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13 Organizational Development
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THE NEW WAY: Employees require autonomy so they can work effectively.
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The old way regarded employees as unskilled children from whom hard labour must be extracted. The new way recognizes that employees are adults with valuable capabilities. As adults, employees have a deeply rooted (but unfortunately, sometimes a latent) need to live up to their full potential. This is where the interests of employees and employers converge. To maximize the benefits for all, companies must weave together a fabric of support, opportunity, responsibility and coordination. The name of this fabric is employee autonomy. |
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At first glance, the most striking characteristic of companies with high degrees of employee autonomy is the absence of direct supervision or direction. Workers work without supervision. Now you may look around in your company, and think that this employee autonomy idea will not work. This is because you have seen your employees cut corners, slack-off, or perform below their full potential. In fact, they are only doing what is expected of them. Under the old way, employees were assumed to be lazy, just as supervision was assumed to be necessary. Because of this, the old way refused to afford employees the information, the skills and the freedom and responsibility to work without supervision. Thus, the old way became a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Low Employee Motivation) |
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By giving workers very restricted tasks to perform, and no understanding of how the larger process and organization works, supervision became necessary in order to glue the fragmented production process back together again. Low-skilled (and deskilled) employees had neither the insight to make informed decisions, nor the opportunity to make needed changes. |
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The new way approaches the challenge of production from the opposite angle. Where the old way sought to rely as little as possible on the physical brawn of any employee, the new way seeks to rely as heavily as possible on every employee’s brains. This is why employees are not separated from each other in low-skill, monotonous jobs that require little or no thought. (High Employee Commitment) Quite the opposite, the new way places employees in project or process teams where they become multi-skilled problem solvers. Indeed, solving problems and preventing them from recurring, is central to their role in the company. |
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The main shift toward employee autonomy is made when employers stop telling their employees what to do, or how to do it in exceedingly specific detail. Rather, employers should set broad objectives for their employees, defining the desired outcome in qualitative, not quantitative terms. The employees (who frequently know better than their employers), can then set out to find the most efficient and effective way they know how, to get the job done right. This is not just about eliminating supervision. It is about enlightening workers, so they can become more self-directed. |
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This highly-evolved kind of employee autonomy functions best (and many would argue functions only) when it is combined with a campaign to provide a sound financial context for decisions made by the team which impact the larger business. The combination of financial context and employee autonomy creates the essential spark that fires pride and work ownership in employees. Organizational commitment, which used to be problematic under the supervisory model, is a part and parcel to the new model of employment characterized by greater degrees of worker autonomy. |
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To make it work, employers must provide every support that they can afford, whether that includes better equipment, training, access to external experts, or simply encouragement to take calculated risks. Employers must provide both the opportunity to learn, and the opportunity to apply what was learned. Employers must adopt management practices that leave the responsibility for quality and continuous improvement in the hands of production workers themselves. They must require that employees coordinate their own efforts amongst themselves, seamlessly and without excessive managerial attention. When all of these changes are put into place, and clearly communicated throughout the enterprise, an organization can then begin to fully draw on the collective intelligence of all of its members. |
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