1. Employee Empowerment, Leadership & Change, Team building & Teamwork, Communication & Interpersonal Relations, Education & Training
Course Instructor:
Dr. Syed M. Ahmed, Ph.D.
College of Engineering & Computing
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

2. Major Topics Employee Empowerment Leadership and Change
Team Building & Team Work
Effective Communication
Education & Training

3. Employee Empowerment

4. Employee Empowerment Defined…
Employee Empowerment is Employee Involvement that matters.
It could also be defined as controlled transfer of authority to make decisions and take actions.
What is needed?
Successful implementation of empowerment requires change in corporate culture.
Does this mean Abdication?
NO. Empowerment involves actively soliciting input from those closest to the work and giving careful thought to that input.

5. Rationale An aspect of Working Smart
Empowerment is the key to motivation & Productivity.
It enables a person to develop personally & professionally.

6. Inhibitors of Empowerment
Resistance from Employees & Unions
Resistance from Management
Insecurity
Personal Values
Ego
Management Training
Personality Characteristics of Managers
Exclusion of Managers
Workforce Readiness
Organizational Structure & Management Practices

7. Management’s Role in Empowerment & Implementing Empowerment
Commitment
Leadership
Facilitation
Implementing Empowerment:
Development of Suggestion Systems (Fig 8.3)
Considering the Employees Point of View
Putting Vehicles in Place
Brainstorming
Nominal Group Technique (fig 8.4)
Quality Circles
Suggestion Boxes
Walking & Talking

8. Suggestion Systems - 1 Management’s Role: Improving the system..
Establishing Policy
Setting Up the System
Promoting the Suggestion System
Evaluating & Implementing suggestions
Rewarding employees
Improving the system..
Improving Suggestion Processing
Improving Individual Suggestions
Problem Identification
Research
Idea Development

9. Suggestion Systems - 2 Evaluating Suggestions
Though Employees make suggestions, final analysis is still to be made by manager.
Thus, Establish a formal rating system for evaluating suggestion systems.
Handling Poor Suggestions
Listen Carefully
Express Appreciation
Carefully explain your position
Encourage feedback
Look for Compromise

10. Achieving Full Participation
Removing Hidden Barriers
Negative Behavior
Poor Writing Skills
Fear of Rejection
Inconvenience
Encouraging new Employees
Coaching Reluctant Employees
Assess
Investigate
Match
Choose
Manage

11. How to Recognize Empowered Employees
Taking Initiative
Identifying Opportunities
Thinking Critically
Building Consensus

12. Empowerment Avoiding Traps: Beyond Empowerment
Defining Power as Discretion & Self- Reliance
Failing to Properly Define Empowerment for Managers & Supervisors
Assuming Employees Have the skills to be Empowered
Getting Impatient Making the Transition from Traditional Approach
Beyond Empowerment

13. Leadership & Change

14. Leadership Defined
Leadership is the ability to inspire people to make a total, willing and voluntary commitment to accomplish or exceeding organizational goals.
Leaders must
Overcome resistance to change
Broker the needs of Constituency groups
Establish an ethical framework
Characteristics
Balanced Commitment
Positive Role Model
Good Communication Skills
Persuasiveness

15. Leadership for Quality
Principles:
Customer Focus
Obsession with Quality
Freedom through Control
Looking for Faults in Systems
Teamwork
Continuing Education & Training
The Juran Trilogy:
Quality Planning
Quality Control
Quality Improvement

16. Leadership Motivation & Inspiration: Leadership Styles:
Understanding Individual Needs
Understanding Individual Beliefs
Leadership Styles:
In a total Quality setting, the most appropriate style might be called participative leadership taken to a higher level

17. Building & Maintaining a Following
Popularity & the Leader
Not all good leaders are popular. Vice Versa applies.
Leadership Characteristics
Sense of Purpose, Self-Discipline, Honesty, Credibility, Commonsense, Stamina, Commitment, Steadfastness.
Pitfalls
Trying to be a buddy, Having an Intimate relationship with an employee, Trying to keep the same when supervising former peers.
Paradigms of Human Interaction
Win/Win, Win/Lose, Lose/Lose, Win

18. Leadership Vs Management
Leadership & Management are two distinctive and Complementary systems of action.
Management
Coping with Complexity
Planning & Budgeting for Complexity
Develops capacity to carry out plans through organizing & staffing
Ensures accomplishment of plans through controlling & Problem Solving
Leadership
Coping with Change
Setting the Direction for change
Aligns people to work toward the vision
Motivates & Inspires people to want to accomplish the plan

19. Leadership, Ethics, Change
Setting high standards of ethical behavior is an essential task of leaders in a total quality setting.
Leadership & Change
Have a clear vision & corresponding goals
Exhibit a strong sense of responsibility
Be an effective communicator
Have a high energy level
Have the will to change

20. Change Employees & Mangers on Change Restructuring & Change:
Difficulty in Change  Different perceptions of employees & managers.
Hence, proper atmosphere should be created to accommodate change.
Restructuring & Change:
Be smart & Empathetic
Have a Clear Vision
Establish Incentives that Promote the Change
Continue to Train

21. How to Lead Change? Change Facilitation Model:
A critical aspect of leadership in today’s globally oriented organization involves leading change.

22. Team Building & Team Work

23. Overview of Team Building & Teamwork - 1
What is a Team?
A team is a group of people with a common, collective goal.
Rationale for Teams
Primary reasons for advocating teamwork are:
Two or more heads are better than one.
People in teams get to know each other better, build trust & as a result help each other.
Teamwork promotes better communication.
A group of people become a team when the following conditions exist:
Agreement exists as to the team’s mission
Members adhere to the team ground rules
Fair distribution of responsibility & authority exists.

24. Overview of Team Building & Teamwork - 2
Types of Teams
Department Improvement Team
Process Improvement Team
Task Force
Learning to Work Together
Factors influencing teamwork:
Personal Identity of Team members
Relationships among Team members
Identity within the organization
How to be a Member?
Gain Entry, Be Clear on the Team’s mission, Be well prepared and participate, Stay in Touch.

25. Overview of Team Building & Teamwork - 3
How to be a Leader?
Be clear on the team’s mission
Identify success criteria
Be action centered
Establish the ground rules
Share Information
Cultivate Team Unity
Team Excellence & Performance
Interdependence, Stretching tasks, Alignment, Common Language, Trust/Respect, Shared Leadership/ Followership, Problem-solving skills, Confrontation/ Conflict-handling skills, Assessment/Action, Celebration.

26. Building Teams & Making them Work
Following are the factors that influence team building & should be taken care of:
Makeup & Size of Teams
Choosing Team Members
Responsibilities of Team Leaders
Other Team Members
Creating Teams Mission Statement
Developing Collegial Relationships
Promoting Diversity in Teams

27. Four Step Approach to Team Building
Assessing Team Needs
Planning Team-Building Activities
Executing Team-Building Activities
Evaluating Team-Building Activities

28. Character Traits & Teamwork
Following are few character traits required for Teamwork:
Honesty
Selflessness
Dependability
Enthusiasm
Responsibility
Cooperativeness
Initiative
Patience
Resourcefulness
Punctuality
Perseverance

29. Teams are not Bossed – They are Coached
Bosses approach the job from
“I’m in charge – do as you are told perspective”.
Coaches are
facilitators of team development and continually improved performance.
Following are a few characteristics of a Coach:
Clearly Defined Character
Team Development/Team Building
Mentoring
Mutual respect
Human Diversity

30. Handling Conflict in Teams
Resolution Strategies for Team Conflicts:
Plan & Work to establish a balanced culture
Establish clear criteria
Don’t allow individuals to build personal empires
Encourage & Recognize risk-taking behavior
Value constructive dissent
Assign people of widely differing perspectives
Reward and recognize both dissent & teamwork

31. Structural Inhibitors of Teamwork
Commonly found structural inhibitors to teamwork in organizations are:
Unit Structure
Accountability
Unit Goals
Responsibility
Compensation & Recognition
Planning & Control

32. Rewarding Team & Individual Performance
An organization’s attempt to institutionalize teamwork will fail unless it includes implementation of an appropriate compensation system

33. Effective Communication

34. Defnition of Communication
Communication is the transfer of message
( information,idea,emotion,intent,feeling or something else) that is both received and understood.

35. Effective Communication
Effective Communication means that the message is received ,understood and acted on in the desired manner. It is higher order of communication.

36. Strategies to communicate the importance of quality
1) Be optimistic and tie quality to the organization’s strategic direction
2) Consider the points of view of all sides when formulating your message.
3) Be positive ,honest and consistent-give every one the same message.

37. Defnition of Listening
Listening means receiving the message,corretly decoding it and accurately perceiving what it means.

38. Inhibitors of effective listening
Lack of concentration
Interruption
Preconceived ideas
Thinking ahead
Interference

39. Improving the listening skills
Upgrade your desire to listen
Ask the right question
Judge what is really being said
Eliminate listening errors

40. Communicating in Writing (Helpful Rules)
Plan before you write.
Be brief.
Be direct.
Be accurate.
Practice self – editing.

41. Strategies for improving communication
Keep up to date.
Prioritize and determine time constrains.
Decide whom to inform.
Determine how to communicate.
Communicate and follow up.
Check understanding and obtain feedback

42. Education & Training

43. Overview of Education, Training & Learning - 1
Training is
An organized, systematic series of activities designed to enhance an individual’s work-related knowledge, skills, and understanding.
Corporate America invests more than $45 billion per year in training.
Sources of Training:
In house training
External Training or a combination of both.
Numerous Instructional methods like
video tapes, lecture, demonstration etc., are used to provide training to employees

44. Overview of Education, Training & Learning - 1
Types of training by Industry:
Customer Education
Sales Skills
Employee relations etc.,
Changing Role of Training
Mission of corporate Training is becoming the maximization of competitiveness through continual improvements.
Attitudes towards Training
Although interest levels don’t yet match those found in European and Pacific Rim countries, attitude towards training in North America are changing for better.

45. Rationale for Training
The rationale for training can be found in the need to compete.
Following are the important factors for “need for training”
Quality of the existing labor pool
Global Competition
Rapid & Continual Change
Technological Transfer Problems
Changing Demographics
Any kind of learning can benefit employees & employers alike in ways that cannot be predicted.

46. Training needs Assessment
It is most important to:
Train those who need it most
Ensure that the training provided is designed to promote the goals of the organization
Managers may become involved in assessing training needs at two levels:
Organizational Level
Individual Level
The most structured approach managers can use to assess training needs is the job task analysis survey.

47. Providing Training Strategies for maximizing training resources:
Build in Quality from the start
Design Small
Think Creatively
Shop around
Preview & Customize
Internal Approaches
Computer Based training, Group instruction etc.
External Approaches
Enrolling employees in programs provided by public institutions.
Partnership Approaches
Training partnerships combine characteristics of the above two approaches.

48. Evaluating Training
Evaluating Training begins with a clear statement of purpose.
To know where training has improved performance, managers need to know three things:
Was the training provided valid?
Did the Employees learn?
Has the learning made a difference?

49. Managers as Trainers & Trainees - 1
Principles of Learning:
People learn best when they are ready to learn
People learn more easily when what they are learning can be related to something they already know
People learn best in a step-by-step manner
People learn by doing
The more often people use what they are learning, the better they will remember and understand it
Success in learning tends to stimulate additional learning
People need immediate and continual feedback to know if they have learned.

50. Managers as Trainers & Trainees - 2
Four Step Teaching Method:
Preparation
Presentation
Application
Evaluation
Managers as Trainees:
Quality basics
Strategic Quality management
Quality Planning
Quality Improvement
Quality Control

51. Workforce Literacy Impact of Illiteracy on Industry:
Difficulty in filling high-skill jobs, lower levels of productivity, higher levels of waste etc.,
What Industry Can Do
Industry in United States has found it necessary to confront the literacy problem head-on.
Companies are doing this by providing remedial education in the workplace.
What Managers Should Know about Literacy Training
The need for workforce literacy will be a fact of life with which managers will have to deal for some time to come.

52. Improving Learning Teaching Study Skills Using Humor in Training
Make a schedule and stick to it
Have a special place to study
Listen and take notes
Read assertively
Improve test-taking skills
Using Humor in Training
Properly used relevant humor can produce a more favorable audience for the trainer.
Why Training Sometime fails?
Lack of participation in planning by management
Too narrow in scope

53. Orientation Training
Recurring errors associated with orientation training:
Insufficient Information
Too much Information
Conflicting Information
Principles for providing effective training:
Base orientation topics on a needs assessment
Establish an organizing framework
Establish learner control
Make orientation a process, not just an event
Allow people and personalities to emerge
Reflect organization’s mission & culture
Have a system for improving & updating

54. Customer Training An old adage states
“The customer is always right”
Customer education has several aspects:
Shaping customer expectations
Providing user support
Marketing
Customer expectations are shaped by the promotional literature used in marketing the product.
Customer training can also help market a product.

55. Ethics Training
Ethical behavior and the rationale for it can be taught.
Ethics training is becoming increasingly important
As the pressures of succeeding in an intensely competitive global marketplace grow.
Following are a few recommendations:
Stimulate discussion
Facilitate, don’t preach
Integrate ethics training
Highlight practical applications

56. Questions/Queries