FOOL'S EYE VIEW
Empower Your Way To Greater Wealth

By David Kuo (TMFDragon)
February 21, 2002

Carburton Street, London -- The concept of empowerment has been around for donkey's years but it only became popular as a management tool in the late eighties and early nineties. It was during this period that many astute organisations woke up to the idea that getting the job done was infinitely more important than spending precious time and money counting beans. These "empowered" companies realised that stringent cost controls often limited the ability to get the job in hand completed. They also appreciated that hindering the completion of a project, for the sake of a few pennies, could be more expensive in the long run.

Management students in the nineties were introduced, through case studies, to those companies that believed in empowerment. They were also presented with examples of businesses that hung on to the concept that senior managers always knew best. One company that was often cited as a proponent of empowering its employees was Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT). And this company was contrasted with its major competitor in the field of discount retailing, K-Mart (NYSE: KM), which shunned the idea of worker empowerment.

At Wal-Mart, employees were said to be highly motivated and productive. Also it was found that both absenteeism and staff turnover, which can be major costs to any company, was much lower. This was not the case with K-Mart and those who follow the US markets will know that K-Mart is now involved in bankruptcy proceedings. But readers will need to draw their own conclusions as to whether the lack of employee empowerment played a part in K-Mart's demise. 

Many personnel managers will be the first to point out the positive attributes that empowerment can bring to any organisations. These "people managers" reinforce their case by pointing to productivity gains that are often made once empowering permeates an organisation. However it does take time because empowerment is anathema to most managers. This is because "leaders" often desire the ability to be in control and enjoy the power that leadership brings.

Empowerment has now moved from the arena of management circles and into our daily lives. Just as empowerment has benefited organisations that embrace its obvious benefits, it can also work wonders for our own well-being and, in turn, our personal wealth. There are now many organisations that claim to have found the secret of harnessing self-empowerment. And these organisations, for a fee, will show you how to boost your self-esteem, get a better job and in some cases even help you find a suitable marriage partner.

But you don't need to whip out your wallet and splash out loads of money to learn the secrets of self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is all about facing a problem by asking the right questions and ensuring that those queries are empowering rather than disempowering. For example, when you look at your share portfolio, awash with red ink, do you think "Sheesh! What have I done wrong?" This is a natural question to ask, when your portfolio is in a mess, but unfortunately it's the wrong question. The question is framed in negative and unhelpful terms and it is therefore disempowering. So what should the right question be in this situation?

Two much more positive, helpful, and empowering, questions would be "What factors led to this situation?" and "What can I learn from this state of affairs?" Both questions help to build up a clearer picture of the problem without the need to apportion blame. They help by identifying the process of information gathering and they also provide focus to the problem. It also helps uncover any personal limitations, should you have any. You might find that you are just not cut out for stock picking yet and perhaps a low-cost index tracker might be a better option for now.

So is that it, then?

Not so fast!

You have so far identified the causes of the problem but you still need to ask a couple more soul-searching questions before the job is done. "What can I do to improve the situation?" is a positive and empowering question that would go some way to help address the issue. But to do this you need to be sure that you are ready for a new situation. So other empowering questions that might be helpful in determining your next step. In this context you might ask "What do I need to do next?" and "What do I need to do to improve the situation?" and of course "Where can I go for help?"

And when you are done with empowering yourself, why not trawl around the discussion boards and ask some of these other highly empowering questions. "How can I help this person solve their problem?" or better still "How can I help empower someone else?"