RE: Project Team Empowerment aboard the Starship Enterprise

OVERVIEW: With hopes of dramatic improvements in performance, R&D organizations are flocking to the concept of putting decision-making authority in the hands of teams, rather than vesting it with the traditional functional hierarchy. But is empowerment all that its cracked up to be? When is it a help and when is it a hindrance? What are the issues that need to be confronted in order to make empowerment work effectively? To explore these issues, we took advantage of a little-known feature of the Hubble space telescope and looked into the future. We managed to intercept an intergalactic memo beaming through space thousands of years from now. It was written, it seems, by a Starship captain who, after yielding to senior-level pressure, has implemented empowered teams in the organization he manages. This executive, a Captain James Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, singles out in his memo what might be called the "dark side " of team empowerment, at least as it is implemented in his organization. Memorandum TO: Starfleet Command FROM: Captain James Kirk, Starship Enterprise STARDATE: 3840 SUBJECT: Project Team Empowerment I welcome your request for feedback on the progress of team empowerment here aboard the Enterprise. As long-time commander of this so-called "empowered" organization as well as, in my youth, commander of more traditional hierarchies, I have strong views on this subject. As far as I'm concerned, you can take this empowerment thing and beam it where no man has gone before, if you know what I mean. Let me elaborate. What we've created here is basically a flat organization. I don't think any self-respecting manager likes to work in a flat organization. People are just naturally more comfortable with the vertical, with hierachy. That's why Old Earth was such an ideal place to live. Back before it was destroyed, anyway. For instance, most all the great buildings on Old Earth, unlike the web-shaped structures we build today, were straight and tall. And for good reason. Tall buildings allowed those who were higher up in the organization to have their big, spacious offices on the upper floors, while their subordinates got the small offices on the lower floors with no views. Hierarchy kept things organized, at least in my way of thinking. You always knew whom you could boss, and who could boss you. There were grade levels, ranks, each one a step up from some place lower to some place higher. It kept life simple. A man always knew just where he stood, and if he wanted something accomplished, he just had to say so, and all the people below him would bow and scrape and get it done. Flat Organization Pro's and Con's Now, the advantage of the flat organization is supposed to be, in a nutshell, that channels of communication are opened up and information flows more easily to all parts of the organization. Hierarchy traps information at different levels, bottles it up like commuters stuck in a slow elevator that has to stop at every floor. In fast changing environments, say where technology is advancing rapidly, flat structures can often process new information more effectively and help organizations respond more quickly to it. Fine, I'll give you that. But flat organizations cause problems, too. People are competitive by nature, and they need some way to keep score because that motivates them to excel. Hierarchical organizations provided clear career paths, which did just that. If you were smart, you always knew the job you wanted, just one level up from your own, and you worked hard to get it. In a flat organization, almost everybody is at the same level, so what have the top performers got to aspire to? Not much, and that gives them little incentive except to perform at the level of the average Joe. In a hierarchy there were always fewer jobs at the top of the pyramid than at the bottom, so there was a weeding out, a natural selection if you will, that sorted out the best people for the top positions. …