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Chapter OnePOWER THROUGH RESPONSIBILITYPower Principle: A manager empowers others by giving them a clear understanding of the responsibilities of the job. Job responsibilities define the work people must do in order to achieve success. A manager has more power to achieve his own objectives when the people who work for him know what they must do to achieve success.
The Importance of Clearly Defining
ResponsibilitiesThe very first and perhaps the most important thing you can do to give people power is to tell them what they are supposed to do. There can be no success unless you clearly explain to people what is expected of them.
Sound simple? You say, of course your people know what their jobs are. They knew that before you hired them.
A reflection on your own career might cause you to ponder this issue a bit more carefully. How many times have you been caught in a trap because your understanding of what you were to do was different from your boss' understanding of it? Your sterling performance was all for naught simply because it was not the performance your boss was looking for. Or perhaps you got reprimanded for failing to do something simply because you didn't know it was your responsibility in the first place.
When people don't have a clear understanding of their responsibilities, confusion abounds. Time is wasted and energy is dissipated by anxiety and doubt. People spend much of their time second-guessing the boss, wondering if they are going in the right direction. Without a clear definition oftheir responsibilities, people are like ships at sea without compasses.
Will Initiative and Creativity Be Stifled? Advocates of a laissez-faire style of management may argue that clearly defining responsibilities inhibits creativity and stifles initiative. By providing people with little or no direction, they believe they are fostering an entrepreneurial spirit. While this style of management may work in some situations, most people need boundaries and a very clear job description. Otherwise, they will fill in the gaps by inventing a job for themselves or modifying the job to suit their purposes.
Too little structure keeps people from using their power effectively. By having a clear definition of their responsibilities, people are able to focus all their energies on getting the job done instead of wondering what the job is, or working on the wrong activities. The more focused they are, the greater the power they have to achieve success.
Tell Them How Responsibilities Relate
to GoalsIt is not enough for people to know what they are to do; they must also know why they are doing it. "They must be able to see the correlation between the responsibilities of their job and the goals and objectives of their department and the company. Otherwise the responsibilities they are asked to perform are nothing more than a list of meaningless activities.
Despite much talk today about the declining work ethic, most people want to be a part of something larger than themselves. The majority of people want to make a contribution; they want to make a difference. This desire, of course, may not be readily apparent. Having suffered at the hands of incompetent managers for years, many people eventually lose their desire, or at least it appears to be lost. The wise manager knows the desire is still there; it has just been lying dormant. His job is to rekindle it.
One of the tragedies in our complex American workplace is that many people don't have a sense of making a contribution. Most jobs are broken down into small parts and each part is given to a worker as his sole job.
The result is that many people have little or no idea what they are contributing to the end product and the whole social order. It is no wonder that many people work almost entirely for money but are unhappy no matter how much they receive.
If a person is to feel a sense of power and reach his potential, he must be motivated by something more than a paycheck. He must be able to see how his job, however large or small, contributes to the goals of the department, company, and society. A person must have sense of purpose if he is to have a sense of power.
Communicate and Reinforce
ResponsiblitiesOnce you have clearly defined in your own mind the responsibilities of a particular job, the next step is communicating them to the person. Appears to be an easy task. Right? Tell the person once when he is hired and there should be no problem. Right? Wrong. People must be told not once, not twice, but repeatedly.
If a person is conscientious and capable of performing the job, why must you remind him of his responsibilities? If he has to be told more than once, maybe he doesn't belong in the position.
Reminding people of their responsibilities is similar to reminding them of the goals and objectives. Due to the complexity of jobs and companies today, people on all levels can easily become sidetracked.
It's not unusual to see people, even at high levels, involved in activities that are not in fulfillment of their job responsibilities. Nor do these activities contribute to the goals and objectives of the department or company. This is one of the primary reasons why companies don't reach their objectives: People concentrate their efforts on activities that seem like good ideas at the time but that don't lead them to their desired objectives.
People also have a natural tendency to do the things they like to do. They gravitate to certain types of activities because they are good at them and enjoy them. The result? The responsibilities they don't enjoy go unfulfilled because the people either consciously or unconsciously let them fall through the cracks.
