Efficiency = Power + Responsibility

"The greater power comes with greater responsibility." Nicely said by someone. Getting sunshine even moon alights the world in night. If you are not going to balance work lying on your head, it will just get seconds to become headache for you. There are simple solutions to be taken without any mistakes.

Why do we find ‘Chief’ in organization? ‘Chief’ has greater power. Nonetheless ‘Chief’ has greater work to do. ‘Chief’ has only two hands as we all have. Similarly he or she has limited hours to work out operation.

The answer is delegation. David G. Javitch says "Delegation can be your answer, especially when employees feel they're being given an opportunity to learn new skills, gain more knowledge and feel more connected to the organization." You find out the people who can help you. You manage the people well; your people will mange the rest well. Who broke his head after this concept of ‘Delegation’? The industry revolution changed so many ways to work. Needless to say we follow the management and administrative theories even today. We will try to match the subject matter of management theories with applied practices to balance authority, responsibility and efficiency in work.

We can categorize management theories in three eras. They are classical management, pre modern management and modern management theories.

Traditional or classical management focused on efficiency. That was beginning. Classical management includes bureaucratic, scientific and administrative management.

1. Bureaucratic management believes in a rational set of structuring guidelines, such as rules and procedures, hierarchy, and a clear division of labor.
2. Scientific management focuses on the "one best way" to do a job.
3. Administrative management emphasizes the flow of information in the operation of the organization.

Although we have crossed the era and living in modern organization, don’t get astonished if you find classical approach in any corner of world in management. Although we are open and set nonlinear organization, we need to follow virtual hierarchy in organization.

According to Max Waber "Efficiency in bureaucracies comes from: clearly defined and specialized functions; use of legal authority; hierarchical form; written rules and procedures; technically trained bureaucrats; appointment to positions based on technical expertise; promotions based on competence and clearly defined career paths." Weber identified three basic types of legitimate authority; traditional, charismatic, and rational.

He distinguished power and authority. Power is a unilateral thing that enables a person to force another to behave in a certain way whether by means of strength or by rewards. Authority (Legitimate authority) is an acceptance of the rules by those over whom it is to be exercised within limits agreeable to the subordinates.

Taylor (Father of Scientific Management) focused on controlling tasks. He tried to identify the utilization of power and authority. Efficiency comes through well-controlled tasks that can be performed as instructed. He mentioned that specific procedures and methods for each job must be followed with no exceptions in his time and motion study.

Scientific management theory was well applied at floor level or operational units. Henry Gantt solved the problem of multiple overlapping tasks at operations. He developed the Gantt chart, which is used for scheduling multiple overlapping tasks over a time period.
The good things in his theory were an introduction to motivational schemes and emphasize on the greater effectiveness of rewards for good work.

Although we consider these theories as classical or operational management theories and practices, we follow most of them even today. In my view, we however follow scientific management and Gantt charts in managing industrial operations or at solving customer queries at call centers and contact centers.

Fayol suggested empowering employee with authority while assigning responsibility. Fayol defined authority as 'the right to give orders and the power to exact obedience.' He emphasized the importance of linking authority to responsibility, which together required increasing judgment and morality at senior levels.

Legitimate authority can be practiced in your organization. Power sharing is situational and intuitive decision. If this is question of cooperation, partnership and turnaround share your power. Leaders who exercise authority intelligently 10 percent of the time and who follow 90 percent of the time are much more likely to build a dynamic, survivable organization than the 100 percent authoritarians.

Sharing authority and responsibility is yet standing question. "You can delegate authority, but not responsibility," says Stephen W. Comiskey. If everything is yet to be on individual, responsibility is likely to be in doubt. Competitiveness realizes responsibility. That’s why modern management introduces team structure in organization.

Trends in modern management call for powerless organization. "When we feel powerless and disenfranchised, we struggle to insert our best initiative and intelligence into the system, and for good reason: Power as the dominant control system creates bottlenecks, and squeezes a lot of intelligence out of the picture, Even the best-intentioned manager in an approval chain overrides local judgment and slows down the rate of change" says Elizabeth Pinchot.

No doubts, today most of the organizations follow team wise authority and responsibility. Elizabeth identifies "Teams balance opportunities for personal development, changing the comparative drudgery of work at the base of the hierarchy to a true learning environment."

According to John Adams, Society demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. This applies to organization as well. This is just similar to the more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have. Recognition and remuneration can back person’s ability to realize responsibility. This was hidden in classical theories.

Anyway it seems to your decision, what to delegate, how to delegate and to whom to delegate. But always you are responsible for what you do, what you don’t do, what you say and what you don’t say. Because you are empowered to do!!