I found this article insightful and motivating. However, I feel that in order to effectively apply what it claims to be the next level of employee empowerment (which is employee-self determination), an organization must first determine, whether or not it’s processes, infrastructure and culture are mature enough to handle such paradigm. Of the three that I mentioned, perhaps culture is the hardest to change. It is common knowledge that culture is formed through years of employee interaction within and outside the workplace. In the same token, transforming it effectively would also take years… given that the organization does not lose focus. Suffice it to say, it is easier to raise the organization’s IQ rather than its EQ.

In my opinion, self-determination could only be applied to employees with good competence and mindset to start with. The nature of work should also be factored in. Case in point, a sales person can be given relatively more autonomy than a person handling quality control. Other factors would be the size and age of the organization. For a technology start-up, as in our case, most of the employees are also owners. By its very nature, our organization embraces employee self-determination without putting any conscious effort into it. We do make mistakes, a lot of them actually. But we feel that this is a tradeoff we have to accept, as autonomy and innovation are crucial for us to get the next big deal. We find solace in the thought that in order for us to succeed, we must also double our failure rate, an Inspiring thought from IBM’s founder, Thomas J. Watson. On the other extreme, a large multinational consumer goods company such as P&G, generally cannot allow such level of employee self-determination. After all, they have a significant market share to protect in an aggregately flat market. As Prof. Zamora mentioned in class, with employee empowerment should come a high-tolerance for failure.

A thought that I was able to reflect on while reading the article was the balance between motivation and punishment. In my years as a student leader and concurrently an entrepreneur, I found myself constantly leaning towards using more motivation than punishment. Punishment can be effective in keeping my coworker’s errors in check. I am on-guard however on using punishment too often or on trivial matters. This negates its efficacy. It issues bitterness to my coworkers and makes them indifferent. I am Machiavellian to some extent in my view of punishment. For in rare times when I feel that punishment is due, I issue it strongly. Motivation on the other hand, keeps them hungry for excellence. Considering the time factor, punishment seems to work only in the short-run, while motivation has more lasting effects, especially when our joint vision is materializing. As a bonus, motivation is contagious.

I appreciate the author’s dissection of the factors of motivation and punishment in an organization. It has put a little more depth to my otherwise simplistic view of this matter. This leads to better application.

In conclusion, I strongly feel that self-determination and control should meet halfway. It is ultimately up to the organization where the half-way mark is. Balance is imperative.

Referenced Article: “The Next Level In Employee Empowerment”, Geisler