Peter...
this is an interesting comment you've made. I hope you don't mind if I
clarify your comments by asking these questions:
When you empower others, what power are you giving to them?
What is the source of your power?
Does the person you're "empowering" also have power? If so, what's the
significant difference between their power and yours?
Do people you're "empowering" reciprocate by "empowering" you?
Where do you derive your "control" from and how does it relate to power?
What are the essential differences and similarities between manipulating and
empowering?
When you "empower" someone, you indicate that you expect them to perform or
behave in an "empowered" manner...what is the source of your expectations
and how are your expectations connected to the practice of "empowering."
I am genuinely interested in how you and others use this term (explicitly
and tacitly). I find myself puzzled by the belief that anyone truly
believes that they give power to, or can control, anyone or anything except
in a dominate/subordinate relationship. I'm also convinced that this
relationship (between the dominator and the subordinate) relies on the
subordinate empowering the dominator -- not the other way around -- which
eventually results in a dependency relationship (both parties become
dependent on one another and are unable to act autonomously as a result).
When we work to develop capacity in one another (capacity for autonomy,
authority, leadership, etc), we relate differently to one another...perhaps
not as political or financial equals, but at the least as colleagues.
Thank you for clarifying your thoughts and sharing them with me.
regards,
Peter Hubbard wrote:
> The issue is the "I" in empowerment.
> If it really is empowerment, then I am giving (the) power away, and
> divesting myself of any sort of control.
> If I'm not, then I'm manipulating, not empowering.
> The flip side, of course, is the behavior and performance of the
> empowered.
> And I would suggest that this is the critical area of performance that
> we feel the most uncomfortable with.
> What if the person (or people system) empowered does nothing with the
> empowerment?
> What if they do something different to my perceptions?
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of
existence. The poetic eye sees in Man, the Brother of the River, and in
Woman, the Sister of the River. Their life is always transitions. Hard
blockheads only drive nails all the time; forever... fixing. Heroes do not
fix, but flow, bend forward ever and invent a resource for every moment."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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