Power versus Empower

by Beth Comstock

Stop by the conference room near my desk and you’ll see a stack of bright yellow permission slips in the middle of the table. On each slip, there’s a dotted line with space above it to write in the name of the person I’m giving them to. I’m in the habit of handing them out. Sometimes I even write in my own name, to remind myself that I have the power to take action.

Even after years of acclimating myself and others to change, I still need this reminder of what it means to have power rather than waiting to be “empowered.” Waiting for permission.

Maybe it’s a quirk of our education system, or maybe it’s a quirk of human nature, but I’ve noticed that an immense amount of progress on vital projects is often lost to waiting. Waiting for enough information. Waiting for the perfect plan. Waiting for somebody in charge to give the go ahead.

During the last industrial revolution, waiting around like this made sense. While physical technologies, like manufacturing and transportation, were racing ahead, information still travelled relatively slowly. Power structures in companies were designed to manage the information flow. You needed to make sure all the information was in the right place and up to date before you could manage action. Leaders were information stewards (and sometimes hoarders).

But now, we’re reorganizing around the digital information flow, often spontaneously. Many people now have access to the same information at the same time. By the time all the rituals of the old power structure have been carried out, the decision in question is largely irrelevant. The solution to this is encourage people to use their power. Don’t have them wait for you. Don't let them waste time by waiting around to be “empowered.”

If you’re waiting for someone else to tell you it’s ok – your boss, the customer, your mother – don’t. Assuming you have enough information and a hypothesis to test, take the next step. Take action. Use your power.

This means that we need agreements in our organizations about the rules of engagement and the information required so everyone can keep moving ahead, not wait for a green light where one isn’t needed. Then action, like information, flows fluidly throughout our organizations, collecting where it’s needed before flowing somewhere else. Leaders who, even with the best of intentions, interrupt this flow, actually prevent their companies from adapting and innovating. The key is to take actions, share your results and make them part of the information flow.

What are you waiting for? You’ve got the power.