Lean Structures and Integrated Processes
require Employee Empowerment
— and vice versa —
OTRA – TRAnsparent Organisation TRAnsformation
The route to the next level of performance
To achieve a substantial and sustainable quantum leap in performance, the used paths have to be broken. We have found that the following levers have to be pushed together to get the desired effect.
REDUCTION OF MANAGEMENT OVERHEAD
A precondition for good decision making is that it should take place where knowledge is greatest – at the frontline. It is no longer justified or affordable in a streamlined organisation to keep an overweight management structure. Therefore, Management has to be reduced. Even more, when there is no need for command and control.
REDUCTION OF PROCESS
OVERHEAD
Process overhead is the result of the Managers’ needs to maintain control over diverse processes. Frontline staff see themselves confronted by the need to serve a bureaucratic administration process rather than focus on getting results. Replacing administration by seamlessly coordinated collaboration will reduce the needs for control.
INCREASED EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT
Employee empowerment projects are continually failing. One reason is that increasing and polarising the power in an organisation creates the potential for conflicts. Employees become frustrated when they detect that empowerment is not real and honest. Trust is broken and employees become disengaged.