Overview of
The Three Forces of Empowerment:
A Guide To Professional Fulfillment
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Speaker and business philosopher Jim Rohn says that there is not a
single prescription for success that applies to every individual. What
may prove to be a solution for one person is a dead end for another,
since every person has different experiences, ambitions, talents, personality
traits, and hopes. We wrote this book because Rohn’s insight applies
to empowerment as well. Empowerment is not a singular concept that can
automatically be applied to every individual, magically creating career
satisfaction and personal fulfillment. Empowerment is multidimensional,
experienced in different ways by different people who work for different
organizations under different circumstances. Some people work for large
corporations, others in government and education, and still others in
promising entrepreneurial companies. Amidst all these differences, however,
there is commonality. The ingredients that comprise empowerment within
the context of one’s career and organization are the same. Business
authors, academics, and, perhaps most importantly, those who have learned
about empowerment through years of experience know the individual ingredients.
The Three Forces of Empowerment explains those ingredients (or forces)
and invites you to mix them together in the way that works best for
you.
Each chapter is written in a way that will move you to action. The chapters are user-friendly and integrate experiential and research evidence in the form of real-life stories, exercises, and logical principles of empowerment. You will find many questions and templates that will provide assistance and encourage you to action as you begin to unlock your own formula to empowerment.
In Chapter 1, we provide the roadmap to the book and explain the three forces of empowerment, and the various factors that comprise each of the forces. After Chapter 1, we begin the details of our journey by covering the force of Self. You influence your own empowerment, and this is, at the core, the force of Self. Years of psychological and organizational research show that you play a role in your own success, in terms of your own knowledge, the skills that you acquire, the goals that you set, and your motivation level. Business authors and motivational speakers focus almost exclusively on the Self. Victor Frankl, the famous existentialist who endured the Nazi death camps and was such an inspiration to others who were suffering alongside him, showed how important the Self is to empowerment and indeed one’s very survival. In Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5, we break down the force of Self into the factors that comprise it—factors that you control: knowledge, skill and ability, motivation, and goals.
Contrary to what we might hope to believe, empowerment is not just about Self. No individual is an island. Studies have long shown that people working together influence each other. Relationships are key to empowerment and therefore define the second force of empowerment. Your managers and co-workers influence your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, performance, and ultimately your empowerment. We are social by nature, and we all derive some level of empowerment from belonging to an organization comprised of people we respect and like. We all, to some degree, seek acceptance and encouragement from others, and that acceptance and encouragement strengthens empowerment. In Chapters 6, 7, and 8, we specifically talk about the role that leaders play in the empowerment equation. If you are a leader in your organization, you will come to understand how important your role is in the life of others; and if you are not in a formal position of authority in your organization, you will gain further understanding of how to maximize your empowerment given the leaders that you work with. Chapter 9 is still about relationships but focuses on the special interaction between co-workers. Co-workers reward each other, sometimes more than managers can reward employees, and so the relationship between co-workers demands special consideration.
The final force of empowerment is organizational culture. Organizational culture is largely ignored by popular books on success, yet it is a very real force that bears on one’s empowerment. If you have ever tried to make a change in your organization, you have likely encountered resistance. That resistance is both a strength and weakness, and it comes from the existing organizational culture. Our organizations, big and small, multinational and entrepreneurial, are wonderful cultural creations of the people—past, present, and even future—who work and live in it. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 show how organizational culture influences your empowerment. These chapters teach you how to navigate the arrangements and reporting structures within your environment; how to think about the manner in which work is done, and perhaps create new processes to increase your empowerment; and how to ensure that your values and beliefs align with the collective values and beliefs of your organization.
In the final chapter, we provide various tools and assessments to help you maximize your career empowerment. Your solution to increasing your empowerment is likely a combination of the forces of Self, Relationships, and Organizational Culture. You will assess the degree to which each of these forces is emphasized in your current job and organization, and whether the emphasis of each is a fit with the way you best experience empowerment. You may come to a greater appreciation for the job that you do and the people you work with after reading this chapter. On the other hand, you may be encouraged to make a change in your life. The combination of ingredients that help you achieve empowerment may demand that you start your own business, change the organization that you work for, or change careers. Whatever the case, you will have a comprehensive picture of empowerment and a personally crafted formula to help you increase that empowerment.
An important side note is the potential impact of each chapter to not only your professional life but your personal life as well. We do not believe that our personal and professional lives can be completely separated. Each affects the other. You cannot be miserable at work and completely empowered at home; and you cannot be miserable at home and completely empowered at work. Empowerment in one area of life enriches other areas. It is our hope that The Three Forces of Empowerment will help you find empowerment in your personal and professional life. Each step you take to increase your empowerment will grow to pay dividends beyond what you might have expected.
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