Dirty Talk: What Empowerment Actually Means
I’m convinced that every time a manager says “I want to empower you…”, a little part of an employee’s soul dies. So often empowerment merely serves as a euphemism for doing more work. Because while managers love talking about empowerment, they get extremely uncomfortable discussing power.
When I set out to write this piece, I had a few observations in mind. But honestly, anything I could say was written with more depth and wit in an article by Harvard Business School professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, over 40 years ago.
So if you really want to understand empowerment, just read this article. Please.
First off, it starts out with this banger about how uncomfortable people get discussing the topic of “power”
Power is America’s last dirty word. It is easier to talk about money—and much easier to talk about sex—than it is to talk about power. People who have it deny it; people who want it do not want to appear to hunger for it; and people who engage in its machinations do so secretly.
So let’s talk dirty for a second.
The good question is: Where does power come from and how does that affect how organizations function?
Dr. Kanter identifies three sources of power that remain just as true as they did in 1979.
1. Lines of supply. …Managers have the capacity to bring in the things that their own organizational domain needs—materials, money, resources to distribute as rewards, and perhaps even prestige.
2. Lines of information. To be effective, managers need to be “in the know” in both the formal and the informal sense.
3. Lines of support. ….Managers need to know that they can assume innovative, risk-taking activities without having to go through the stifling multilayered approval process. And, informally, managers need the backing of other important figures in the organization whose tacit approval becomes another resource they bring to their own work unit as well as a sign of the manager’s being “in.”
Often times a leader underappreciates that while they have this power, their team does not. I’ve seen it again and again: a frustrated leader asks themselves Could I be any clearer?! Why aren’t they moving faster? I’d press a little further and ask three simple questions:
Does your team have (sufficient) discretionary funds to accomplish this thing?
Does your team have (sufficient) information / data about this thing?
Have you communicated to any other relevant party that this person/team is responsible for this thing?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you can better understand what’s happening.
Yes to all: If you’ve truly empowered your team with resources, information and political power, then yes, you have an incompetent team.
No to 1 or 2: If you haven’t empowered your team in all three dimensions, temper your expectations, knowing that they will need to work extra hard to compensate for powerlessness.
No to all 3: If you haven’t empowered your team in any dimension, I suspect that the project is likely not truly a priority for you, because you haven’t taken the time to make sure it’s done right. And if it’s not a priority for you, it probably shouldn’t be a priority for them.
The important thing is to distribute one’s power. Because like sex, power is fine by yourself but it’s even better when shared.
