Dear Orgeanlearners,
Doc Holloway <thejournal@thresholds.com> writes:
> ah--a serendipitous moment has arrived. Winfried, I've been thinking
> about Mary Parker Follett's lectures on power as it applies to
> competition, and then you wrote this. I'd like to share some of her
> definitions with you, and see if they might enhance or add to what has
> been discussed here before.
Doc, thank you very much for your serendipitous reply!
You write, among other things that:
> Finally, she debunks the idea of empowerment in the following statement.
> "As a summing up of this question of conferring or sharing power, I should
> say that if we have any power, any genuine power, let us hold on to it,
> let us not give it away. We could not anyway if we wanted to. ...."
...snip...
(I wish you will participate in that recent question of mine: "Is a
transfer of experience possible from one person to another person?"
This question is ultimately connected to the question: "Is a
transfer of power possible from one person to another person?")
You compare it with your own insight:
> This (to me) is the essence of personal mastery, and team learning
> mandates the application of power-with, in order to develop and nurture a
> powerful learning organization.
Doc, "empowerment" has a positive sense for me if it amounts to
guiding a person so that this person will become an able
self-masterer.
It is true that the classical meaning of the word "empower" is "to
bestow or delegate authority or power". It can happen basically
in two ways - constructive and destructive. We may call the
constructive way the Frontroom Operations (FO). Teach (by examples
and guidance) that self-learning affords power to the mutual benefit
of all. The destructive way may be called Backroom Operations (BO).
Give some power to the unworthy in order to get something in return
for it.
If we want to scrap the "empower" because of the way in which the
prefix "em-" (into) gives a meaning to it, let us then think of what
happens in "emerge". The prefix in this word is "e-" (out of) while
the word "mergo" in Latin meant "to sink together". Maybe we should
create the word "epower" (power from within)! Your "power-with" would
then be "compower".
Lastly, note that the word power comes from the Latin word
"posse".(be able). It indicates what is often the BO trouble with
empowerment - an authorised hunt by the deputies on those who flee
from the prison of conformation or indifference.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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