A Book Review from

October 1996

William C. Byham, Ph.D.

with Jeff Cox

Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment
How to improve productivity, quality, and employee satisfaction.

Harmony Books, 1988, 200 pages.

THIS IS A FABLE ABOUT A COMPANY named Normal and the troubles and triumphs in department N, managed by Joe Mode. I was struck by the authors ability to pick me up right out of my comfortable reading chair and place me in the midst of department N in the 12th Dimension. But let me give you some background information so you will understand how the 12th Dimension came to be.

“Most everything was pretty normal at NORMAL. The Mangers did the thinking. Supervisors did the talking and the employees did the doing. Not supposedly much different then the way things are in most companies. It so happens that Joe Mode had an normal employee by the name of Ralph Rosco. Ralph worked on the guts of the Normalator, the key product of the NORMAL company. One day Ralph had a brainstorm of an idea that caused him to just scream out a big YES! He ran to tell his supervisors about his idea only to find Joe Mode busy as usual, fighting fires, doing reports and getting instruction from his boss to do more, faster and in budget. Sound familiar? Well Joe was too busy to be bothered and most likely felt if the ideas was so good someone in R&D would have thought of it earlier. So Ralph was told to forget it and get back to work on his own projects. That was how things ran at NORMAL—Don’t think only do as you’re told.

“Well Ralph couldn’t let his idea go, so he worked and toiled, modifying the Normalator. He called his finished creation the Ralphalator. Ralph was eager test the Ralphalator so he wired his chair to the computer, pushed enter on the key broad and puff Ralph was gone. A little while later Joe Mode came to check up on Ralph only to find he was nowhere to be seen. Joe sat down at Ralph's desk hitting the enter bottom by accident. Puff everything seemed different for Joe. It was dark and shadowy. Joe wanted everything to be normal again. As he proceeded to make his way back to his office he saw people differently and then he ran in to Ralph who explained they were in the 12th dimension. In the 12th dimension you see how people really feel and what they are thinking. Joe wanted Ralph to get him back to reality. Ralph explained this was reality, but not all the places in the company were as drab as department N. So Ralph took Joe to see the light. Joe couldn’t believe what he saw. When people talked to each other a lightning bolt would ZAPP between them. Everyone seem to be happy, energized and excited about what they were doing. Joe was so intrigued he wanted to know the secret. So he asked Ralph to help him discover the power of ZAPP."

I could picture this clearly in my mind. I could feel the difference between department N and this other department from my own experiences. I knew the only difference was how the people felt about those around them and how they were managed.

"Everything else at NORMAL was the same. But the results in this department clearly stood above the rest of the company and the lightning bolts, ZAPP, was simply that powerful. But what was it? How could others catch it and where do we start? Joe, with Ralph’s help, went about learning more about ZAPP. In so doing they discovered to other part of ZAPP—SAPP! SAPP was the draining of energy and will power from others. Joe discovered the clues to ZAPP and SAPP and impact of each."

The book is filled with Joe’s notes—here are examples of ZAPP and SAPP!

The Principles of ZAPP—a force that energizes and gives power.

• Maintain self-esteem in other regardless of the situation.

• Listen and respond with empathy.

• Ask for help in solving problems.

• Offer help without taking responsibility for the problems of others.

Examples of SAPP—a force that drains and steals power.

• Confusion

• Lack of trust

• Not being listened to

• No time to solve problems

• Bureaucratic office politics

• Someone solving problems for you

• Not knowing whether you are succeeding

• A boss taking credit for others’ ideas

• Not enough resources to do the job right

• Believing you don’t make a difference

• People treated exactly the same, regardless of contribution.

• Meaningless jobs.

"Joe saw the need for continual improvement and learned to keep the ZAPP level high he needed to do more. He recognized the importance of having goals and measuring and reporting progress, the importance of constant performance feedback, and the need to set high standards to keep everyone challenged. He also learned the importance of job coaching and follow-up to ensure quality and completeness. With Ralph’s help Joe recognized that team zapps were more powerful than individual zapps and the more decisions a team could make on their own the more ZAPP it has.

"So Joe Mode sat back and reflected on his experience with ZAPP and concluded for ZAPP to be effective, He needed to provide:"

• DIRECTION—key result areas, goals and measurements.

• KNOWLEDGE—skills, training and information.

• RESOURCES—tools, materials, facilities and money.

• SUPPORT—approval, coaching, feedback and encouragement.

Life was now different in Department N as Joe discovered the power of ZAPP. As managers we have a tremendous responsibility for shaping the productive results of those we manage. How we treat them, how we value their ideas and respond to their needs makes a world of difference.

The story is simple the message powerful. It takes more than Pep talks, Quality circles, Participative management, Work teams, Training, Job security and Suggestion systems to create permanent change. It first takes the principles of ZAPP to create the attitudes and behaviors to support everything else.