The Empowerment Pocketbook

Empowerment is often confused with delegation and, wrongly, is often seen as a form of power or authority over another person. The authors of The Empowerment Pocketbook prefer to liken empowerment to a license that is issued only after those concerned have proven their ability and only when the scope and conditions of the activity to which the license applies are clearly defined. This Pocketbook explains what empowerment is, what can be gained when it is in place and how to put it there and keep it there. It will be helpful to managers, trainers, consultants and all those people who are concerned with getting the best from their workforce. Areas covered include: identifying the need for empowerment, enabling the individual, implementation (nine steps to get empowerment in place) and, finally, monitoring and feedback.

About the Authors

Mike Applegarth has been a training professional for over 25 years, with 20 of those spent as a consultant. His assignments have involved him in a range of industries from insurance to petrochemicals, and his clients are within the private and public sectors and amongst charitable institutions.

He specialises in aspects of communications and teambuilding – whether it be for leaders, managers, sales personnel or office staff – and has been actively involved in the development and application of competence-based performance standards tailored to organisational needs.

An approved trainer for the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), he is the author of How To Take A Training Audit (first printed in July 1991 as a leader in the Kogan Page Practical Trainer Series) and, with Keith Posner, he has written the extremely popular Project Management Pocketbook and the Call Centre Customer Care Pocketbook, both for Management Pocketbooks. Leading Empowerment: A Practical Guide to Change is his latest work. Published by Chandos, it provides an accompaniment to this pocketbook for organisational leaders.

Keith Posner LLB FCIPD ACIM began his professional training career over 20 years ago at Nationwide Building Society. He then joined Allianz Cornhill Insurance and managed the specialist training function on their business process re-engineering project team.

Keith and his wife Sian formed Positive Perspective 11 years ago. Their team of consultants specialise in one-to-one executive coaching, and designing and delivering a wide range of individually tailored training programmes, including: Business Planning and Project Management, Stress Management, Life Balance, Leadership & Motivation, Selling & Negotiation Skills, Management of Change, Team Building, Career Development Centres and Communication & Empowerment.

With Mike Applegarth Keith he has written two other Pocketbooks, on project management and call centre customer care.