Empowerment and Democracy in the Workplace : Applying Adult Education Theory and Practice for Cultivating Empowerment

Adult Education contradicts the theorists and practitioners who claim that empowering organizations can only be created when those at the top decide to share power. The emancipating educational processes are the tools of those who work within systems whether the issue is literacy, civil rights or democracy in the workplace. The Adult Education movement has linked its mission to cultivating the growth of democratic processes. Those people who work in organizations and are trying to improve their understanding of how to reshape the organization into a democratic workplace will find this useful. Booknews Drawing from his experience training people for quality management and from concepts of adult education, Dew suggests methods for improving productivity by moving decision making in a company to the lowest appropriate level. He points out that most such programs fail because the managers and supervisors are unwilling to grant true power and democracy to workers, and emphasizes that workplaces are complex systems that do not function in a linear cause-and-effect dynamic. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or. This book, which is written from the perspectives of an adult education practitioner engaged in helping create empowering work systems in manufacturing, service organizations, city governments, and educational systems, explains how the principles of emancipatory education and the concept of praxis may be used to reshape organizations into environments more conducive to productive work. The following are among the topics discussed in the book's 11 chapters: practical advice about empowerment and democracy (democratic workplaces and the rationale for empowerment); changing the system (systems thinking, change strategies, stages of change, application of systems theory in workplaces, and identification of empowerment champions); creating an empowerment planning team and team leaders); education for an empowered workplace (vocational, business, and continuing education and development of process, interpersonal, and political skills); changing the support systems (facilitating action research; developing compensation, recognition, appraisal, and complaint review systems; developing an employment/promotion process and performance indicators); consensus decision making; empowerment and planning (strategic/tactical planning); perspectives on democracy in the workplace; adult education and workplace democracy; unions, adult education, and industrial democracy; and creating opportunities through success and avoiding burnout. Each chapter ends with an appendix examining opportunities for praxis. The book contains 214 references and 26 figures/tables. (MN)