Why Empower Team Members? Empowerment is a characteristic of high-performance teams. They are given the autonomy required for empowerment because they consistently outperform competent employees in the organization. Empowering your team achieves a variety of positive results. It enables employees to serve customers and users quickly, and it frees managers from some responsibilities so they can focus better on more important matters.* Many see an empowered corporate culture as a place where all employees, regardless of their position or title, accept responsibility for their own and the organization's performance.* The essence of empowerment is to train your employees so they understand the organization's values, policies, and procedures and their role in achieving the desired outcomes. One goal of empowerment is to allow employees to make decisions without checking in with their supervisor. Retail giant L.L. Bean provides an excellent example. If a customer has a product that has failed (for example, a broken zipper), every employee at L.L. Bean has been empowered to handle the situation. Every employee has been trained in L.L. Bean's mission, values, policies, and procedures, and employees have been empowered to take action to support each of these. The employee who is presented with the failed zipper knows that he or she can either offer to have it repaired or allow the customer to choose a replacement. The employee does not need to check with a supervisor. It is at his or her discretion to do what is necessary to make sure the customer leaves satisfied and remains loyal to L.L. Bean.

Why do you think L.L. Bean has empowered its employees to make independent decisions that ultimately have financial consequences?

What steps do you think L.L. Bean took in the process of empowering its employees and setting them up for success?