Control versus empowerment:
Option 1. Rule with an iron fist, don’t allow employees to show any initiative, make sure they do what the centre says they must do, be inflexible, remove yourself from the action.
Option 2. Empower people, let them do whatever they think is the right thing, let processes and standards diverge, all ideas are good ideas, allow chaos into your world.
As Tony Blair would say, there is a “third way”
Think, set a framework, give your staff absolute discretion where they should have absolute discretion (unhappy customers perhaps). Allow them to innovate, but once you have found the “best way” rule with an iron fist until a “better way” has been found.
Image by the Dave Oh
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