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Technotes – 2nd Quarter 2003

Management, Subordinates And Empowerment

It’s not unusual for a manager—or even a management team—to state that they have a goal of “empowering” their subordinates. What does this really mean?

If empowerment means the decentralization and delegation of decision-making authority, then there is ample evidence that some degree of empowerment is widespread in the work place. More and more, management decision-making is being “pushed to the lowest possible level,” or so goes the popular phrasing.

On the other hand, does this really mean that employees are being given a greater share of the responsibility for managing? The evidence in this direction—by and large—is that managers are extremely reluctant to give up the real power associated with decision-making. Subordinates know this, and the cynicism that results is a destructive element in many organizations.

What we observe on a regular basis is a more sophisticated “dance” between managers and their nominally “empowered” subordinates. Managers regularly tell employees to do what is best for the business, but rarely release the purse strings or resource controls that would permit these “empowered” subordinates to actually implement significant decisions. The wherewithal to act is carefully withheld until the “empowered” decisions are actually in concert with the manager’s true desires. This is more like a shell game, in which the subordinates are expected to gain an emotional attachment to such decisions—and to have a passionate interest in implementing these decisions—rather than any true delegation of actual power.

In reality, the dynamic aspects of these situations are more like the mid-twentieth century picture of “the good wife.” Her husband controlled the income, but she often managed the checkbook, taxes, and most normal expenses. However, her husband would reserve the right to spend their money when and where he wanted. The wife’s task was to buy food, clothing, pay the rent, and the other essentials—even if the husband depleted the budget on a trip to the racetrack or made frequent stops at the tavern on the way home from work. In this relationship, a “good wife” had the role of trying to make ends meet even when her husband either didn’t earn enough to support them—or spent portions of their income irresponsibly.

Moreover, the good wife knew that her husband ultimately had the final say in all decisions. He wouldn’t want to decide on the mundane details, say what brand of butter or margarine to buy—but he would want his food to taste good, be served on time, and, in general, meet his often unspoken standards. Even if he didn’t bring home enough money to make this likely, the wife was expected to figure out some way to make her man happy.

On the surface, this looks like a dictatorship, where the leader reserves all decision-making to himself while charging bureaucrats with the business of making his whims and large-scale decisions into reality.

However, the balance of power—when examined at length and over time—begins to show that there is some control for the wife. A “good wife” held many bargaining chips—companionship, a warm and affectionate demeanor, mothering skills, and sex—which she exchanged for a more equal say in the business of the relationship. In fact, the best “good wives” let their husbands make all of the decisions, while subtly yet unmistakably manipulating her husband to make the decisions that she wanted made. The husband felt like the masculine “lord and master” who made all of the decisions, yet his decisions were ultimately the decisions that his wife would have made if given the chance.

This is almost exactly the way savvy subordinates “manage upward” in most organizations. Subordinates hold many chips as well: knowledge and professional skills, the energy and time to get things done, the threat of leaving for another job—and trade these chips for influence with managerial decision-making. A “good subordinate” tries to get his or her boss to make the decision that they want made—while making the boss think that the conclusion was something that the boss thought out all by him or herself. The mundane ‘detail’ decisions (that many bosses really don’t want to be bothered with) then form the basis of what managers have characterized as “empowerment.”

In many ways, this had been the way men and women interacted throughout history. However, this situation rested on a lack of introspection about relationships, and, to a large extent, on the dependency of women upon men. This dependency, driven at first by lesser physical size and later by denial of education, was a key factor in maintaining the balance of power in favor of husbands and men.

As society became more open and more willing to confront difficult issues in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and as women have continued to gain access to education throughout the world, the “good wife” model began to crumble. Women demanded a more equal role in relationships, and the way that male-female relationships are structured has never been the same.

This is similar to the relationship between managers and “the managed”—or subordinates in a hierarchical organizations. Subordinates are more educated than ever, and more willing to confront the issues that surround decision-making and power than ever before. Many managers are—like men in the last quarter century—bewildered by this turn of events. Managers “manage,” which means that they review and correct the decisions of their staffs—and make the “tough calls” that “only managers can make.”

These approaches worked badly but well enough, until the advent of the information revolution and the pressure of global competition intruded. In many ways, this open flow of information provided subordinate personnel with the kinds of knowledge that women gained when education became more widely available.

In addition, as unemployment fell in the 90’s—and subordinates began to see that they were no longer indentured servants, pledged against a pension and retirement plan that might evaporate in financial prestidigitation at any moment—the dynamics of the manager-subordinate relationship shifted dramatically.

In a broadly held view, salaried workers became “free agents,” able to move from job to job with minimal friction. Those who remained, or those who came aboard as a free agent, were told that a new day had dawned, and that they would, from this day forward, be “empowered” to act as “entrepreneurial agents” and “foster constructive change” in every aspect of their business activities.

Into this maelstrom roared the popular business press and consultants. Buzzwords and puff pieces made it seem like nirvana would be at hand, if only everyone would submerge their lives in the passion of business, we’d all be saved.

So, why is “Dilbert” so popular if a new age of work is at our doorstep?

In reality, while real changes had occurred, some things are still the same.

Subordinates are expected to make the system work, no matter if the decisions of the ‘boss’ are good or bad—just as a “good wife” is expected to put food on the table no matter how much her husband spends on the ponies. Moreover, subordinates are subject to withering criticism (although screaming per se is no longer in style, scornful sarcasm is a frequent surrogate) whenever they fail to achieve goals that managers set or negotiate.

The reality behind this state of affairs is unattractive. Salaried workers—engineers, sales personnel, administrative workers, and the rest—are still caught in the vise of unrelenting customers and demanding shareholders. They have little or no real authority to act, yet are held responsible when things turn out unfavorably.
They have no real authority for several reasons:

Managers have not released the controls on budgets, expenditures, and resources—at least not to the degree that “responsibility” for results has been released.
The consequences of failure are still quite negative for subordinates; when mistakes are made, scapegoats must be identified. The idea that the situation itself may have been untenable is rarely considered.
Subordinates often lack the specific knowledge and skills needed to make decisions on budgets, resources, and financial outcomes, a situation that reinforces management beliefs that ‘their people’ just are not up to the challenges of bearing the weigh of authority.

In sum, several key things have occurred as a result of the “empowerment” movement. First, authority and responsibility have been decoupled. More than ever before, individuals are held responsible (or empowered) to “make things happen” but are not given concurrent authority to drive the results.

Second, the pretentious nature of this arrangement is not only more visible, it is also more likely to be seen as an unrewarding, unsatisfying state of affairs. Managers are frustrated by subordinates, subordinates feel managers are fools, and a vicious cycle of make believe builds the cynicism that is so wide spread in the business environment today.

In many ways, managers are trapped in this strange world as well. But that's another discussion for another day.