Walking the Empowerment Tightrope: Balancing Management Authority & Employee Influence

WTET is one of the few truly practical management development books around. It is for the managerial leader who wants to create high performance. Crosby recognizes that no one is empowered unless there is clear authority. He knows that performance improvement flows from the creative tension between managerial authority in balance with employee authority. Through this balance, in the hands of managers, an employee's contribution can best be made. To achieve this balance he identifies 25 high performance factors in bite-size portions with practical suggests for implementation. The single most important factor he presents is his concept of single-point accountability. This concept will aid those managers and organizations who have taken consensus and teamwork too far resulting in the aimless empowered. While I have few disagreements with this book his concept of "sponsorship" tends to muddy its clarity around managerial accountability. Managership would be a better term to describe both the leading and managing a competent manager must do to provide direction and resources for employee success. The chapter "Survey Feedback-Turning Data into Action" could benefit from some mention of the importance of managing the increasing levels of complexity as organizations add levels of work and management. All in all I recommend this book to managers or those wanting to become managers and especially by a manager of managers to use as a book to read in common in a staff learning team to create a common foundation for management development.