Overcoming The Initiative Paradox

Wednesday 30 September, 2009

by Dr Tim Baker

How can you get your employees to show initiative when they need to? And at the same time – how do you get them to follow company guidelines and processes when they have to?

This dilemma is called the ‘initiative paradox’. The initiative paradox is the line between staff initiative and supervisory responsibility. Managing the extent and limits of employees’ participation in business decision-making is about overcoming the initiative paradox.
There are daily examples of when you see too much initiative or – more likely not enough employee enterprise. Consider for example a retail franchise business.
Staff will often talk about ownership when they refer to their involvement in retail outlets. They are probably multi-skilled in all the tasks involved in a retail store. These same employees will often question what they perceive to be unnecessary interference by head office in the running of ‘their’ store. This may include such things as policy making, customer interaction, purchasing, stock control, and systems and procedures. This creates a tension between head office and individual operations.
Employees see that their initiative to make decisions at the ‘coalface’ is being sabotaged by head office. At the same time, head office also become frustrated by frontline employees who they perceive as lacking initiative and relying too heavily on them to make decisions that they consider to be daily operational matters.
One of the outcomes of the initiative paradox is employees failing to show appropriate initiative when they need too. This results from a perception on behalf of employees that managers will interfere in their areas of influence, so they become less resourceful. So - this lack of resourcefulness by staff is often viewed by managers as a sign they cannot - or will not - take the initiative when required to do so. The manager therefore feels reluctantly justified to make decisions in operational matters.
This ‘vicious cycle’ leads to frustration from both employee and employer. The cycle can be broken. Business owners and managers try to put in place company rules, regulations, policies, and guidelines as a way of resolving the initiative paradox. Some strategies have been successful - but unfortunately most have failed.
Four practical strategies help to overcome the initiative paradox. These are:

1. Goal alignment
   
   Goal alignment is about aligning the perspectives of employees and employer. Where there is agreement between the motives of employer and employee, it is less likely that the exercising of the judgment of employees will not be in conflict with their manager. On the other hand, where there is nonalignment between both entities, employee initiative is likely to be unwelcomed by management. The assumption reinforcing the goal alignment approach is that conflict is not the result of the enterprising qualities of employees; rather it is the result of a misalignment between the organisation and the individual.
   Frequently, this misalignment between individual and organisation is the result of poorly thought out and implemented reward systems. For instance, a company that values teamwork on the one hand - but rewards individual performance on the other - is likely to create nonalignment between the employee and the organisation.
   
   • A clearly defined formal performance bonus system
     
   • Managers setting an example or ‘walking the talk’
     
   • Consistent informal communication between managers and their staff
     
   • Performance appraisals that focus on aligning individual and organisation goals
Some practical measures business owners and managers can take to align the goals of employees and employers are:


2. Communication of boundaries
   
   Communication of boundaries is a second way of overcoming the initiative paradox. This involves the managers carefully communicating the kind of initiative they want and don’t want. In other words, this is about communicating the extent and limits of an individual’s authority to display workplace initiative. Explaining when, where and how initiative is expected, spells out to employees the boundaries of using their initiative. If these boundaries are not communicated, employees will be confused and indecisive about displaying their initiative in the business. The assumption underpinning this strategy is that in certain situations it is appropriate and expected that employees demonstrate initiative but in other situations it is inappropriate to show initiative.
   
   Some practical measures business owners and managers can take to communicate boundaries around displaying proper initiatives are:
   
   
   • Using critical incidents in the business to clarify boundaries
     
   • Coaching and mentoring employees in their work
     
   • Documenting acceptable and unacceptable forms of initiative
     
   • Rewarding appropriate initiative


3. Information sharing
   
   Information sharing between employee and employer can build trust. This approach concentrates on minimising unshared expectations by providing employees with the same information, perspective and frame of reference that the manager uses in managing their area of responsibility. The underlying assumption of this approach is that by sharing information, and therefore trusting each other, employees and managers will have a similar perspective. This method encourages employees to channel their enterprising qualities based on an appropriate flow of information from managers. Information sharing is a particularly useful approach in the areas of strategic planning and continuous improvement. For example, a strategic planning day is a great way to share information. The purpose of the day may be to develop a five year plan for the business and involves all employees. On the day, the business owner can share his or her vision of the business with the team and invite them to contribute to a five year plan. This could be in the form of putting together strategies, plans-of-action, accountabilities and timelines. By sharing information with the staff, the manager can encourage them to be involved in - and initiate - a strategic plan.
   Some key steps you can do to share information:
   
   • Holding strategic planning days
     
   • Running continuous improvement workshops
     
   • Group problem solving sessions
     
   • Regular staff meetings
     
4. Dynamic accountability
   
   Dynamic accountability involves an understanding between managers and staff that initiative and judgment can be exercised, but only at the particular employee’s own risk. In other words, if the result of employee initiative is unacceptable to management, it can adversely affect the initiator. This kind of strategy is typically commonplace in bureaucratic and authority-focused organisations, such as the military. These kinds of organisations rely on a clearly defined chain of command for decision-making. SMEs are unlikely to need to use this approach too often. However, consider an example of an employee in charge of buying product for a SME that normally has very stringent purchasing rules. One of those policies may be to order in products at a specified time of the month. But the employee may have advanced notice that the company has won a large contract with a customer. This customer requires immediate delivery of the product. The employee elects to order outside the normal ordering cycle to respond to the immediate needs of the customer. This employee initiative violates a company policy. It is – nevertheless - in the interests of the customer - so no negative consequences may occur for this staff member on this occasion.
   Dynamic accountability is the least effective of the four approaches in promoting enterprising behaviour in employees. Using this approach, the business purposely avoids defining the conditions for employee initiative, while simultaneously conceding that people will occasionally encounter such exceptional circumstances.
   Here are some circumstances where dynamic accountability may be considered appropriate:
   
   • Conducting workplace investigations
     
   • Showing initiative against unethical behaviour
     
   • Reporting unlawful behaviour
     
   • Crisis management

By using these four approaches, you can overcome two important challenges in encouraging appropriate enterprise from staff. The first is to motivate individuals to use their initiative in decision-making so that it is aligned with business needs. The second challenge is that different situations require different forms of initiative from staff. All four approaches attempt to limit the undesirable, unintended consequences of employee enterprise and maximise their initiative.

Source:ceoonline.com