An informal survey of whether management by empowerment works better than management by intimidation showed 79% of the respondents favored empowerment. This is no surprise; professionals respond best to cordial and controlled interpersonal relationships in the workplace. It makes for an agreeable work environment. Remarkably, empowerment even in the face of failure can be a powerful positive motivator. Attrition can be cut in half as a minimum, and you keep your talent in place instead of losing it to the competition.
There is a need sometimes for firm and frank discussion especially when personal safety is the issue. There should be no question about conforming to safety rules around the plant. But, in general management by intimidation, or management by yelling, produces numerous counterproductive outcomes:
- Mangement by intimidation breeds resentment and sabotage; management by yelling can be taken as a personal affront to character and persona, and resentment can build to destructive motivations.
- Management by yelling and intimindation is an out-of-control reaction to something that can be dismissed with grace and corrective encouragement for future improved actions.
- Mangement by yelling and intimidation affects productivity and shuts down enthusiasm. A period of time will be taken up with licking of wounds and negative talk among co-workers.
- Management by yelling and intimidation may precipitate charges of harassment, union organizing, stress, sick days, etc.
In addition, management by yelling can be a powerful demotivator, destroying personal ambitions of promotion in the organization. There is not much to recommend in the way of mangment by intimidation.
Planning and Deadlines – Management by empowerment works best in a planned, controlled environment. One method that has proven well over time is by using Microsoft Project. There are several options, but the Gantt Chart, which was originally used effectively during times of military conflict, makes sense in the industrial and commercial setting, too. Tasks are listed in a tabular form, and there is an associated timeline with optional name tags. Daily or weekly follow up makes the chart jump off the screen, and other related parties will be privy to it in an office computer network environment. Your team will see it, and your boss will see how it goes as often as he/she wants to view it. It could be a simple sequential chart or an interactive chart showing important time sensitive and sequence interactions. As often as you update it, the timeline will progress with accomplished tasks being highlighted.
Planning generally flows from the top down, and the employee can run his own project schedule from the cues received from the boss’s master plan. Or the employee can add or expand on the master plan.
Wally Adamchik, the author of No Yelling, claims that treating people with respect and developing relationships based on trust goes a longer way towards effective management than management by yelling. One marine senior officer even claims that “You have to love your people to a fault.”
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