PART V
To be committed, one must
have ownership. To have ownership, one must be able to influence. And to
influence, one must be heard and be reasonably answered. So when management
does the "WHAT IFs", subordinates are in reasonable control or
ownership of their workplace. When nothing is done without their knowledge and
all useful knowledge is shared with them, applying their brainpower to every
aspect of the workplace becomes a worthwhile effort. They are suddenly released
to their own motivations, otherwise known as being turned-on! In this mode,
control is rationally affected through the worker’s self-control and
through commonly held value standards since they and only they are used as
criteria to decide what is “right”.
The above is also a part
of the answer to the question of trust. With protected rights to
knowledge, reasons and planned outcomes before execution, subordinates own the
outcomes and can freely trust all because they themselves did it. The question
of trust becomes less important and peace of mind prevails. There
may be threats of external competition, but with knowledge and rights of
ownership everyone will get behind slaughtering the opposition.
Note that in this mode,
the boss provides information and assistance in moving toward being highly
motivated/committed so each subordinate can take charge and come to their own
conclusions rather than sit around and follow. In this mode, the boss has faith
that people will effectively resolve issues on their merits and believes that
authoritative declarations are self-defeating.
But too often direction
gets in the way of ownership and this preempts commitment. This is a "cart
before the horse" error common to many management techniques and styles. The
most basic reason may be that bosses have no faith or trust. They don’t trust
juniors to arrive at reasonable conclusions and thus deny them information,
rationales, value standards and listening. These bosses are greatly limiting
their own success. Leadership is trusting your subordinates to provide
valuable input and it is rewarded by their trust in you and their
commitment to the job. It has significant positive bottom line implications
to your company!
Please come back tomorrow for the final part of this mini-series.
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