BIMBO CABIDOG
Empowerment For Whom
An organization is a social instrument of empowerment. It is
a system, mode or manner of relationship between individuals uniting to become
a collective. By becoming a collective, thinking and acting together, they
acquire a power that can never be acquired separately as individuals.
The question from beginning to end of any effort to form an
organization is: for whose benefit is the empowerment going to be? The answer
seems obvious: for the empowered.
Nope, it doesn’t automatically follow. In fact,
there are cases in which the opposite happens. The organization serves
purposes that run counter to the interest of the members it is supposed to empower.
Imagine a guy possessed by bad spirits, as some characters
in the Bible are told to have been. The spirits give him powers that no
ordinary mortal has. He becomes extraordinarily strong, moves objects other guys
cannot, and suspends himself in mid-air in a horizontal position. But every
time he does these things, he harms himself. He uses the powers to only destroy
his own body and soul.
The spirits dictate upon him things to do that runs counter
to his own good or even his self-preservation. And while he possesses
extraordinary power, he could not resist doing self-destructive things
using the power. He is trapped in a state of inner chaos and conflict with his
own self. Some people call it dementia.
The analogy is true to a lot of folks today. Being part of
an organization has thrown them into a quandary, a situation of constantly
being at loggerheads with a power that works against their own good. And that
power is in their hands. But they use it in obedience to a spirit whose
interest is so much different than theirs.
Isn’t that organization the prevailing social order under
which, and for which, they live now? Isn’t it the political and cultural
superstructures and attached institutions down the line that stamp the people in
perennial hardship? They have been given the power to vote for instance. But
they really just vote for the ones anointed by political dynasties to work against
their basic interests.
The system games them to pick no other than the pseudo
leaders that sell public service down the drain. Their vote becomes a
convenient tool in leveraging power by a few. It puts officials in powerful
positions only to siphon public money into private pockets, and foster
arrangements for the protection of their vested interests.
Unless the nature, structure and core values of an
organization is changed or tailored to the purpose of real development for the numerous
members, sometimes it only empowers them to do things that trash their very
welfare, and derail their genuine advancement.
So what should an organization that is really for its
members be? It must be one that not only empowers them, but empowers them to
champion their wellbeing. It should be an organization that is not a robot or piece
of manipulated machinery, but a collective of advanced thought mindful of where
everyone should be heading.
It should therefore be an organization in which direction
is set by the bulk of the members who are conscious of the problem and know
what to aspire for.
In a business company, purposes diverge. On the one hand, the
proprietors or owners want to make profit. It is their single overriding
purpose of doing business. On the other, the workers or employees want to have a
means of living. They have it through wage-labor. More often than not the two collide.
Sometimes the proprietors lower wages or do not increase
them even when the economic times already call for it, in order to sustain high
profit or what they consider as the level of profit that make the business
still viable.
The workers of course demand living wage in the form of
higher pay for work. They are precisely there to earn a living, not to die day
by day spending energy without commensurate replenishment and the satisfaction
of their family’s basic needs.
But when the capitalists think that they will no
longer be making big profit, they close the company and the whole business
organization disintegrates.
The case of the company that closes, because it can no
longer meet the objective of making big profit, shows one basic lack of the
right kind of organization the people should have. That lack is a strong gravitational
center, that is: shared vision, values and goals.
The proprietors of the business did not share the goal of
its members to have a means of earning. They were only leveraging the means of
earning for the overriding goal of profit. So when they decided to shut down,
there was nothing in the decision that cares about the workers losing their
jobs.
Treat strategy and system second and third. First should be
shared vision, values and goals. Without them, nothing holds the collective for
the long haul. There’s no reason at all for people to bind themselves in an organization, in the first place.
Individuals depart from their separate ways and unite to
achieve goals no one can ever achieve alone. With a common purpose their different
directions converge, divergent minds meet. The bad spirits of purposes
running in opposite ways are driven out. The good spirits of common vision,
values and goals take over and pull everyone and everything together.
Members of an organization did not just happen to be in the
same place at the same time. They were guided there by the same identification of
needs, constraints, and appropriate course of action. That is why they came
together agreeing to work with each other.
By coming together and agreeing to work with each other, they gained the power
not only of numbers, but of a sort of whole that would be more than the sum of
its parts. The whole is the organization, the exponentially magnified capacity
of the individual acting alone.
In that magnified capacity, relationship is cemented by roles
being defined and assigned, tasks being divided, functions and responsibility
being designated, and authority delineated. This is how the good spirits take
over the whole body and power works for the benefit of all. (Next and last part is Community Organizing.)
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