Replying to LO26160 --
On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Bill Harris wrote:
> How can one person empower another (unless empowerment is synonomous with
> authorization)? If I empower you to do something and later take that away
> from you, were you really empowered? Or were you simply authorized?
Peter Senge in his talks a couple of years ago made a point on this that I
found very thought provoking.
He said, more or less, "You're not empowered if someone can take that away
from you. You don't have freedom if someone can take that away from you.
Therefore, it's a bit mistaken to think of empowerment or freedom as
something that comes from an act by another person... If it comes from
another person, they can change their mind and take it away. It's they who
are empowered, not you. Real freedom can't come from someone's act, it can
only come from an idea. Our Declaration of Independence begins, 'We hold
these truths to be self-evident.'"
I have come to feel that empowerment may be a noun, but it's not a
transitive verb. No one can empower you. You may be in that state, but it
comes from within you, it is certainly not up to your boss.
Thinking about The Declaration... In the "language" school of Fernando
Flores, Michael Graves, Rafael Echeverri’a, Julio Olalla, Bob Dunham, Tony
Stigliano and Richard Ogle, language is not descriptive, language changes
the world. For example, a declaration "I now pronounce you man and wife!"
is not descriptive, it creates a marriage. I think declarations have
a lot to do with empowerment.
I'm talking about declarations like "I'm going to do X." I think these
make a difference. The declaration may help produce the X... or it may be
forgotten. I think it often helps.
A declaration like "We are a learning organization... so you'd better
behave right!" ... will have no impact.
One morning in 1994 I woke up and said, "I'm going to put the learning
organization on the internet!"... and here we are. I think that's
empowerment.
-=- Rick
--Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash> Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer | email: Richard@Karash.com "Towards learning organizations" | Host for Learning-Org Discussion (617)227-0106, fax (617)523-3839 | <http://www.learning-org.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.