Follett and Empowerment: Her Legacy and Our Future

Dafna Eylon, Ph.D. The F. Carlyle Tiller Chair of Business and Associate Professor of Psychology

Harvard UniversityMarch 10th, 2006

Agenda

Integrate Follett’s insights with current understanding of empowerment.

Increase our recognition of empowerment contributions and constraints

Overcoming the empowerment paradox

What is Empowerment?

Popular Face validity Multiple definitions Viewed as both a state and a process

Exercise: What is empowerment?

Identify an experience in which you felt either empowered or disempowered.

Identify a situation in which you helped others become empowered or disempowered.

Empowerment Worksheet Empowered Disempowered

You were:

You helped others become:

• What elements contributed to creating each situation?

• How did you act and feel in each situation?

• Be sure to say what really happened not what you would have liked or think should have happened.

Behavioral Outcomes

Empowered individuals frequently report: Taking risks, experimenting, trusting, and

including others Looking inwards for improvement Looking forward to going to work Speaking well of the org to outsiders Acknowledging the work of others

Behavioral Outcomes (2)

Disempowered individuals frequently report: Not sharing ideas with others Wasting time double guessing Hesitant to request help Rationalizing failures and blaming others

Affect Outcomes

Empowered individuals frequently identify feeling: Recognized, respected, energized,

consulted and thanked Secure, capable, creative, and trusted Supported by others Having discretion over work and time Having good will assumed

Affect Outcomes (2)

Disempowered individuals frequently identify feeling: Used, ignored, lacking approval or

appreciation Others will be recognized and they won’t Easier to do things oneself in the short

run than to empower others.

Mary Parker Follett

Popular lecturer in the 1920s Implicit theories consistent with today’s

understanding on empowerment. Believed all individuals wish to self-

govern The role of biz is to develop individuals

Fears related to Empowerment

Fear of empowering others: Losing control over others Others will be recognized and

appreciated while they won’t Not being viewed as powerful may lead to

job loss

Fears related to Empowerment (2)

Fear of empowering themselves: Others will expect too much Need to work harder Resented by others No rewards for acting empowered Punishment may accrue from changing

the system.

Empowerment

Enhancing and energizing context-specific process that expands feelings of trust and control in oneself as well as in one’s organization, leading to outcomes such as performance and satisfaction.

Follett and Empowerment

Focus on function All members are equal and must share

a common goal (collective action) Information is freely exchanged Power and synergy are infinite On-going process

The Empowerment Process

InformationInformationResponsibilityResponsibilityActive Belief Active Belief

Self-EfficacySelf-EfficacyLocus of ControlLocus of Control

Self-Esteem Self-Esteem

SatisfactionSatisfaction

Unique Perf Unique Perf Outcomes Outcomes

Awareness Awareness Intervention Intervention

Empowerment Paradox

Conditions that allow one individual to empower others undermine the essence of empowerment i.e., one party is superior to another allowing: Judgment Providing or limiting resources Withholding information

Resulting in lack of true redistribution

Follett’s Recommendations

Continuous interactive influence at all levels Constantly seek and adapt to the law of the

situation and functional unity Remove impediments Power with and not over Expect and create the dynamic and dialectic Norms of respectful reciprocity

The four “M”s of Empowerment

The Micro Level – Individual

The Meso Level – Relational

The Macro Level – Organizational

The Misnomers – Bogus Empowerment

Can all organizational members answer:

Why we do things the way we do? What do we reward in this organization? How do I access the resources I need? What are the mission, values, and goals? What do we need to achieve our mission,

goals, and values?

“Go to the people. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build on what they have. But of the best leaders, when their task is accomplished, their work is done, the people will remark: We have done it ourselves.”

Chinese poem.

“Certain understandings between leaders and followers are fragile: the understanding, for example, that real participation is a process of becoming and never arriving. “

Max DePree