Control or Empowerment? Which is more effective?

I have read a ton of articles lately around "control vs. empowerment" when it comes to social media. Some companies are afraid that if they play in social media, they will lose control. We have been in such a "control-based" environment that it is tough for more traditional companies to step back and realize that the customer is empowering themselves. If you choose not to play in this media, you choose to let people talk about you without being involved in the conversation. Social Media allows the customer to speak- like it or not.

But this post is not just about Social Media, this post is about how you lead people. The premise if very similar. Do you control your staff or do you empower them?
I would argue that a manager that controls their staff is not very self confident and ends up placing fear and paralyses in their people. How many risks will people take if they are scared of their boss?

Now lets look at a leader that empowers their staff. Empowering means giving your staff the latitude to do their job. As a leader you provide vision and direction, but then you empower your people to get the job done. Your brand will be a lot stronger when your people feel like they are empowered to do their job and speak on behalf of the brand. This instills a sense of pride and responsibility. I guarantee that you will get more done with empowerment than control.

If you are a control freak (yes, I am a recovering control freak), you have to figure out how to let go. As I let go of control and started to empower my team, I experienced more successes. As I experienced more successes, I empowered my team more- it is a self fulfilling prophecy! Here is how I empower vs. control:

1) I work WITH the team to set a clear vision and mission. I don't go off and create it in an office. The outcome is always stronger with input from the team.
2) I insure each team member understands the vision and how it affects their job.
3) I share my "secret" of being a recovering control freak with my team.
4) I tell each staff member what information I need from them to prevent me from back sliding into a place of control. Basically, I encourage my team to come to me as issues are bubbling up, not after they've happened.
5) I give them permission to tell me if I am drifting into control mode, then we determine how we will work together to course correct.
6) If there is an issue that requires my involvement I ask questions. Questions will get you so much more information than accusations or directives.
7) Once I understand the situation I work WITH my team member to solve the problem. I don't solve it for them and I don't take over the situation- the results are so much greater and the team member learns MUCH more in this scenario.
8) I check in with my team and ask for feedback- I do 360 degree feedback asking supervisors, peers and partners for feedback. This keeps me honest in my quest to empower vs. control. See my post on feedback.

This is my "8 step plan" to empower others. How do you empower others? I'd love to know.

What is Strategy?

The other day in an interview, someone asked me, "What is strategy". Of course we all know what strategy is, right? We have lived and breathed it all our professional and personal lives. But have you ever tried to answer that question? Here is what Webster and Wikipedia have to say:

Wikipedia: A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. The word strategy has military connotations, because it derives from the Greek word for general.
Webster: a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal

Sounds straight forward enough, but I'll bet if you asked 10 business people what strategy is, you'd get 10 different answers. Here is my answer...

In business as in your personal life you have missions, visions or goals- call them what you may. You create a strategy to meet these goals. So, I agree with Wikipedea and Webster that a strategy is a plan to achieve a goal, vision or mission. Here is where folks disagree- I think that your mission, visions or goals stay constant, where you strategy needs to be tweaked or changed along the way. You've heard people say "stick to the strategy", others say "Veer from the strategy and you'll fail". I say if you don't change the strategy based on variable conditions as you work toward your vision you will fail. What do I mean?

This summer my husband and I had a mission to have our 3 kids experience Washington DC and have a wonderful time. Our strategy was to drive Minneapolis to DC using a preplanned route which would take 48 hours. including a stop at my sister's to spend the night and would arrive in DC by 1:00 on Monday. Monday afternoon we would spend at Arlington, Tuesday we would see ALL of the monuments and Wednesday we would hit 3-4 museums and be back on the road by 3 PM.
All was going well until we hit road construction. Our strategy was at risk and we had not made any contingency plans- horror! We got to DC at 3:00- 2 hours off of our strategic time frame and then we hit DC traffic which took another hour. We got to our hotel at 4:00- 3 hours off our plan, I started to stress just a bit, but we could still get to Arlington- game on! Except, the kids wanted to order pizza and watch a movie- they were sick of being in the car. What? Now our plans to go to Arlington were in jeopardy- our strategy was going downhill FAST!
Guess what we did? We went swimming, got a pizza and watched a movie.
On Tuesday we went to some, not all, of the monuments and to the Hirshhorn Museum. On Wednesday, our final day, we went to the Air and Space Museum all morning, had lunch at an outdoor cafe and then drove through Arlington National Cemetery on our way out at 3:00 PM.
Think about it, we got to DC 3 hours after our planned time, we missed "touring" Arlington, we missed 2 monuments and we only went to 2 museums instead of 4. This project manager, me, had failed to accomplish our strategy- or did I? Remember that our mission was to have our kids experience DC and have a wonderful time. If you ask the kids about the trip they will tell you that it was one of the best trips ever. We tweaked our strategy based on the conditions that changed on us, but we succeeded at our mission.

I would offer that a good strategy is a clear plan that is flexible enough to change with variable conditions and meet the stated mission, vision or goal.
What do you think??