Hiroshi Mikitani
CEO, Rakuten Inc.
The Empowerment Trilogy: Part One
How to Empower Staff
I consider the concept of empowerment to be one of the cornerstones of my success.
I am often asked by others how to generate and manage empowerment on a day-to-day basis. The request for concrete information has inspired this next set of blog posts. I offer to you a three-part series in empowerment instruction. Over this series of posts, I will address the three key areas in which empowerment is both possible and necessary: empowerment of staff, empowerment of customers and empowerment of industry.
Today’s focus: Empowering staff.
It is one thing to say you would like to empower your staff. It is quite another thing to make that happen. Many in the workplace today have been trained to follow orders and restrain any independent thinking. Over the years, they have been rewarded for this form of loyalty. But I would argue that you can have loyalty and empowerment at the same time if you organize your management systems in the proper way.
Three Keys to Empowerment of Staff:
My book: Marketplace 3.0
I consider the concept of empowerment to be one of the cornerstones of my success.
I am often asked by others how to generate and manage empowerment on a day-to-day basis. The request for concrete information has inspired this next set of blog posts. I offer to you a three-part series in empowerment instruction. Over this series of posts, I will address the three key areas in which empowerment is both possible and necessary: empowerment of staff, empowerment of customers and empowerment of industry.
Today’s focus: Empowering staff.
It is one thing to say you would like to empower your staff. It is quite another thing to make that happen. Many in the workplace today have been trained to follow orders and restrain any independent thinking. Over the years, they have been rewarded for this form of loyalty. But I would argue that you can have loyalty and empowerment at the same time if you organize your management systems in the proper way.
Three Keys to Empowerment of Staff:
- Emphasize teamwork. Individuals worry about themselves. A team worries about all team members. When we organize individuals into teams and we demand they work collaboratively to solve problems, we create a culture of empowerment. We have stated clearly to each individual: You are not responsible just for yourself. You are responsible for the success of the team. Collaboration and teamwork calls on individuals to give more and expect more in return. When we put individuals on a team, we empower them to think not only of themselves, but of the larger group.
- Allow for failure. I often like to remind myself and others of how business is different from sports. In sports, you only get a certain number of chances to succeed. If the clock runs out or you take three strikes, your chance to score is past. This is not so in business. In business, you can swing as many times as you like. But to keep employees swinging, leaders must constantly emphasize that they will accept strikes, so long as you keep trying.
- Prevent chaos. How do you empower everyone yet not allow the workplace to descend into chaos? It’s a fair question. At Rakuten, one way we do this is the rigorous use of KPI – key performance indicators. At Rakuten, we measure everything. We know how long it takes for projects to move through completion, we know how many engineers it takes to execute a change in the system, we even know how long it takes for an employee in the lobby to reach the company meeting room on the 12 floor. To keep this group of empowered employees on task, we set clear and specific goals. We do not say: do your best to increase revenues. We say: Reach this specific revenue goal by this specific date. Concrete goals help to keep empowerment a positive force in our company.
My book: Marketplace 3.0
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