Choosing Empowerment Instead of Control

A recent bad experience prompted me to reread Peter Block’s “The Empowered Manager”. While the stated audience for the book is the middle manger and the manger at the top of an organization, the advice and insight is very valuable for Project Managers and the people that work on our projects.

The focus of the book is for us to move away from bureaucratic organizations that value control, dependency and use fear. We need to value autonomy, service and contribution to our customers and the company, and create energized employees. This movement is actually easier for Project Mangers than for some functional mangers.

Most Project Managers work in a matrix organization where they do not have the control and ability to create fear in the people on the project. By the nature of the job, ownership of tasks, responsibility for the work, and accomplishing the goals reside with each of the team members. Energizing the people on the team to step up and accept this is critical for success.

To do this, we have to communicate our expectations. As Stewart Levine advises in his book, “Getting to Resolution”, both sides need to document and discuss these expectations. For the Project Manager, this means working with all the key stakeholders, including people on the team, to make sure all of the expectations are explicit instead of hidden.


As a Project Management consultant, this is critical. Both you and the hiring manager need to document and agree on the deliverables. Overtime you update the agreement as things change. This is a simple word document and not a heavy legal contract. Pulling this out periodically helps to keep both of you coordinated and ensures that the goals stay aligned.

As I rediscovered, it is also a very critical first step when you are a direct employee. This becomes even more critical when your boss is thousands of miles and several time zones away. As a Project Manager that has lead several teams with globally disbursed members, I know the value of communication. Being on the other end of the relationship, I discovered that I was not able to drive, influence, or create a communications path. As the saying goes, the tail cannot wag the dog.



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