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I was being interviewed recently and I was asked what I considered the most important part of mentoring people in property.  We tend to think of strategies etc. as being “the” thing that people need.  I explained that actually this was, for me anyway, the least important thing in mentoring or coaching.  Number 1 was inspiring and empowering people.

Most people (and companies for that matter), don’t understand the “power of empowerment”.

And perhaps even more critical we don’t understand the negative power of disempowerment.  People who are negatively focused for example disempower themselves and others without realising what they are doing. I see it in chat rooms and forums and even associations where a negative person gets control or is very vocal. The entire organisation suffers and in many cases disintegrates.

Empowerment is a choice and a skill you can learn.  We need to start to listen to ourselves and think about how we say what we say. Is what I am thinking of saying going to empower the other person or destroy them.

For example when little Johnny falls off his bike would you as his parent rush over and tell him how stupid he was and why couldn’t he ride like his 12 year old brother?  Sadly some parents would actually but YOU AND I wouldn’t.

We would tell him that it takes practise and what he did achieve was fantastic and we would help him get back on the bike.

At some point in our development our ability to empower gets sucked out of most of us and we replace it with judgment and criticism.

I remember a company I worked for that was in financial difficulty. It had a large staff who had worked there for many years and they genuinely cared about the company’s survival as well as their own jobs obviously.  The new owners of the company called a meeting where they berated everybody for a couple of recent mistakes, warned them all how terrible things were and threatened redundancies etc. if productivity didn’t improve dramatically.

That was about 5 years ago and that company has now lost all its good staff, never made a cent and is basically dying.

I then thought back to the last company I turned around. It was in an industry i knew nothing about. I was told I had the worst staff in the entire company, which was a retail franchise in New Zealand and Australia.

I met with my new “team” and began to ask them empowering questions.

What do you think is wrong with this company?

If you could have any job here what would you do?

How would you improve things….. etc. etc.

Let me tell you what happened:

The factory hand wanted to be a sales rep so I trained him and made him one.  The receptionist actually wanted to sell not just answer phones so we employed a receptionist and she moved into sales.  The other sales and factory staff enjoyed what they were doing but had been constantly frustrated by head office inattention.

I fixed their concerns through aggressively going to bat for my staff with head office.

RESULT

The worst performing branch in Australasia had the best sales figures in the company IN SIX WEEKS!!!

I was speaking at their international conference in Perth and was able to present the highest sales of any office in the company.  People thought I was lying till head office confirmed the sales and payments.

This is the secret of empowerment.  We have watered it down to pat phrases like ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar” and similar cliches but the truth is that if you empower people they will perform miracles FOR YOU.

Next time you interact with somebody stop and think how you could empower them.  If they have done something wrong let’s say, you have 2 options.

1. Tell them what they did, watch the shame and guilt on their face and warn them of the consequences of it happening again OR

2. Show them what they did and ask them why or how it happened.  Then ask them what THEY think WE could do to ensure the risk of it happening again is reduced/eliminated.

Thank them for their honesty in owning the problem and convey how much you value this  so they will not be afraid to do it again.  (The power in this is significant. You have just created soimeone who will bring you problems and issues so you can know about them early and solve them instead of most companies culture of  “let’s see if anybody finds out”

Then ask them if they would be willing to help you train others so that the company can ensure it doesn’t happen again ( if it’s that sort of issue).

An empowerment process like this will give you staff/family members/associates who would die for you.

Life and death truly are in the power of the tongue!

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv

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