The Keys to Empowerment
Blanchard and his associates believe that empowerment is blocked because it requires a new mind set for all involved.[ii] While I would agree with Blanchard, that the block is in part conceptual, I would suggest that the block also is a matter of tools and strategies—and that an appreciative perspective is needed to achieve the goals of empowerment. As another team of experts on empowerment, Cynthia Scott and Dennis Jaffe, have noted, empowerment concerns new ways of people working together.[iii] Warren Bennis, who has written some of the most influential books on leadership, similarly identifies five unique ingredients in organizational empowerment which are not often found in contemporary organizations—this is the reason, according to Bennis, Why Leaders Can’t Lead:[iv]
Empowerment is the collective effect of leadership . . . People feel significant . . . learning and competence matter . . . People are part of a community . . . Work is exciting.
Bennis’ description relates closely to that offered by Blanchard and by Scott and Jaffe. They are all describing a similar process—and all suggest that empowerment is challenging to existing frames of reference.
A new organizational mind-set requires a fundamental shift in personal attitude, group process and organizational structure.[v] Let’s look at each of these shifts, one at a time, expanding on the analysis that I offered at the start of this book. First, as Goodwin Watson noted many years ago, a shift in personal attitude is required for any sustained organizational change. Scott and Jaffe seem to agree with Watson. They indicate that a shift in attitude is particularly important when empowerment is the goal. Employees who are empowered, according to Scott and Jaffe: “feel responsible not just for doing the job, but also for making the whole organization work better.”[vi]
Goodwin Watson further proposed that sustained organizational changes require a shift in the processes of the group. Scott and Jaffe similarly propose that empowerment is about group process improvement: “teams work together to improve their performance continually, achieving higher levels of productivity”[vii] Finally, Watson would encourage a shift in organizational structure if empowerment is to occur. For Scott and Jaffe this means that: “organizations are structured in such a way that people feel that they are able to achieve the results they want, that they can do what needs to be done, not just what is required of them and be rewarded for doing so.”[viii]
