Why It is So Important to Equip Managers with the Authority They Need

Alejandro’s Tale: What Happens When Management Doesn’t Have the Authority to Make the Decisions They Need to Make for Their Customers and Their Employees

What began for me as a simple trip to get my iPhone set-up at the local outlet of my wireless carrier turned into an experience that can serve as an important “teachable moment” about the need to empower managers — and workers — to do their jobs effectively.

Photo by Bagus Hernawan on Unsplash

Introduction

My 5 month-old iPhone 13 just suddenly died just after Christmas. I didn’t drop it. I didn’t dunk it. It just plain died! Despite all the help from the “amateur tech support” (my two adult sons and their significant others) gathered at our house for the holidays and from my wireless carrier’s tech support, the phone was simply dead, for no apparent or easily solvable reason. And so I began my journey to get a replacement phone, something I assumed would just take an hour or two at the local outlet for the wireless carrier. But as Lee Corso famously says, “Not so fast my friend!”…