Empowering Others

Empowering Others

By: Brian Tracy

Why do we need to empowering others?

Once you know how to empower people, how to motivate and inspire them, they

will want to work with you to help you achieve your goals in everything you do. Your

ability to enlist the knowledge, energy and resources of others enables you to become a

multiplication sign, to leverage yourself so that you accomplish far more than the

average person and in a far shorter period of time.

There are three types of people that you want to and need to empower on a regular

basis. They are, first of all, the people closest to you: your family, your friends, your

spouse and your children. Second are your work relationships: your staff, your

coworkers, your peers, your colleagues and even your boss. Third are all the other

people that you interact with in your day-to-day life: your customers, your suppliers,

your banker, the people with whom you deal in stores, restaurants, airplanes, hotels

and everywhere else. In each case, your ability to get people to help you is what will

make you a more powerful and effective person.

Empower means “putting power into,” and it can also mean “bringing energy and

enthusiasm out of.” So the first step in empowering people is to refrain from doing

anything that disempowers them or reduces their energy and enthusiasm for what they

are doing.

With regard to the first group, those people closest to you, there are several simple

things that you can do every single day to empower them and make them feel good

about themselves.

The deepest need that each person has is for self-esteem, a sense of being

important, valuable, and worthwhile. Everything that you do in your interactions with

others affects their self-esteem in some way. You already have an excellent frame of

reference to determine the things that you can do to boost the self-esteem and

therefore the sense of personal power of those around you. Give them what you’d like

for yourself.

Perhaps the simplest way to make another person feel good about himself or

herself is your continuous expressions of appreciation for everything that person does

for you, large or small. Say “thank you” on every occasion. Thank your spouse for

everything that he or she does for you. Thank your children for their cooperation and

support in everything that they do around the house. Thank your friends for the

smallest of kindnesses. The more you thank other people for doing things for you, the

more things those other people will want to do.

Every time you thank another person, you cause that person to like themselves

better. You raise their self-esteem and improve their self-image. You cause them to

feel more important. You make them feel that what they did was valuable and

worthwhile. You empower them.

And the wonderful thing about thanking other people is that, every time you say the

words “thank you,” you like yourself better as well. You feel better inside. You feel

happier and more content with yourself and life. You feel more fully integrated and

positive about what you are doing. When you develop an attitude of gratitude that

flows forth from you in all of your interactions with others, you will be amazed at how

popular you will become and how eager others will be to help you in whatever you are

doing.

The second way to make people feel important, to raise their self-esteem and give

them a sense of power and energy, is by the generous use of praise and approval.

Psychological tests show that, when children are praised by the people that they look

up to, their energy levels rise, their heart rates and respiratory rates increase and they

feel happier about themselves overall.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson in Ken Blanchard’s book The One Minute Manager

is his recommendation to be giving “one-minute praisings” at every opportunity. If you

go around your home and through your social relationships praising and giving genuine

and honest approval to people for their accomplishments, large and small, you will be

amazed at how much more people like you and how much more willing they are to help

you achieve your goals.

There is a psychological law of reciprocity that says, “If you make me feel good

about myself, I will find a way to make you feel good about yourself.” In other words,

people will always look for ways to reciprocate your kindnesses toward them. When

you look for every opportunity to do and say things that make other people feel good

about themselves, you will be astonished at not only how good you feel, but at the

wonderful things that begin to happen all around you.

The third way to empower others, to build their self-esteem and make them feel

important is simply to pay close attention to them when they talk. The great majority

of people are so busy trying to be heard that they become impatient when others are

talking. But this is not for you. Remember, the most important single activity that

takes place over time is listening intently to the other person when he or she is talking

and expressing himself or herself.

Again, the three general rules for empowering the people around you, which apply

to everyone you meet, are appreciation, approval, and attention. Voice your thanks

and gratitude to others on every occasion. Praise them for every accomplishment. And

pay close attention to them when they talk and want to interact with you. These three

behaviors alone will make you a master of human interaction and will greatly empower

the people around you.

It’s certainly possible for you to get the cooperation of others by threatening or

brow-beating them, but you will only get minimal cooperation, minimal output, and

minimal assistance. To move to the top of your field, you must appeal to people’s inner

motivations and drives, their deepest emotions.

What motivates people in the world of work? The biggest motivator is clarity.

People need to know exactly what it is that they are supposed to do. They need to

know why they are supposed to do it and how it fits into the big picture. They need to

know how it will be measured, and when it is due. They need to know what standard of

quality is expected and how their efforts affect the work of others. The greater the

clarity that a person has about his or her assignment and the order of priority in which

it is to be done, the happier and more empowered he or she feels right from the start.

On the other hand, the biggest demotivator in the world of work is not knowing

what is expected. It is being in the dark about what is supposed to be done and in

what order of priority. People are especially demotivated when they don’t know why

they are doing a task or how it fits into the overall goals of the company or department.

The more time you spend talking to your people and inviting their feedback and

comments on the work, the more empowered they will be to do the work well. The

word we are talking about in empowerment in work is the word “ownership.” Your job

is to transfer the ownership into the heart and mind of the employee. When he or she

feels personal ownership for a job and the responsibility for doing it well, he or she will

be completely empowered. This is one of the most important aspects of the art of

management.

Another major motivator at work is consideration. Employees report that the best

managers they ever had were people who cared about them as people and as friends.

These managers took the time to ask them questions about their lives, and to listen

patiently while they talked about the dilemmas and problems and situations in their

families. The more that the employees felt that the boss liked them and respected

them, the more empowered and motivated they felt.

The flip side of this motivator is the demotivating feeling that the boss doesn’t care.

This is almost invariably expressed in a lack of recognition, a lack of approval, a lack of

appreciation and a general failure to pay attention to the employee over time.

Remember, the amount of time that you spend talking to and listening to an

employee is a signal to that employee that he or she is important to you and to the

company. This is why the very best bosses spend a lot of time walking around and

chatting with their employees. They sit with them for lunch and coffee. They invite

their comments and encourage open discussion and disagreements about work. They

create an environment where people feel that the work belongs to them as well as to

the company. In that environment, employees feel good about themselves and more

fully committed to doing the job and doing it well.

To empower and motivate the third group of people, the people around you, your

customers, your suppliers, your bankers and so on, you simply need to practice what

we’ve already talked about. The most important of all is that you be a genuine,

positive and cheerful person. You develop a positive mental attitude. You be the kind

of person from whom, “never is heard a discouraging word.” You are easygoing, genial,

friendly, patient, tolerant and open minded. You make people feel comfortable being

around you.

Remember, everyone is primarily emotional. Everything that people do, or refrain

from doing, is triggered by their deeper emotions. Your job is to connect with their

higher and more positive emotions so they feel so good about you they want to help

you and please you in some way.

For example, whenever you go into a crowded restaurant, or get on a busy plane,

or go up to a busy hotel desk, instead of becoming impatient with the slow rate of

service, you should put yourself in the other person’s place, practice the Golden Rule,

and ask them how they are doing.

Whenever I go into a busy restaurant, I always ask the waiter for his or her name.

Then I address them by name while observing sympathetically, “You seem to be

working hard today.”

From that moment on, the waiter always gives me special attention. Why?

Because I took the time to empathize with his or situation rather than looking for

sympathy for mine.

Try this approach with all the people at your workplace. Observe their situation and

empathize with how hard they are working, how many difficulties they have, how

overloaded they are, and so on. It is absolutely amazing how much better people feel

about you when you take a special interest in them, rather than just thinking about

yourself.

In life, you always have a choice. You can either do everything yourself or you can

get others to help you do some of the work. Our entire economic structure is built on

the principle of specialization. Specialization means that some people become very

good at doing certain tasks while other people become very good at doing other tasks.

For you to achieve your full potential, you must contribute the greatest amount of

value possible. You must concentrate all your energies on doing certain specialized

tasks in an excellent fashion so that you can be paid the amount you want to earn and

you can move ahead at the rate you want to move ahead. But in order for you to

specialize and do what you are best at, and more of it, you must delegate, relegate and

outsource virtually everything else.

Some non-managers feel that the subject of delegation does not apply to them.

But even when you ask your child to bring you the newspaper, you are delegating a

task. When you go out to lunch rather than making it yourself, you are delegating.

When you go into a full service gas station rather than filling your own tank, again, you

are delegating. You are in a process of continuous delegation from the time you get up

in the morning until the time you go to sleep at night. The only question is how you

are at it.

Your ability to delegate effectively, which requires that you inspire and empower others

to help you willingly, will determine how fast you move ahead. It will determine how

much you earn in your job. It will determine the quality and quantity of your

productivity. It will determine your ultimate financial success in life. And the key to all

of this is your ability to empower others.