The difference between agency and empowerment

In every one of my workshops I remind people that they have agency over their culture. This is different from empowerment.

Empowerment implies that power is something a company generously hands down from above - a gift, if you will - from management to employee.

‘The leaders have defined our values and you are empowered to implement them [in the ways we have set out in this PowerPoint presentation].’

In these cultures, people will always feel like they are doing someone else’s bidding. Working in ways that they don’t necessarily agree with or else trying to decode the latest edict so they can - at best - understand how it affects them.

These approaches generate disengagement and undermine morale.

The organisations that invest time defining culture with their people - not for them - are different.

No-one needs to be empowered, instead they just need to be reminded that they have agency over their conditions and performance and it is within their power to use it. 

‘We have co-created a set of values and have provided some money for you to spend some time thinking about what they mean to you and for you to define how you will put them into action.’

In these cultures, people don't show up to work empty and disengaged. They arrive with capability, motivation and judgement. Prepared to put their work into action, in the ways that they have defined it.

The question is whether your culture is giving you that or quietly suffocating it under the weight of empowerment.