by Kenneth Murrell and Mimi Meredith
Chapter 1. The Empowering Manager Is …
Empowering Is Mutual Influence
Empowering Is the Creative Distribution of Power
Empowering Is Joint, Shared Responsibility
Empowering Is Vital and Energetic
Empowering Is Inclusive, Democratic, and Long Lasting
Manager's Checklist for Chapter 1
Chapter 2. The Empowering Manager Does …
Empowering Enables Talent and Capability
Empowering Fosters Accomplishment
Empowering Invests in Learning
Empowering Finds the Spirit and Builds Effective Relationships
Empowering Informs, Leads, Coaches, Serves, Creates, Liberates
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 2
Chapter 3. Getting to Knowledge: The Route to Meaningful Information
Are You in the Know?
Where Does Knowledge Come From?
Where Does Knowledge Go?
From Techno-Babble to Info-Savvy
Use It or Lose It
Planning to Inform
The Big-Picture Payoff
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 3
Chapter 4. Empowering Leadership: Knowing When and How
Who's in Charge?
Formality or Informality?
The World Is Flat
To Lead or Not to Lead
Following the Leader
A Golden Rule: Lead as You Want Others to Lead
Construct, Don't Destruct
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 4
Chapter 5. Who's at Work Here? From Monologue to Dialogue
Start a Dialogue with Yourself
Show 'Em That You Care
When You Know, Tell 'Em
Go for the Gold
Olympic Challenges
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 5
Chapter 6. What's at Work Here? Process vs. Results
Just Tell Me What You Want
Tooling Up for Servant-Leadership
Access and Expectations
The Sustainable Organization and the Servant-Leader
The Three R's of Empowerment
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 6
Chapter 7. No More Reengineering: Make More with What You've Got
Turn Reengineering into We-engineering
Rethinking, Reengineering, Renewal
Transaction, Transition, Transformation
You Are What You Structure
Structured Design: Feng Shui and Ergonomics
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 7
Chapter 8. Empowering Employees: The Magic of Response-Ability
I Love My Job-or Do I?
Why the Spirit Doesn't Move Them
Keepers and Finders
Seek and You Shall Find
The Value of Money in an Empowered Organization
Free to Be Response-Able
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 8
Chapter 9. Ask the Right Questions: From Problem-Solving to High Performance
Benchmarking for High Performance
The Performance of a Lifetime
Get a Life: Strike a Balance
Food for the Soul of an Organization: Appreciative Inquiry
Maintaining the Momentum: Valuing High Performance and Change
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 9
Chapter 10. Empowering for the Future: The Manager's Challenge
The Promise-and the Challenge-of Technology
Balancing Privacy and Technology
Being True: Ethics and Empowerment
Sharing the Message: Family, Community, and Empowerment
Sharing the Wealth: Philanthropy and Empowerment
Back to the Future of Empowerment
Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 10
Epilogue: An Empowering Journey
Appendix: The Management Styles Survey: A Manager's Perception
About the Authors
Kenneth Murrell: Empowering Employees is not Ken Murrell’s first brush with—nor his first book about—empowerment. As professor of management and management information systems at the University of West Florida, Pensacola, as an international consultant, and as a community activist, Ken has pioneered ways of working and ways of thinking that build empowerment.
And that work has gained him recognition. He’s worked with the World Bank, the UN Development Program, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and he’s worked in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. He’s worked for small firms and big ones like G.D. Searle, Motorola, Pfizer, BellSouth, and Toyota. He’s taught at American University in Cairo, at George Washington and American Universities in Washington DC, at St. Bonaventure, Columbia, DePaul, Brooklyn Polytechnic, Monterey Institute of International Studies, University of Nebraska, Salford University in the UK, Keil Centre in Scotland, and the University of Miami. He currently is helping to develop new doctoral programs at Pepperdine in California and Benedictine University in Illinois as well as a new master’s degree program at Antioch in downtown Chicago.
Recently, Ken chaired the board of the Academy of Management’s Organization Development and Change division, and he is part of a growing group of Appreciative Inquiry practitioners with the Taos Institute of New Mexico. Whatever the task, Ken works with individual and organizational uniqueness in mind. He prides himself on combining the theoretical and the practical, and his passion is witnessing the ways in which empowerment improves the quality of life in organizations. Contact Ken at kmurrell@uwf.edu.
Mimi Meredith owns Wordsmiths Unlimited, where for the last seven years she has written, edited, and designed public relations materials, training manuals, and books. She has a master’s degree in computer science, has been a social worker and a trainer, and spent five years as a research associate at the University of West Florida’s Educational Research and Development Center. In the late 1980s, she directed the development of Florida teacher certification tests in drama, speech, humanities, and journalism, and for teachers of the visually and physically impaired. She has taught business and professional communication, public speaking, and computer operating systems. Her community involvement has included PR and fundraising activities, particularly for Pensacola’s Art Against AIDS.
An active member of the Society for Technical Communi-cation, Mimi has conducted writing workshops for business, professional, government, and private enterprises. She has written for and edited the Pensacola News Journal’s magazine, Business Today. She’s currently at work on a software manual, a humorous short story, and a collection of childhood remembrances for a product line of textiles, the result of a partnership with her three sisters. Contact Mimi at wordsmiths@pcola.gulf.net.
