Page 272 - Introduction to Business

246 PART 2 Managing Business Behavior

5. Creating a team atmosphere that is informal, relaxed, comfortable, and non-
judgmental
6. Establishing intense, short-term member relations
7. Keeping group communication on target and schedule, while permitting dis-
agreement and valuing effective listening
8. Urging a spirit of constructive criticism and authentic, nonevaluative feedback
9. Encouraging members to express feelings and to be concerned about group
morale
10. Clarifying roles, relationships, assignments, and responsibilities
11. Sharing leadership functions within the group and using total member resources
12. Pausing periodically from task pursuits to reexamine and reevaluate team
progress and communications
13. Fostering trust, confidence, and commitment within the group
14. Being sensitive to the team’s linking function with other work units
15. Fostering a norm that members will be supportive and respectful of one
another and realistic in their expectations of each other
16. Promoting an approach that is goal-directed, seeks group participation,
divides the labor fairly, and synchronizes effort
17. Setting high performance standards for the group
Depending on the cultural and professional background of its members, the
performance of the team will vary. Yet, firms will be justified using the team
approach as long as the team as a unit is more productive than its members work-
ing separately.

Participative Management and
Employee Empowerment
Managers have long wrestled with the challenge of how to involve employees in the
management process and at the same time control the organization to achieve cor-
participative management A porate objectives. Participative management calls for employees to actively provide
management approach where input in the management decision-making process, as well as in the operation of the
employees participate in the company. Employee empowerment is a proactive approach to management where
management decision-making process
as well as in the operation of the workers decide what, when, and how they would like to work to achieve corporate
company goals. Unlike MBO, which is essentially a top-down method to management, partic-
employee empowerment A proactive ipative management and empowerment is a bottom-up approach. The objective of
approach to management where participative management and employee empowerment is to motivate employees
workers decide what, when, and how
they will work to achieve corporate and provide them with the satisfaction that they are part of the corporate decision-
goals making process. Rather than management directing employees on what, when, and
how work is to be done, employees will now be able to share their ideas with man-
agement on how to get the job done. The sense of participation in the decisions that
affect their own jobs motivates employees and provides great job satisfaction.
A good example of participative management is in the IT and software develop-
ment business. Here employees are given a specific task, like developing a particu-
lar type of software for a client, along with a deadline. It is up to the employees to
decide what, when, and how to accomplish the job. Companies like Microsoft
(United States), SAP (Germany), Infosys (India), and others give their employees a
lot of leeway in getting their jobs done. Yet, the crucial issue from a company’s point
of view is whether increased job satisfaction is reflected in performance, produc-
tivity increases, and rising consumer satisfaction. If employee empowerment does

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