Notes from The
Empowered Manager (audio program)

Peter Block, Jossey-Bass, Inc. San Francisco

Feelings such as
frustration, being stuck in a bureaucracy, helplessness, and at the mercy of
the system, are feelings shared by many in the workplace.

Part of each of us longs
to contribute more. We�re trying to find out if its possible to be �myself�
and still get ahead.

For many, spiritual values
are no longer being kept separate from the marketplace. There’s something
compelling them to take something they care about and make it a part of their
daily work lives.

The early years of an
organization being created by someone were an entrepreneurial act. However,
organizations become bureaucratic systems, which bring policies, procedures
and rules into play. These, in a sense, become seeds of destruction. So, how
is the entrepreneurial spirit recaptured?

Systems and structures are
issues of control, and creating dependency. Survival is in someone else�s
hands and the question becomes, �What do others think of me?� There are
prices to pay for dependency: Losses of self-esteem and wholeness, and an
internal sense of insecurity rather than security are examples of those
prices.

The illusion is that as I
get higher in the organization, I will be less dependent, less �strung out.�
The idea is that moving up means increasing self-esteem and self-control. In reality,
there is no place (including the very top) to find freedom from dependency.
Most of our energy is spent looking up and out of organization longing for it
to be different. As long as we�re looking outside our unit and ourselves,
we�re going to feel helpless and pessimistic.

The objective is to create
an empowering environment. To create an empowered organization is to create
one in which a person can live out his or her deepest values�one�s own
vision. Work is the right place to live out our values.

Our experiences in an
organization are a mixture of our own creations and some external realities.

Part of the task is to
deal with risk and vulnerability and mythologies such as: If I stand up I�ll
get shot, or messengers get shot. We want someone else to take responsibility
for us, thereby providing us with security (another myth or illusion). We
wish to be safe and minimize risk.

Risk is subjective. There
are times to play it safe such as when survival is at stake, when you are
indifferent or new to an organization. But care must be taken not to
rationalize caution, but rather to know what is �real� in the external
�reality.�

Bureaucracies have strong
needs to maintain control. There’s a high premium on loyalty, order and
predictability. Leaders of a company send out signals that they prefer a
bureaucratic contract with employees.

Employee relations
policies�appraisal, career development, promises when hired�all are hidden
promises that if you become the kind of person the company wants it will take
care of you and be responsible for your career.

��

Appraisal is
bizarre�looking to someone else, roughly your age, for �three� ways to
improve yourself. Having to endure performance appraisals in the name of
being helpful is a message that somebody else owns us. �We� in management
view you this way. There’s no way to feel good about this.

Employee policies�do they
create autonomy or dependency?

Control, audit, and
measurement systems: If you can�t measure it, it doesn�t exist. These have a
�watch-it� quality.

Decisions: Elaborate
approval authority at every level�multiple approval levels�who can make a
certain decision is a clear message that reinforces a bureaucratic mentality,
and puts limits on individual autonomy.

Employees play a role in
supporting bureaucracies. This comes from ambition. To get ahead one must
play the game, and acquiesce to authority. Rather than act from deep values,
it seems more important strategically to be clever in dealing with others.
The process breeds manipulation and encourages caution and maintenance.

Why do bureaucratic
situations exist even if there is a desire to change: Because of a
psychological contract between the individual and the organization�a
patriarchal (or matriarchal) contract. It�s modeled after the church and
military; at best, paternalism or materialism in a loving way.

Rule 1 – Submit to
authority, everyone has a boss and you are to read his or her lips. The
�answer� is outside of yourself, above you. The fear is that you will be
called disloyal and not committed.

Rule 2 – Deny
self-expression of thoughts and feelings. Deny feelings and keep your �true�
thoughts to yourself. Feelings are not seen at the core of business, at
running the organization, and neither is thinking that runs to what is seen as
�acceptable.� The real conversations take place in the �bathroom.� Don�t get
into �touchy-feely.� How you feel doesn�t matter, what you �really� think
doesn�t matter. (Explore the difference between thinking and feeling by going
to http://www.ron-siddell.com/aware.html.)

Rule 3 � Sacrifice
whatever it takes. You are asked to sacrifice for unnamed future promises.
What do you get for sacrifice? �A lot.� It�s doing things that don�t make
sense to you.

Finally, we�re required to
act as if all this makes sense, and we like being submissive and denying our
feelings and, furthermore, what we really think.

Where does one begin in
creating a more empowering way to operate in a bureaucracy? The choices one
faces are:

1.
Between maintenance and greatness. Maintain as well as possible the
inherited job, or move toward the frontier and be optimistic, hopeful and
idealistic. It can feel vulnerable to say I want something great in my
function.

2.
Between caution and courage. Something in us wants safety,
advancement, to be the boss� favorite, and to collude with others (as in
meetings) that �it�s not our fault.� The alternative: I want to find a way to
be courageous. To pursue autonomy is to pursue a path of risk, and it takes
courage. We have mixed feelings about acting courageously. For example,
following training, our response might be: If I try these new behaviors, or
skills, will my boss pat me on the back in positive support. There is no safe
path.

3.
Between dependency and autonomy. Mixed feelings. Part of us wants to
take responsibility for ourselves; part longs to recapture the dependency of
infancy/childhood. We wish to be cared for. However, whoever takes care of us
ultimately will make demands on us that we will find hard to live with.

Do I want a unit that
creates dependency; or a place where survival is in my hands?

The dominant theme in
organizations has to do with people�s helplessness. No matter what level is
being dealt with, people see themselves in the middle. There is no top.
Everyone experiences being in the middle.

Empowerment is everybody�s
issue.

In many ways, the �inmates
run the prison� is the only practical way to look at an organization. People
doing the work decide what the organization will become. Critical choices are
made in the middle and lower middle of an organization.

Making an organization
open, participative and empowering is difficult. Making it autocratic is
easy.

The task of managers is to
nurture the power of subordinates.

People feel imprisoned by
other people’s dependency and caution.

Empowerment is the
antidote to bureaucracy. It�s a state of mind as well as the result of
position, policy and practices.

Managers become more powerful
when they nurture the power of those below them in the organization. One way
of doing this is being a role model for personal commitment to empowerment.

To feel empowered is to
experience yourself in three ways:

1. To know survival is in
your own hands vs. in the hands of the �organization� (another person).

2. To be clear about
purpose and that it is your purpose.

3. To be committed to
doing something about your purpose, now. (Living your purpose �in the
moment�)

Empowerment begins with an
entrepreneurial contract, a redefinition of the relationship between the
individual and the organization.

Elements of a
�redefinition�:

1. Authority. Idea of
�servant leader.� The job of the manager is to serve those serving the
customer. Authority is in those doing the work: changing to �upside-down
pyramid� or a �flatter organization.� On a personal level, it�s being one’s
own authority vs. submitting to an outside authority. Authority must come
from within.

2. Role of supervisor. To
promote empowerment and to be a consultant and provider of resources.

3. Performance appraisals.
Move from top-down to subordinates (who know best how a manager manages)
evaluating managers: and customers evaluating the performance of those who do
the work.

��

Self-expression: A patriarchal
organization denies it, an empowering one encourages it.

Regarding the question:
“What about those who want to be dependent? Just this question implies
that managers need to motivate people. This is the cost paid in an
anti-self-expression culture.

To ask people how they
feel and what they truly think is to tap into the source of their energy and
commitment.

If you want people to care
more, you have to talk to them about how they are thinking and feeling, even
if you don�t like the answer.

All business is personal.
How can you talk about business without getting personal?

Two powerful questions of
an empowering environment:

�� 1. Tell me what you want

�� 2. Tell me what you think and� how you are feeling

Making a choice between sacrifice
and commitment, replacing sacrifice with commitment.

To ask for and make
sacrifice creates a hidden bargain: If one is loyal, denies him/herself
self-expression and is �good,� he/she will be taken care of by the
boss/organization.

Alternative is no
sacrifices, but commitment from within.

Commitment in its deepest
sense is affirming our existence by acting out of our own choices.

�Bosses� must stop taking
responsibility for their subordinates. At best, this is paternalistic.

Being politically positive
is being an advocate in an authentic way. Being authentic is saying no
when we mean no. Being manipulative is saying yes when we mean no. Being
authentic is sharing information, disclosing all the �news� even if its not
good. Being authentic is using language that describes reality. Being
authentic is acting out of commitment, not coercion.

To earn people’s
commitment is to tell them the truth.

The entrepreneurial
contract is based on autonomy–the decision we make to act on our own
choices. The fundamental choice we make is to create a future of our own
choosing. The alternative is the dependent choice�to act on a future of
someone else�s choosing.

The payoff of autonomy is
that we live our own life and have control over our own destiny.

The payoff of dependency
is that if we act on someone else�s choice and it doesn�t work out well, its
not our fault.

Dependency is the wish not
to be responsible, not to be held accountable for our actions, or our
direction.

Action steps toward
autonomy (entrepreneurial organization)

1. Focus on the question
of vision. Live out of your values. Creating your own vision is how you
create autonomy. A vision statement is a statement of values: Courage,
compassion and integrity (spiritual values), elegance, efficiency,
productivity, performance (business values). Vision is a �preferred� future,
not goals and objectives. To get practical is to miss the point. It�s hope,
optimism and impracticality. It comes from the heart. It�s radical and
compelling. It is yours.

An organization doesn�t
need a vision. Visions are unique to the individuals in the organization, and
our roles are to help one another live out our visions.

Active enrollment in a
�common� vision is soft-core colonialism. A common vision is nothing more
than a more sophisticated form of control. A �company� vision is a message
that leadership resides at the top and only there.

Choose a vision of
greatness. It�s the choosing, not the achievement, that gives the vision
meaning.

Student Pages

Allies

Opponents

Bedfellows

Adversaries

Fence sitters

The relationship with your
boss

Courage

Compiled by Ron
Siddell

Forget about being number one. There
is nothing unique in this. It�s self-centered, not a statement of
service and concern about others.
Don�t be practical. This is the same
as being pessimistic. Be hopeful and idealistic.
Focus, fundamentally, on your customers,
most of who are in your organization.
Say how the vision will be lived-out.

Creates personal accountability
People need to know how to support you

Role model
Architect
Mission statement
Structure of organization
Reward system

Supporting the authority that comes
from within ourselves.
Expressing ourselves and letting
others know what we think and how we feel, and doing it in a way that is
authentic, not manipulative.
Committing ourselves to acting in the
unit like we want the whole organization to operate.

Do they stand by me under pressure?
Do they tell me the truth, even the
bad news?
Do they fulfill their promises?