Is Empowerment Merely a Myth?
“You do realize that the popular concept of empowerment is a myth, right?” That’s not what a person usually says to their manager, but the frustrated shift supervisor said it anyway. And her manager was stumped. How should he respond? And what exactly did she mean? So how about you? What’s your understanding of empowerment? Is it a myth or some mystical power effective leaders are able to bestow upon those they lead? Of course not, you may say. So, what is it then? Why do we
How Eliminating Blame Makes Us Smarter
Have you ever played the blame game? You know how it works . . . when something goes wrong, we all begin ducking for cover and point the finger at someone else. Why does this happen? For many people, responsibility and blame go together. The joke is that we’re happy to accept responsibility when things go well, but we’ll refuse to accept blame when they go wrong. But what if the two don’t actually go together at all? In fact, what if accepting 100% responsibility eliminates b
Are You Sure You Chose the Right Person for the Job?
Is the person you’re about to select for an important team or project truly ready? Are they fully capable? Have you thoroughly assessed their capability accurately? Are you sure? When asked for their take on assessing capability, Stuart Spencer, a long-standing consulting firm for boards and CEOs, had this to say: “Sometimes the differences between today’s and tomorrow’s leaders lie not in the capabilities themselves, but the level of sophistication of the same capabilities
How to Deal with Pointless Situations
Have you ever found yourself stuck in a job, a series of meetings, or situation that seemed pointless? Most of us have, at one time or another. And it’s likely to happen again. The question is, what can we do about it? We might choose to simply survive the experience; find ways to cope with the boredom or deal with the nonsense and drama that’s playing out. But, there is another option . . . one we explore in our book Thriving in Business and LIfe. It's an approach that puts
9 Principles of Empowerment We're Seldom Taught
We wrote about empowerment last post and hopefully cleared up some of the confusion about what empowerment is and isn’t. This week, we’d like to continue exploring empowerment by presenting 9 principles well worth remembering. 1. While empowerment is a personal decision and cannot be bestowed on others, we can encourage, stimulate, provide adequate support, and model empowerment within a culture of accountability. 2. As we presented in our post last week, the three key elemen
How to Implement Empowerment Effectively
In our experience, the word “empowerment” is widely misunderstood in both corporate, political, and public life. To get a better understanding of this well-intended term, let’s first talk about what empowerment is not. For example, someone in a news conference or corporate meeting may utter the phrase, “I empower you to . . .” and then they’ll list the job or initiative they want carried out. What exactly do they mean when they say, "I empower you?" When we’ve interviewed a v
Three Secrets to Maximizing Your Power
In coaching and consulting in a variety of companies around the world, we find that there is often confusion about the terms responsibility and accountability. When we’re looking to help a team or department work through a challenge we’ll hear things like, “Well he’s responsible, but not accountable.” Or, “In a matrixed organization, responsibility and accountability or not so clear.” And then there’s, “Well, Jane’s 60% responsible, because she’s the manager, but Arturo and E
Waking Up From the Trance of Disempowerment
Dr. Milton Erickson said, “Most people walk through the world in a trance of disempowerment.” Erickson, considered to be the father of clinical hypnotherapy, succinctly stated the obvious. Personal disempowerment is chronic, with legions of individuals feeling they simply aren’t in control of their lives. If they’re not, their logic tells them, someone else is. That leads to what we call “The Blame Game.” I (Chris) recall creating a comedic game show pilot by that name in an
