Q: How can you get your employees to do the things you want them to do?

A: Trick question. You can’t.

Q: How can you be sure your employees will do what’s best for your customers?

A: Trick answer. Most employees are told to do what’s right for the company.

At CEC this past month, we’ve been asking ourselves:  What makes some companies more successful than others during times of extreme change and uncertainty (like, for example, present day)?  In other words, what are the attributes of “an adaptive organization?”

Here’s one hypothesis:  Adaptive organizations believe strongly in empowerment – i.e., encouraging ownership of  decision-making at all levels and supporting a culture of action.

Ironically, while companies can’t always get people to do what’s best, they can let them.  See the difference?

In the book “Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute,” Ken Blanchard (author of my all-time favorite business book “The One Minute Manager“) spotlights the three keys to harnessing the power of empowerment:

• Share information with everyone
• Create autonomy, but within reasonable boundaries
• Replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams

Have you ever experienced it in real life?  I have, and lemme tell ya, empowerment is a potent cocktail.  It’ll knock you for a loop if you’re not used to it.  Here’s the recipe:  Fill a glass with decent people.  Pour in a jigger of trust, a shot of courage, a dash of positive feedback and stir vigorously.

A story:  My first job in Corp Comms was as PR manager for a 4-star resort hotel in Virginia.  During the weekdays we hosted a lot of high-dollar corporate events (remember when companies used to spend money?) and on the weekends we did a lot of social events and weddings.

The average wedding would set the father of the bride back somewhere in the vicinity of half-a-year’s salary.  Eeesh.  But for that kind of coin, we offered something you can’t get at most hotels — a team of empowered employees.

One Saturday, about an hour before wedding time, the father of that week’s bride had a heart-stopping moment.  As he was getting dressed, he unzipped the vinyl bag from the tuxedo rental place to discover that somehow, they’d forgotten to include his bow tie.  The studs, cummerbund, and cufflinks were all there.  Just no tie.  And his head just about exploded.

He ran downstairs and grabbed the first employee he could find, who happened to be the Banquet Captain (dressed formally, as is customary in big hotels) who solved the problem with just three words.

Panicky Dad:  “I HAVE NO (bleep)ING TIE.  The biggest, most important (and most expensive) day of my daughter’s life is now ruined!”

Empowered Culture-of-Action Banquet Captain (replying without thinking): “Here.  Take mine.”

Day saved.

Do you see how wrong it is that most companies work so hard to get employees to do the right thing by creating rules and approval procedures that require every unexpected decision to be made by some laborious committee process (or worse, lawyers)?

But adaptive companies — the ones that are truly prepared to handle any unexpected event that could occur — empower employees by simply saying, “You know what’s right for our customers.  Don’t waste a lot of time thinking.  Just do that.”

How about YOU?  What are your thoughts about empowerment?