I read a post over at Social Media Today about the “Opportunity Economy.” It’s a terrific post and raised some real interesting thoughts about marketing to today’s consumer in this ever-changing post recession economy.
But the one thing that I’m a bit unsure of is its premise that, for businesses to take advantage of these opportunities, they will have to “empower employees” to react at a moment’s notice.
Most of us probably remember empowerment. It was a big business catchword in the 90’s. The idea was to empower employees to make their own decisions as long as they benefited the customer. Most companies heralded it as a customer service savior that would put decision-making in the hands of front line staff. All to the delight of their patrons while freeing up management for, um . . . well . . . let’s just say more important things.
A classic example of how empowerment works would go like this: guest stays in a big fancy hotel. At checkout, the guest notices that they had been charged $4 for a Snickers from the minibar. Guest tells front desk clerk they didn’t eat a Snickers and the clerk, without requiring approval from management, would take the $4 charge off the account. Guest leaves happy to return often and repeatedly.
Sounds good in theory. But, if you ever studied it, so did the concept of communism. The fundamental principle of communism was that everyone provided equally for each other and benefited equally from everyone else’s labor. Everybody was equal and nobody went without (unless everyone else did). In a perfect world, who among us wouldn’t aspire to that level of equality? But I think we all begin to recognize the problem. Some individuals became “more equal” than others.
It’s the same with empowerment. The original concept required ongoing review of line employee decisions, analysis of the results of their decision-making, and frequent direct communication to guide staff in future empowerment situations. Most “not-quite-perfect” companies that adopted empowerment fully embraced the parts that dealt with front-line decision making and the freeing up management. But the review-analysis-communication part was forgone for, um . . . well . . . let’s just say more important things.
Just as basic human attributes doomed the lofty ideals of communism, corporate demands sealed the fate of empowerment. When line staff made good empowerment decisions, layers of management were eliminated to save costs (after all, what did they need them for?). And when line staff made poor decisions, they were performance managed and the “empowerment project” was called a failure. At that point, senior management calculated all the costs associated with empowerment and asked whose harebrained idea it was in the first place.
There are many things that sound great in principle or look good on a piece of paper. But, when we try to apply them on a large scale across human or corporate cultures, they gain little traction or just fail miserably. Will the opportunity economy be one of them? I don’t know. Only an open and honest evaluation of a company’s culture and capabilities will determine if a practice will be successful or just another costly and soon-to-be-forgotten management fad.
Image courtesy of Jon’s pics
1
Amybeth Hale says
Nice hat-tip to Animal Farm there 🙂 (I just finished re-reading it) Theory and practice are two separate things – when people talk theories, whether they be political, workplace, family, etc., they tend to forget that in order to work they must involve human beings, who are free-thinkers, free-willed, have individual agendas, and don’t always follow the rules.
Let’s chat soon – I have some things I’d like to discuss with you.
Sharlyn Lauby says
Thanks for the comment! Yes, we need to catch up soon.
Pat Wood says
Really interesting post, I hadn’t heard of the Opportunity Economy yet, but I believe it can work and as some of the examples in the Social Media Today article show, does work. But as you said, as it beings to take hold as “The Theory” to use is where it may fail, for some. I think that it is something that can work for most people, most of the time… but we need to remember that it’s all about opportunities and you can’t completely base a business plan on the hopes that a great marketing opportunity will come your way in a timely and recurring way.
Sharlyn Lauby says
Thanks for the comment Pat. I hope that the Opportunity Economy does work out too. I think it’s critical to economic recovery. But it will mean managers need to train and educate employees on the best way to evaluate decisions.
Pat Wood says
I definitely agree with you there, but it may be hard for some companies to allow employees to respond even if they’ve been trained/educated.
Sharlyn Lauby says
Agreed. Part of the training will have to be about control, power and authority.
Fred says
I think companies are too communistic.
Work hard and the stock price will rise … and all will benefit by your labor.