THE INSTITUTE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL ENTREPRENEURS AND LEADERS (ITEL)

ITEL MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

-Vol. 12/08

January 2012 MONTHLY ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP DOZE Quotation for the month
Conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it Uthman Dan Fodio Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time; vision with action can change the world Joel Barker

Empowerment: The Need of the Moment (1)

Preamble
Empowerment is the issue of the moment all over the world. As aptly defined by Advanced Learner Dictionary, empowerment means to promote the self-actualization or influence or enable one to realise his or her potentials. In this wise, it is a process that enables individuals/groups to fully assess personal/collective power, authority and influence, and to employ that strength when engaging with other people, institutions or society. Empowerment is not giving people power; people already have plenty of power, in the wealth of their knowledge and motivation, to do their job magnificently. It is often referred to as letting the power out. Empowerment encourages people to gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to overcome obstacles in life or work environment and ultimately, help them develop within themselves or in the society (Ken Blanchard, et al, 2009). Empowerment is crucial for individuals and companies to be competitive in todays business world and certainly in the world of tomorrow. Literally, for companies to succeed in the new world of business, team members must feel that they own their jobs and that they have key roles to play. This is a consensus among the most successful and admired companies in the world.

Empowerment Defined:
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and groups/communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their (own) capacities. This is the definition offered by Wikipedia. The term empowerment covers a vast landscape of meanings, interpretations, definitions and disciplines ranging from psychology and philosophy to the highly commercialized self-help industry and motivational sciences. Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes through - for example 1 - The Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs & Leaders (ITEL) Jan 2012 Newsletter.

discrimination based on disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Empowerment as a methodology is often associated with feminism (gender empowerment). Economic
empowerment has to do with equipping the people with relevant marketable skills, knowledge, techniques, competencies and motivation to increase their productivity and relevance in todays business world.

When people are not empowered they likely become marginalized. Marginalized people who lack self-sufficiency become, at a minimum, dependent on charity, or welfare. They lose their self-confidence because they cannot be fully self-supporting. The opportunities denied them also deprive them of the pride of accomplishment which others, who have those opportunities, can develop for themselves. This in turn can lead to psychological, social and even mental health problems. Empowerment, in this perspective, is then the process of obtaining these fundamental or basic opportunities for marginalized people, either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those opportunities. Empowerment also includes encouraging, and developing the skills for self-sufficiency, with a focus on eliminating the future need for charity or welfare in the individuals/groups.
Empowerment in management is required by both the leaders and team members. It is a cuttingedge technology that provides both the strategic advantage companies are seeking and the opportunity people are seeking. It is the means of involving team members as business partners in determining company success or failure (which today is defined as being simultaneously customer driven, cost effective, fast and flexible, and continuously improving).

The Essence of Empowerment

Empowerment can assist any leader (who is willing to make some key changes) tap the knowledge, skills, experience, and motivation of every person in the company. Leaders who empower people are placing additional responsibility for results on the team members. That is right: empowerment is not soft management. But even though it places high expectation on people, team members embrace empowerment because it leads to the joys of involvement, ownership, and growth. No doubt, too few leaders and team members understand how to create a culture of empowerment. This is quite unfortunate. (Ken Blanchard, et al, 2009). It is often misconstrued that giving the authority and responsibility to make important business decisions is a key structural aspect of empowerment. It is not. The real essence of empowerment comes from releasing the knowledge, experience, and motivational power that is already in people but is being severely underutilized. Recent management research has reported : In hierarchical organisations using more traditional command and control management practices, the organisations human resource capacity is only partially tapped, perhaps 25 to 30 percent of capacity. And we all know what would happen if equipment was utilized at only 25 to 30 percent of capacity. The company would suffer greatly and management might have a short career, indeed. Empowerment comes to play in helping the leaders and team members to increase their performance capacity and arrest the trend of low capacity utilization in any organisation.

Why Making the Effort to Change to Empowerment

Pressures are being increasingly mounted by a variety of external challenges/factors for a change to empowerment. Some of these forces are: Customers have developed very high expectations regarding quality, price, and service. The feeling is that if your company cannot meet their needs, they will find another company that can.

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These pressures from the customers must be managed in light of the need to remain profitable. There is always the danger of providing what the customer wants while undercutting margins to the point of risking company viability. The forces of change brought about on by global competition, new technologies, and customer mind shifts mean that whatever was outstanding last year may be ordinary this year. The bar is continually being raised, and unless your company and its people can jump over it, a competitor will gladly take your place. The members of todays work force are quite different from those of the past. They have a tremendous potential for growth and development but impatience for controlling their own destinies. There is an ongoing need to create greater trust between team members and leaders so that people can and will put forth their best efforts to act with responsibility in a context of freedom and so that leaders can and will allow their team members to act with responsibility and freedom.

Creating the Culture of Empowerment

Creating a culture of empowerment is not easy it means acting with strength in the face of adversity while living with a delicate balance of responsibility and freedom. But once you start down this path to empowerment, there really is no turning back, unless you wish the forces of change to overwhelm you and everyone else in the organisation. To make matters even more challenging, the compelling internal forces for change leave leaders and team members with no choice but to consider empowerment. The issue of the moment is that when you ask leaders today, they would respond almost universally, We want people who are problem solvers, who take initiative, and who act like they own the business. What they are saying in essence is that they want empowered people. But what about the team members; what do they want in the new deal? When these people are confronted, they respond, We want honesty. Tell us the truth about how our company is doing; we can handle it and we can help improve the situation. In addition, we want to learn new skills that will not only help us here but we can take with us if we have to look for another job. What they are saying is that they want a new deal for involvement. They want to be empowered. Empowerment is a planned process. It does not just happen naturally. Nothing could be further from the truth. The change is too fundamental and involves replacing many old habits with new habits. To change to empowerment takes an understanding of what empowerment really is; knowledge of key action steps, and a dedicated effort. The main reason empowerment is easier said than done is that managers often think that all they have to do to empower people is to give team members the authority to make decisions or to mandate a change in behaviour. It goes far beyond this. The team members also have some reservations and think that leaders add constraints that inhibit their taking responsibility. The vast majority of leaders unintentionally do not provide an adequate mix of knowledge, information, power, and rewards to create a culture in which people can become empowered. Nor do they change the way in which team members performance is measured. And people are not automatically prepared to take on the challenges of being empowered. They often think they want to be empowered until they learn what it really means in terms of the changes they, as team members, must make.

Interim Note
No doubt, the source of these difficulties lies in the tremendous shift in thinking that is needed by both leaders and team members. Empowerment challenges many of the most basic assumptions 3 - The Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs & Leaders (ITEL) Jan 2012 Newsletter.

about organisations that leaders and team members have come to accept as fact. The kind of thinking that led to individual and corporate success in the past is no longer valid in the world of empowerment. Attitudes, behaviours, practices, and ways of relating must change for an organisation and its team members and leaders to be empowered. In the next month newsletter, we shall provide in-depth descriptions of the actions that have to be taken to successfully navigate the difficult journey to empowerment. In the process, we shall examine briefly the three keys to empowerment: (1) Share Information with everyone; (2) Create autonomy through boundaries and (3) Teams become the hierarchy. We shall also discuss the three stages in the process of changing to empowerment: (1) Starting and orienting the journey (2) Change and discouragement and (3) Adopting and refining empowerment. We sincerely expect your comments or reactions to this write-up to further our understanding

WE EXTEND OUR HANDS OF MEMBERSHIP TO YOU:

Join as a member of The Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs and Leaders (ITEL) now for an enduring, really transformational and beneficial relationship. Download our membership form from our website or collect the membership pack (including the membership registration form and students/members handbook) from any of our offices and pay the sum of N3, 000 (Three thousand naira only) into our First Bank of Nigeria plc account No 201-7257969 nationwide, and contact us accordingly. Membership forms and handbooks are also available in Lagos State at any NIPOST General Post Offices on the payment of N3000.00 at the counter. Classes of membership Fellow member (FITEL) * Full Member (MITEL) Associate member (AITEL) * Licentiate member (LITEL) Corporate member for entrepreneur/Small-scale business operator and/or consultant Student member register for certificate and professional examinations of the Institute. Exemptions on subject-by-subject basis are granted to University/Polytechnic graduates and those with accredited qualifications. The programme has a vocational orientation. We have our presence in every state capital. To reach our representatives in each state of the Federation, contact the office of the Registrar.

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Induction of New members: We need to extend our hands of relationship to our friends/colleagues/associates to become members of our great Institute. You can download our membership form/s for them. You are challenged to bring at least five new members to the fold as induction date will be announced in due course. REGISTER NOW! Fill the attached membership form, process accordingly and send to the Registrar at the address below. You are welcome!

Courtesy of The Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs and Leaders (ITEL) in conjunction with TERRY KENDALL Leadership Academy. The Registrar/CEO The Institute of Transformational Entrepreneurs and Leaders (ITEL) st 4, Jibowu Street, 1 Floor, Off Ikorodu Road, Behind Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport, Jibowu-Yaba, Lagos O8033060594, 08173060594, 08051154486 Website: www.itelng.com Email:theitelnigeria@yahoo.com; ralphmuyiwaoni@yahoo.com

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