Empowerment: #7 of Eight Disciplines for Planned Change
Empowerment 
We all have the power needed to create and manage change within the systems (personal and organizational) of which we are members. However, many of us constrain our energy and power through antithetical belief systems. Often, we simply don’t believe that we have choices available to achieve the changes we desire. At times, our concept of what we want to change is too vague to be useful. Or, our energies are too dispersed to be effective. Regardless of the reason why not, what is needed is to empower ourselves. Unfortunately, others cannot do it for us–though they can support us in our self-empowerment.
Here is the definition we use for empowerment: Supporting self and others toward self-discovering their inherent ability to choose their behavior, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs on behalf of fully engaging themselves toward accomplishing their personal goals and those of their systems.
General Thoughts about Making Empowerment Work
1. Believe in your/their inherent excellence, our/their intrinsic worthiness.
2. Find a wider range of choices beyond “damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
3. Focus on the present rather than the past or the future.
4. Beware problem-solving. Empowerment “teaches someone to fish;” problem-solving “gives a fish.”
5. Offer suggestions only to ensure that all options are being explored.
6. Ask, “How would you find out?” when “I don’t know” statements occur.
7. Support the other person, not our own ideas, experiences, or egos.
Specific Steps to Support the Empowerment of Others
1. Clarify goals.
2. Identify what is in the way of accomplishing the goal.
3. Check that one is operating from sound and current data.
4. Identify beliefs and conflicting thoughts that may be preventing goal attainment.
5. Keep the focus on empowerment rather than the obstacles and other players.
6. Offer suggestions to choose from.
7. Identify the decisions that need to be made among the available choices.
8. Identify the support system needed.
9. Identify a path forward of concrete next steps of time and place.
10. Check to see if the person has confidence in the path forward.
11. Offer encouragement. You’re done!
Marianne Williamson’s poem speaks to the essence of empowerment.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Learn to Make a Difference in the World of People, Teams, and Organizations http://bit.ly/zFCNfv
Infinite Power: #5 of Eight Disciplines for Planned Change
INFINITE POWER
Traditional change management approaches often call for identifying the person or people who are not in accord with a change project and fixing or replacing them with people who are. This process typically leads to a series of finite, win/lose power struggles that change little and waste much systemic energy on non-productive activities. Noting that win/lose processes will, in the long run, always generate lose/lose results, an alternative approach would be to focus on infinite, win/win change goals and strategies.
An important aspect of playing infinitely is to focus on changing the quality of relationships within the target system rather than trying to change or fix members who do not seem in accord with a proposed change. This is directly related to the processes of conflict management and team-building mentioned in previous sections.
Focusing on changing the quality of relationships rather than trying to fix or change people or groups of people minimizes the need for power struggles. When open, collaborative decision-making processes are used, most individual needs can be met while focusing on developing strategies and tactics aimed at the change goals.
I remember a situation in a high-value, light manufacturing company. The head of manufacturing was upset with the head of sales for bringing in an order that she couldn’t fulfill by the date promised with the personnel to which she was limited by a budget crunch. The sales manager insisted that that was what the customer wanted and that he was under pressure to increase revenue flow. Their boss, the general manager, gave me the job of helping them resolve their issues. I asked the boss if either of the constraints could be eased. He said, “No,” very politely, but firmly. I interviewed both parties to help get them into a listening mode by my listening extensively to them, so that both were feeling heard before meeting together. It took awhile for them to get past their self-righteousness and figure out that if they worked together they could short-circuit the issues they had with each other. The detail of “working together” was interesting: They decided to do monthly forecasts together and that a manufacturing representative would go along on customer meetings involving potential sales over a certain amount. Yes, it took three hours including lunch to work all of this out, and we created a process through which both could win in addition to the organization winning! With persistence, patience, and enough passion, infinite solutions are most always available!
Learn to Make a Difference in the World of People, Teams, and Organizations http://bit.ly/zFCNfv
The Process of Organization Development
Hey All,
I’ve been thinking about how to formulate with sufficient detail to be useable and in a temporally logical manner, the things that the top OD folks think about as they move from the beginning of an OD project to its end. The problem, of course, is that each step requires the personal judgment needed to move a step from number 3 to 9 or step 12 to 5. Most steps will need to be repeated over and over as the process unfolds anyway.
I’m offering a loose recipe that will always require your own tweaks, modifications, and embellishments. It’s stuff worth thinking about for those who want to increase their ability to manage change in human systems.
Go to http://www.chumans.com/human-systems-resources/process-of-od.html for the document.
Let me know what you would add, change, or subtract from the list that would make it more useful! I’d really like that!
Michael
Anatomy of an Intervention: The Intervention Cycle
Everything we do is an intervention in that everything we do or don’t do has an impact within the system of which we are a part.
Intention
- The overarching intention of an intervention should be to increase the support system for the goal toward critical mass.
- To establish the type of relaxed, person-to-person dialogue that is at the heart of effective collaboration and mutually useful communication within human systems.
- An intervention will generate useful information about the system regardless of its outcome.
Connection
- The intervention should be between the supporters of the goal and the goal
- The intervention should increase the quality of connection among the supporters themselves. The stronger, more open and supportive relationships within the target system, the higher the quality of connection will be. Support toward genuine curiosity, interest, and appreciation while allaying judgment works.
- Shifting conflict and conformity to learning from differences is important.
Intervention
Whatever you do to increase the connectivity toward the change goal.
Impact
The effect of the intervention in terms of movement toward the change goal
Dialogic Feedback
Discussion to determine how well the intervention created the desired impact in contrast to the actual impact so that the next intervention might be more effective if necessary.
Ego Management
- Check to see that the intervention is based on the needs of the system as well as your own issues regarding your sense of identity, self-esteem, or self-importance.
- Support your client to identify their ego needs and how to get them met in ways that support their change goals
- Ego issues tend to be a distraction from the intention of the change goal and to interfere with the building of the relationships needed to reach critical mass.