Don’t Empower Anybody
This article is written by Claire Lew who is the CEO of Know Your Company, a software tool that helps CEOs get to know their employees better and overcome company growing pains.
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Don’t “Empower” Anybody
I hate the word “empowerment.”
I never think I should “empower” anyone — especially our employees.
Why? The definition of the word “empower” is:
to give power to (someone); to make (someone) stronger and more confident.
The key words here are “give” and “make.”
Empowerment means you’re transferring power to someone else.
You think someone else needs you — your permission, your influence, your talents — to do something. And I don’t ever believe that’s the case.
Our employees don’t need me to do anything.
When it comes to motivation, everything people need they already have inside them.
Each person has something unique, special and important to offer the world.
And as a leader, it’s my job to merely create the best environment that allows them to come into that themselves.
As Frederick Herzberg, a well-known American psychologist, once wrote:
“It’s the job of the manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person’s personal spark of motivation blaze.”
Instead of thinking about how you can empower people, here’s what you should consider:
How can I get out of our employees’ way?
How can I better understand what our employees really want?
How can I make it clear why what they do matters?
How can I uncover what makes meaningful, interesting work for that person?
How can I illustrate what “good enough” looks like?
How can I show what trade-offs we value as a company?
How can I consistently treat each person with respect, patience, and kindness?
How can I seek out dissenting viewpoints, and be open to new ideas?
How can I be clear and inclusive about the vision we’re all working toward?
How can I create opportunities for connection and a sense of belonging at our company?
You don’t need to empower anybody. Focus on creating an environment for people to be their best selves.
In the Octalysis Framework, this aligns with Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback. True motivation comes not from handing people power, but from designing environments where they feel autonomous, creative, and trusted — where their intrinsic spark can catch fire on its own.
Claire Lew is the CEO of Know Your Company, a software tool that helps CEOs get to know their employees better and overcome company growing pains. Claire’s mission in life is to help people become happier at work. She speaks internationally on how to create more open, honest workplace environments, and is a contributor for Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fortune, among others.
Read the original article on the Know Your Company blog. Copyright 2017.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback
- Top 10 Enterprise Gamification Examples
- How Loss & Avoidance Could Sink Your Company
- What is Gamification?
- Books by Yu-kai Chou