I am thinking of blogging about some important life lessons that I have learned going forward. To keep it simple I will just blog about one life lesson at a time.

Another year of blogging and librarianship is about to pass yet again, so here is one successful thing that I have truly learned over this time:

1. In terms of supervision, empowering others has proven to be a great asset again and again. Empowerment immediately moves the supervisor away from micromanagement to a position of allowing the employee to flourish on their own. However, empowerment does not mean just leaving the employee alone to participate in a veritable guessing game as to what is effective or successful action. I accomplish empowerment in these steps:
   • Have a discussion as to how the employee’s gifts and interests contribute to the success of the organization or group. I always find that employees have an expertise or skill for some important work that I will never have or will never be nearly as good at. This is a good thing! Everyone should realize that have something unique to positively contribute! This understanding allows the supervisor to internalize the fact that the group or organization can be far more successful using everyone’s gifts, instead of just relying on the supervisor to force action.
   • Once finished discussing the employee’s gifts/interests (excellent employees often proactively bring their good ideas to a supervisor without the supervisor needing to ask, but if the employee is hesitant to initiate conversation the supervisor should reach out), the supervisor should ask the employee what they can do to help the employee succeed. I often ask an employee, what resources can I acquire or what support can I give to help you in this project? This question alone will allow the supervisor to learn and to gain the employee’s confidence/trust by providing resources and other support even if it is just moral support. I find that, as a supervisor, material resources are generally easy to acquire (unless something outlandishly expensive is deemed necessary). Another relatively easy resource to give employees is needed information. This allows the employee to have a context by which to place their work in.
   • The supervisor should then allow the employee time and space to work on their project with the understanding that the employee can go to the supervisor at any time to ask for assistance. Upon completion of the task the supervisor should check in with the employee to see how things went and what can be improved. Often a compliment or congratulations from the supervisor to the employee is in order. It is important to give feedback. If something went totally wrong, the supervisor should consider this a learning opportunity and ask the employee what they would do differently going forward. Learning from experience leads to wisdom. Great learning occurs more often from failures than from successes.
   • Quotes from business leaders to support empowerment
     1. Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft said, “The vision is really about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.” See http://sourcesofinsight.com/lessons-learned-from-bill-gates/
     2. Timothy Ferriss, author of the 4 Hour Work Week on page 110 notes, “It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them. People are smarter than you think. Give them a chance to prove themselves.”
     3. General Stanley McChrystal has several quotes from his book Team of Teams that I find useful. I will refer readers to excerpts of my post from three years ago.
     1. McChrystal’s decentralized managerial philosophy went something like this (page 214), “”If something supports our effort, as long as it is not immoral or illegal,” you could do it. Soon, I found that the question I most often asked my force was “What do you need?”
     2. Page 214, “On the whole, our initiative-which we call “empowered execution” met with tremendous success. Decisions came more quickly, critical in a fight where speed was essential to capturing enemies and preventing attacks. More important, and more surprising, we found that, even as speed increased and we pushed authority further down, the quality of decisions actually went up.”
     3. Page 216, “In the old model, subordinates provided information and leaders disseminated commands. We reversed it: we had our leaders provide information so that subordinates, armed with context, understanding, and connectivity, could take the initiative and make decisions.”
     4. Page 228, “”Thank you” became my most important phrase, interest and enthusiasm my most powerful behaviors. For a younger member of the command, even if the brief had been terrible, I would compliment the report.”