
operations are all
compatible with
empowerment, if you follow the main principle of
decentralization: telling people what is to be done, but letting them
achieve it their own way. To make the principle work well, people need to be
able to
develop personally. Further, different people have different hierarchy
of needs and, thus, need to be managed differently if they are to perform
well and achieve their potential.
