Coach Dan's Blog

I hear those words a lot.  "Hi!  My name is ... I report to ..."  I may have missed the part of orientation that taught us that standard introduction.  It's what we say when we meet someone new, or start working with a new team. Sometimes to me it feels like a security blanket of sorts.  Or a justification as to why that person showed up to a certain meeting.  Regardless of why it happens, it happens.  A lot.  To me, that phrase has become a symbol of why we as a company, still have a way to go with our transformation. At the risk of repeating myself over and over... I'd like to refresh us all on the "why" of this transformation we are all working on. Our customers matter.  They count on us to help them achieve their financial goals.  Without them, and their continued use of our services, we wouldn't have a company (and consequently jobs, which means we would not be a part of so-and-so's organization!)  Our customers matter so much ...

  I ' ve heard a lot of talk about empowerment lately, so I thought I might offer a perspective (and maybe some advice) on the topic.  Let's start with a definition we can all rally around, shall we? "Empowered employees believe they have the tools, resources, autonomy and support they need to act independently and be held accountable for the decisions they make" - Society for Human Resources Management. As much as we'd like, this doesn't just magically happen..... If you show up on a Tuesday and say " OK team, you're empowered ".  I'm sorry to tell you, you will be pretty disappointed in the results. You see, for employees to actually act independently -  to make decisions on behalf of the company - to help them achieve their objectives, people have to feel  safe .  Employees have to feel like they have the ability, but also the backing by their managers and leaders, so if a mistake is made, the don't find themselves under a bus.  Empowe...

 

 Empowerment begins with your team feeling psychologically safe. This week's blog post is specially crafted for leaders, managers, product managers and product owners.  Don't let that slow you down if you have a different fancy job title, of course, but today I'm speaking directly to the leaders of teams! One of my favorite definitions of empowerment comes from CEQ, Collaborative Equalit y: “Empowerment is defined as …the largest amount of voluntary and discretionary action in support of the company’s goals.  It is people proactively, and habitually, doing the right things at right time; people working out what’s needed and acting without instruction; people looking within the team for support, not looking upwards for answers." Sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?  Problem is, it doesn’t just happen!  You have to work every day at creating and maintaining an environment where your teams feel safe to “work out what’s needed and act without instruction.” Here are some...

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