Organizational Behaviour

ZAPP!

The lightning of empowerment

By William C.BYHAM, Ph.D

With Jeff COX

Introduction

This book is a fable that deals with leadership and empowerment. It can be read in two different ways as an amusing story or as a guide to discover the ideas linked with leadership, management and motivation. The author gives us the key principles of empowerment and the steps to start using it in our job.

Summary

The story takes place in an imaginary world. Our two characters Ralph Rosco and Joe Mode work in the Dept N of the Normal Company which produces normalators. At the beginning, everything is normal in the company “Managers did the thinking, Supervisors did the talking and employees did the doing”. Ralph is a normal type of employee and Joe the normal type of supervisor. However, Ralph thinks that something is missing in the organization. One day, he has a new idea and he creates a machine called the Ralpholator. This invention “transports” people in the twelfth dimension. In this dimension, you can see things invisible like how people feel. In this world, Ralph and Joe discover the differences between the department N and the department Z. In the department Z, people are “lightning” while in their own department they are “dark”. The light in the department Z is the good feeling and their self-confidence. For example, if the supervisor gives a good word to an employee who have done a good job he will certainly “light” for a moment but it would not be constant. On the opposite, if the supervisor tells his employee that he would never be able to finish a task on time, this employee would certainly become darker. The author creates a word ”ZAPP!” to describe the energy that enables continuous improvement. Step by step, Ralph and Joe discover that the “enzapping” of employees is essential for the productivity, the competitiveness and the creativity of the firm. Employees who are