ZAPP! The lightning of empowerment by William C.BYHAM, Ph.D with Jeff COX

Résumé du document

This book is a fable that deals with leadership and empowerment. It can be read in two different ways i.e. as an amusing story or as a guide to discover the ideas linked with leadership, management and motivation. The author gives us the key principles of empowerment and the steps to apply in our work life.

Extraits

[...] The first one is called the theory X or mechanist. Its characteriscts are: Human being is lazy, he wants to escape from physical and mental efforts Human being escape responsibilities Human being should be under an autocratic and control system, and under disciplinary sanctions to oblige him to work Managers should compensate employees' lack of creativity Organizations know how to use the maximum of employees' capacities. This theory is based on the autoritarian principle. As Joe discovers that employees can be motivated and that motivation is the secret to success and productivity, he changes his mind and adoptates the second theory describes by Mac Gregor. [...]

[...] What we can notice it is that Joe learnt participative management and the zapping tools from a woman. In my own experience as in the book, it was a woman who succeeded first in zapping people. I think it is because women are better to communicate and to listen. They admit fault, accept responsibility for errors and don't have troubles asking people for help. Moreover, women are more careful to save face for other person when they were managing down. [...]

[...] The worker must learn to recognize and use group forces that lead to effective outcomes. Lieberman (1975) points out five properties of groups that are particularly important, they included: Develop cohesiveness and a sense of belonging for its members Control, reward and punish behaviour Define reality for the individual Induce and release powerful feeling in its members Provide a contrast for social comparison and feedback. In the book, it took time for Joe to understand that team are more efficient than individuals. [...]

[...] In the participative groups the members were more cooperative and behaviour was more constructive. There was more interaction, friendliness and creativeness as well as high group cohesiveness. However, there were no differences in the tasks completed by the groups although there was some indication that the products of democratic groups were qualitavely superior to those of groups that used autocratic or laissez-faire styles of leadership. Groups' members also preferred the democratic group's process that is they liked the leader better and felt freer and more willing to make suggestions. [...]

[...] There are two basic leadership functions: helping the group to achieve a specific goal and helping to maintain or build the group itself. Goal achievement or task accomplishment include defining roles and expectations for members; establishing defined structures for operating; initiating action and evaluating goal achievement progress. To become an effective leader is not sufficient to learn group leadership skills it is also necessary to pay attention to how they are applied. It is essential for leaders to become self-reflective practioners who consider carefully the meaning of their interactions with all members of the group. [...]