Sometimes work can feel rewarding, but at what times do you feel rewarded at work?

• When doing something you enjoy?
• When you feel that growth is taking place?
• When your team is functioning properly?

While these may be important elements, wouldn’t you agree that the strongest feelings of reward are provided in situations where one has been given empowerment.

The Reason why Empowerment does not occur.

For everyone to feel rewarded and to work vigorously, there must be empowerment! However, the reality is that there are many organizations wherein empowerment does not occur.

Why is that?

“Empowerment” involves the person who originally has authority (the boss) passing along the authority to make decisions to another person (in many cases, the subordinates).

What are the reasons for a boss not empowering a subordinate?

• They don’t want their job to be taken away so they don’t want to pass along the authority.
• It’s bothersome.
• For no real reason.
• The subordinate can’t be trusted (they feel anxious about passing along the authority).

And so on.

Since the above 4 reasons are unfounded, people with this mindset should either be encouraged to consider things more thoroughly or be removed entirely. XD

To conclude, empowerment may steadily occur when it may be assumed that the most appropriate person has become the boss, and that all issues with “trust” have been resolved.

Incidentally, ISAO is managed as a “Super Flat” non-hierarchical organization where empowerment occurs in every job on a daily basis due to the fact that boss-subordinate relationships do not apply.

Further information regarding the Super Flat Model may be found below.
https://blog.isao.co.jp/super_flatmodel_en/

Gaining the Ability to Trust
What exactly should be done in order to gain the ability to trust?

Does the lack of things like skills or experience mean that a person can’t be trusted?

Not necessarily. Those things are not mandatory.

The most important thing—the only necessary thing—is the sharing of values.

ISAO’s Style

The values for ISAO are MVS (Mission・Vision・Spirit).

Mission: Create and spread enjoyment
Vision: From Japan! Create services that move hundreds of millions of people
Spirit: Open, Challenge, Bond

If MVS can be shared among colleagues, then empowerment can be distributed. That is ISAO’s style.

Cover the Risk of Failure with “Open Activity”

It was stated earlier that individuals lacking in skills and experience can’t be trusted (due to risk of failure), but failure should steadily decrease with a properly shared MVS.

Even if failure occurs, irreparable damaged will not be done as long as the issue is addressed immediately.

Address issues enthusiastically, and proceed exuberantly.

This is ISAO’s style.

The necessary approach for this is “Open Activity”.

At ISAO, a person’s activities are all posted online on Goalous.

As such, empowerment is readily passed along, failure readily occurs, and progress is made while actively addressing issues.

Summary

Promoting empowerment gives a sense of reward to a team.

Share values, improve the empowerment of authority, open activities, and proceed strongly.

It may seem simple, but if any organization can do it, they can dramatically accelerate towards their visions.

Opening activities is difficult!?
For those who may find it difficult, we recommend introducing “Goalous” to your team, and kindly welcome you to ask us about it!