There's a difference between being empowered, and just having a management chain that talks about empowerment. Apparently, Whole Foods practices the good kind of empowerment:

What did Whole Foods Associate Manager Ted Donoghue do when his West Hartford store lost its computer system during a major snowstorm? Nothing! After realizing that the registers were down for the count, Donoghue issued simple instructions to his cashiers: bag the customer's groceries and wish them a happy holidays.

They ended up giving away $4000 worth of groceries. Now, imagine the "standard" corporate policy: you're in the store when the power goes down, and the manager decides that he has to call up the food chain before he can do anything - who knows how long you would be left (literally) holding the bag.

This doesn't mean that giving away the food was the best and only choice; what's critical is that local management knew that it was their decision to make. If your company operates that way - gives employees wide latitude in customer service - then you probably have happy customers. If they don't, you probably have very unhappy customers, because they have to wait for everything.

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