Unshackling Employees from a Wall Street Journal Blog talks about ways that even staid industries like the banking industry can take advantage of empowering their employees.
“In most organizations, the decision-making freedoms of frontline employees are highly circumscribed. Sales reps, call center staff, office managers, and assembly line workers are usually trussed up in tangle of top-down policies, “best practices,” and standard operating procedures. Yet it’s impossible to build a highly adaptable organization without first expanding the scope of employee freedom. To create an organization that’s adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to “waste” time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.”
Transparency with business information, the freedom to try new things even with the risk of failure, and a culture that doesn’t require top-down decision making is key to creativity.
