Douglas McGregor, Revisited: Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise by Gary Heil;Warren Bennis;Deborah C. Stephens

Author:Gary Heil;Warren Bennis;Deborah C. Stephens
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2007-10-05T14:06:00+00:00

Management must seek to create conditions (and an organizational environment) so that members of the organization at all levels can best achieve their own goals by directing their efforts toward the goals of the organization.

-DOUGLAS McGREGOR, The Professional Manager

In theory, empowerment is about the redistribution of authority and accountability in the organization. Most often it takes the form of granting greater decision-making power to front-line employees to enable them to improve the way work is done or to customize the process for customers.

Herman Miller: McGregor in Action

Founded in 1923 by D .J. DePree, Herman Miller, Inc. (Zeeland, MI) is one of the world's leading manufacturers of commercial office furniture and a provider of furniture management services. The company uses both formal and informal management systems to promote employee-owner values, participative management, and environmental responsibility.

Known for its space-age furniture designs and progressive management system, Herman Miller rigorously considers the input of its employee-owners whose high level of commitment is supported by the spirit of corporate community instilled into the company's organizational design and structure.

While Herman Miller readily changes its business practices to fit an ever-evolving marketplace, their belief and value systems remain steadfast. These qualities are again infused throughout the company's processes and policies. The company is committed to cultivating community participation and people development. It believes in aligning individual goals with those of the organization, and values community because of the strength and power that comes from uniting thousands of individuals, with truly diverse perspectives, opinions, skills, and backgrounds in a common purpose. Herman Miller's corporate community is comprised of all of the company's stakeholders: suppliers, dealers, customers, designers, and other partners. Through diversity, united in a common purpose, Herman Miller remains a creative and flexible organization that adjusts rapidly to market changes. The community is built on competence and performance and has at its core participation and employee development.

Management's belief in the accountability of the entire workforce is evident in the amount of autonomy given to employees

(continued) Herman Miller: McGregor in Action (Continued)

and the company's emphasis on their workforce as employeeowners. The idea of employee-owners is a message consistently repeated throughout all of Herman Miller's policies, practices, and public statements. Living with integrity and respecting the environment are also attributes that are reinforced through the company's formal and informal practices.

Herman Miller is an organization that personifies those qualities McGregor attributed to the intrinsically-rewarding workplace, where higher human ideals are forged to create a seamless organization who's goals, motivations, and actions are all geared toward a shared purpose.

In most implementations, however, companies attempting to empower employees still retain their traditional organizational structure, where power emanates from the top. This can result in confusion: the front-line worker has supposedly been empowered, yet the old system dictates that power be held at higher levels and that managers be held accountable for the front-line worker's actions. For the front-line worker, this semi-delegation of authority can be little more than an organizational tease since the true power remains with the manager and all that is actually redistributed is some of the manager's responsibility.

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