I admit that the first time that I ran into the concept of empowerment was five years ago. Before. I was did not recognize the term. I remember, we worked on a project for some customer in the education sector. If I try to analyze the customer's organization, without too much generalization, I can say that they were afraid of computers. Some of them were terrified. Building a website and knowledge sharing was a very different process of what we recognized and experienced in other places. As part of trying to make things easier for them, we used many techniques; for example, we left many blank areas on each page, so that it would look less threatening. In addition, all graphic art was planned accordingly.
On the contrary, the home page of this website included many terms describing main values of the organization. It included terms as democracy, autonomy, activism, enrichment and more. Of course, empowerment was one of the values.
The truth must be said; I did not relate to those ideas at all; it seemed to me as if the ideas were taken from the ivory tower and was not joint in our day-to-day conception. I wondered on the polarity of my reflection to those ideas versus my reflections to computers and using it as a sharing tool. I admit that I misunderstood the importance of those ideas, being a person that defines herself as rational and practical.
I grew up; I have changed. Also today, I try to reline on the conception of practice; yet I learned the influence of the empowerment and its capability.
Dr. Elishava Sadan defines empowerment as a process that is impact is passing from a situation of manliness, to a situation of relatively control in life, fate and surroundings. This shift can be expressed by improving the sense of capability to control or by improving the real capability to set in motion this control.
The original meaning of the idea is a way of power of attorney -approval to work in the name of the company, kind of delegacy of authority in the social plane that been given to a certain one. There are four categories of empowerment: individual, community based, cooperative and professional. What is not surprising, and of course most positive, is that empowerment in one category usually affects the other categories, and they improve too.
In my terminology, empowerment is a process of development; individual/ community/ collective/ professional strengthening and handing over abilities and skills so that the empowered person could utilize his or her potential in different aspects.
How is empowerment relevant to us as managers?
One of our main roles of managers, as I see it, is empowering the managers in the scale below us and empowering the employees. I personally dedicate to this activity a main percentage of my time, management efforts and resources. Naturally, I concentrate in professional empowerment mostly, and on that I intent to write and share in this post. As one may already understand, I did not always deal with professional empowerment in the same intensity. I assume that in my first years as a manager I felt the need to be on the front stage; I concentrated on guiding workers and advancing their skills. However as a manager I thought that I need to be in front of them. I thought that it the right way to lead them forward, is by giving a good example and shouting "after me".
It is hard to invest hours, time and energy in empowerment. The goal of most of the organizations is to create or to give service. We always have missions to complete; we always have activities regarding some product, service or customer. Usually, their due date is yesterday (or in good cases, tomorrow). To stop and to invest in empowerment it is not a simple challenge. It is so too easy to postpone the important issues as we see the urgent ones.
How do I reduce the chances that it will happen?
In two ways:
First, I remind myself repeatedly of the importance of staff empowerment.
Second, I nominate workers to be responsible for empowerment, and define resources for doing so (mainly time). It is not enough to cover all the aspects of empowerment, yet it is enough to constantly and significantly advance.
I know that it is fashionable today to talk about talent management. Locating a small percent of workers with an exceptional potential and investing more in their empowerment. I am in favor of the opposite method: empowerment of all workers. From my point of view they are all talented. It is clear to me that since the resources are always limited, it means less investment in each one.
As I see it, there is a moral say here about my faith in each one of my workers; there is a say here about my faith in us as an organization. We hired talented people. They are all talented. They all have potential to be even more talented. That is what empowerment is about.
It is very important to communicate the workers how important is to us to empower them, and how important it is to us that they actually will be empowered.
There are two aspects here:
The first one is to encourage the workers to grow; to give them the legitimization to take over new territory at their work.
The second is a message to workers that we believe that they have a great potential. A person's belief in him self is the key of his or her empowerment success.
Above the formally empowerment frame, it is worthwhile to take advantage of opportunities that enable us to strength empowerment.
Recently I was ill. I was absent from work for a long time. It is unfortunate, but it was an excellent opportunity to empower workers and managers. My absence from the office gave the managers under me more place to express them selves, in different terms, that in other circumstances I would have been involved in. A simple example to that is lecturing in conferences. In many places, organizers of conferences prefer the senior person, and naturally I am the one that been invited to lecture and present. My absence required others' participation instead of my self, and suddenly they turned more known in their seniority. They moved to the front stage.
In my first years as a manager, I thought that to be a manager is to be in the front stage, to set good examples and see that people follow me. Today I know that it is right to begin this way, but the wisdom is in the next stage. To be wise enough to move aside or even to the back, and concentrate on removing all stones and obstacles, allowing the managers and the workers below me to run and lead.
This is essence of empowerment. Today I know that it is more difficult to lead when you are behind, but that way you get much further.
Yours
Moria
To the Hebrew version
On the contrary, the home page of this website included many terms describing main values of the organization. It included terms as democracy, autonomy, activism, enrichment and more. Of course, empowerment was one of the values.
The truth must be said; I did not relate to those ideas at all; it seemed to me as if the ideas were taken from the ivory tower and was not joint in our day-to-day conception. I wondered on the polarity of my reflection to those ideas versus my reflections to computers and using it as a sharing tool. I admit that I misunderstood the importance of those ideas, being a person that defines herself as rational and practical.
I grew up; I have changed. Also today, I try to reline on the conception of practice; yet I learned the influence of the empowerment and its capability.
Dr. Elishava Sadan defines empowerment as a process that is impact is passing from a situation of manliness, to a situation of relatively control in life, fate and surroundings. This shift can be expressed by improving the sense of capability to control or by improving the real capability to set in motion this control.
The original meaning of the idea is a way of power of attorney -approval to work in the name of the company, kind of delegacy of authority in the social plane that been given to a certain one. There are four categories of empowerment: individual, community based, cooperative and professional. What is not surprising, and of course most positive, is that empowerment in one category usually affects the other categories, and they improve too.
In my terminology, empowerment is a process of development; individual/ community/ collective/ professional strengthening and handing over abilities and skills so that the empowered person could utilize his or her potential in different aspects.
How is empowerment relevant to us as managers?
One of our main roles of managers, as I see it, is empowering the managers in the scale below us and empowering the employees. I personally dedicate to this activity a main percentage of my time, management efforts and resources. Naturally, I concentrate in professional empowerment mostly, and on that I intent to write and share in this post. As one may already understand, I did not always deal with professional empowerment in the same intensity. I assume that in my first years as a manager I felt the need to be on the front stage; I concentrated on guiding workers and advancing their skills. However as a manager I thought that I need to be in front of them. I thought that it the right way to lead them forward, is by giving a good example and shouting "after me".
It is hard to invest hours, time and energy in empowerment. The goal of most of the organizations is to create or to give service. We always have missions to complete; we always have activities regarding some product, service or customer. Usually, their due date is yesterday (or in good cases, tomorrow). To stop and to invest in empowerment it is not a simple challenge. It is so too easy to postpone the important issues as we see the urgent ones.
How do I reduce the chances that it will happen?
In two ways:
First, I remind myself repeatedly of the importance of staff empowerment.
Second, I nominate workers to be responsible for empowerment, and define resources for doing so (mainly time). It is not enough to cover all the aspects of empowerment, yet it is enough to constantly and significantly advance.
I know that it is fashionable today to talk about talent management. Locating a small percent of workers with an exceptional potential and investing more in their empowerment. I am in favor of the opposite method: empowerment of all workers. From my point of view they are all talented. It is clear to me that since the resources are always limited, it means less investment in each one.
As I see it, there is a moral say here about my faith in each one of my workers; there is a say here about my faith in us as an organization. We hired talented people. They are all talented. They all have potential to be even more talented. That is what empowerment is about.
It is very important to communicate the workers how important is to us to empower them, and how important it is to us that they actually will be empowered.
There are two aspects here:
The first one is to encourage the workers to grow; to give them the legitimization to take over new territory at their work.
The second is a message to workers that we believe that they have a great potential. A person's belief in him self is the key of his or her empowerment success.
Above the formally empowerment frame, it is worthwhile to take advantage of opportunities that enable us to strength empowerment.
Recently I was ill. I was absent from work for a long time. It is unfortunate, but it was an excellent opportunity to empower workers and managers. My absence from the office gave the managers under me more place to express them selves, in different terms, that in other circumstances I would have been involved in. A simple example to that is lecturing in conferences. In many places, organizers of conferences prefer the senior person, and naturally I am the one that been invited to lecture and present. My absence required others' participation instead of my self, and suddenly they turned more known in their seniority. They moved to the front stage.
In my first years as a manager, I thought that to be a manager is to be in the front stage, to set good examples and see that people follow me. Today I know that it is right to begin this way, but the wisdom is in the next stage. To be wise enough to move aside or even to the back, and concentrate on removing all stones and obstacles, allowing the managers and the workers below me to run and lead.
This is essence of empowerment. Today I know that it is more difficult to lead when you are behind, but that way you get much further.
Yours
Moria
To the Hebrew version
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