Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute

A timely new update of the classic empowerment fable (over 270,000 copies sold) from the coauthor of The One Minute Manager An all-new introduction locates empowerment in the current business climate A new epilogue offers practical guidance to overcome obstacles and implement ideas Releasing employees' full potential and instilling a responsibility-oriented culture remains the best way to compete in a "do more with less" business climate. In this new edition of one of the most effective business fables ever written, coauthors Blanchard, Carlos and Randolph illustrate three simple (although not easy-to-achieve) keys that organizations can use to effectively tap into the knowledge, experience, and motivation power that people already have: Share information with everyone Create autonomy through boundaries Replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute tells the story of a young manager whose attempts to turn his troubled company around through traditional top-down, command-and-control management are failing. Reluctantly, he contacts an expert in empowerment, even though he feels like he's already tried that too. Step by step, the expert helps him understand why his past and present efforts have fallen short and exactly what he needs to do to create an empowered workforce. The process as it unfolds is complex, paradoxical and counterintuitive -but well worth the effort. The new introduction dispels the notion that empowerment is a bygone fad. No matter what its name, the essential concept-that organizations can achieve extraordinary results by recognizing and taking advantage of the skills, experience, and knowledge already existing in the organization-will always be relevant. The new epilogue describes obstacles companies have encountered and overcome and outlines empowerment strategies that have proved successful