A lot of company leaders talk about the importance of empowering their employees to make decisions that can shape the future of their businesses, but too few actually have a process in place to make it work the way it should to benefit everyone involved. [related]
Entrepreneur Ron Lovett will help NSCA Business & Leadership Conference attendees put together a process and policy that will help them learn how to more effectively empower their employees and transform the overall operation of their businesses in two sessions.
Lovett will present a keynote address dubbed “Outrageous Empowerment: Giving Employees Their Brains Back” and a breakout session, “Empowerment Strategies to Build Your Executive Team,” at the 22nd annual BLC Feb. 26-28 in the Dallas area.
“How do you systemize it in a simple, scalable, easy process,” asked Lovett in a planning call ahead of the event.
He stressed that employee empowerment can lead to a culture rooted in autonomy and community when workers realize they have some level of decision-making power.
There are a few questions business leaders must ask themselves when they’re crafting an employee empowerment policy, said Lovett.
That includes whether doing so is the right thing for the customers, whether it’s the right thing for the business as a whole and whether they’re willing to be accountable.
Importance of Employee Empowerment
Employee empowerment can lead to what Lovett calls three unexpected outcomes: people make decisions that management didn’t expect, which leads to real-time coaching opportunities; people make better decisions than the founder or leadership team; and there’s more accountability on decisions.
Among the considerations business leaders must make as the craft employee empowerment policies, said Lovett, is how to develop and create the right set of core values and how to bring them to life. That can permeate hiring, firing, onboarding and other best practices, he says.
“Empowerment is about more than making your own life easier,” said NSCA executive director Chuck Wilson on the BLC planning call.
It’s important to implement what Lovett calls “guardrails” when enacting the employee empowerment policies.
“That allows people to be way more engaged,” he said. Employee empowerment is about creating a better culture, building a better relationship between company leadership and employees at all levels and “bringing your values to life,” said Lovett.
