John Wooden, the legendary coach of UCLA basketball, told his players on the first day of practice each year: “you can either discipline yourself, or someone else will.”
This thought strikes me as relevant to personal empowerment because too often it’s positioned as a one-way street, the superior empowering the underling: “If my parents would only let me… If I had been allowed to show my creativity in that job… If taxes and regulation hadn’t been so imposing, my business…”
Yet I see empowerment as a two-way street.
Using the above references, if one’s parents don’t trust you, it’s possible you earned their suspicion. If your boss limits your creativity, it’s possible you didn’t take responsibility when a risk you took ended badly. If you didn’t price and market your business properly, yes, taxes and regulation could have contributed to your demise but it was broader business issues that brought you down.
While building organizations, it often occurs to me that I must learn to play the hand I’m dealt. When research is complete, we should define what is in our control, and what is not.
Empowering ourselves and our organization is on three levels: Full control, my own actions; Influence, how can you affect the uncontrollable and Fate, what you have no control over but can prepare for.
Wooden’s basketball player had full control of his study habits, he could influence his teammates and he had to learn to overcome the fate of an official’s call.
As business and non-profit executives, we have full control over our effort, we can influence our counterparts through collaboration and we can plan for the fate that controls taxes and regulation.
When barriers seem insurmountable, try to remember to ask yourself three questions, in this order:
- Am I managing myself well?
- Am I doing what I can to influence the things I cannot control?
- Am I accepting but working around the things I cannot control?
If the answer to each is honestly “yes,” you are empowered. If the answer to any is “no,” you are blaming the wrong person for your lack of empowerment.
One of my favorites is the serenity prayer: “God grant me the courage to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Peace,
Tim
