[MASTERY] Empowerment (or The Art of Key Dropping)

EMPOWERMENT
The Art of Key Dropping

What I notice in highly successful relationships, whether business, familial or intimate, is this phenomenon of empowerment. Empowerment as I think of it is transferring a special kind of knowledge and commitment, with a focused intent, which enables people to achieve possibilities that they previously thought out of reach.

For many of my clients, my job becomes a lot more than coaching them to develop successful practices. It is also about having them reach far beyond their practice into their dreams, i.e. becoming a nationally known speaker in Endodontics, running an international volunteer organization like Health Volunteers Overseas, or becoming recognized as world-class expert in a particular field, for example Asperger's Syndrome.

Dentists who empower their staff members to be better human beings, to have more satisfying lives, to have their dreams come true, always, and I mean always have much greater staff retention and much better staff performance. It's invariant. It's immutable. A doctor that is willing to authentically empower the staff, will generate staff performance including marketing, that is above and beyond. When the staff is empowered they are willing to do 'what it takes' to have the practice win. On the other hand, many dentists do not empower their staff members to go beyond what is needed for the practice to operate. And it's no wonder these practices have a difficult time being successful.

As Chris Guillebeau explains (http://chrisguillebeau.com), some people spend a lot of time building cages for people. "This is accomplished by striving to make people small, so that small men or small women can feel bigger. Cage- building is protecting yourself and your interests, making yourself look good, and discouraging good ideas because you weren't the one to come up with them. The common behavior is taking the credit for yourself, assigning the blame to others; that kind of thing. Mostly it involves thinking about the kingdom of Me."

You and I have at one time or many times been thrown into a cage where the other person needs to make you small and weak, where they make you wrong, where they discount your speaking and belittle your intent. They must be right. They must dominate. So it's best to keep you locked up. How does that feel to be in a cage?

Chris Guillebeau continues with this cage metaphor and talks about key-dropping, which is making other people look good, building them up, expanding the pie. In other words, key-dropping is all about empowerment, an unselfish knowledge transfer to allow people to realize their possibility, channeled through a strong intention and commitment to the other's success.

Think about those times when someone has really helped you think or live differently. It was like they placed a key on the ground in front of you; you picked it up and unlocked a cage (You had to open the cage yourself, of course, but it was a lot easier with a key). As I stood in Chris' metaphor, the work I've done over the past twenty-five years, I see as mostly key- dropping. The older I get, the more I see myself dropping more and more keys. But I can also see that I've built some cages. The course of action to change this is simple: build fewer cages; drop more keys.

What does dropping more keys look like to me? Something like this:

Before speaking either one on one, in my professional or personal relationships or at a meeting, before sending an e-mail, before publishing a blog post, whatever - ask the question, "Will this empower?"
Give away my best work, and think about how I can give away even more of it.
Stop keeping score - or if I must keep score, make sure I'm always giving more than I take.
That thing I know how to do that everyone else marvels at? Show people how it's really done.

It also became clear to me that in our primary relationships, once you put your partner in a cage and take away the key, you've killed the relationship. Why it worked so wonderfully in the beginning is you gave him or her the key all the time. But now you keep the cage locked. In other words, you hold the key to successful relationships.

You could probably think of examples that make more sense for your own situation. But whatever you do, dont be the small man or small woman building cages. Be the one dropping keys for the prisoners. What keys do you currently hold that could set a prisoner free? Why not start dropping those everywhere you go?

Dr. Marc B. Cooper
The Mastery Company
MasteryCompany.com

ANNOUNCEMENT
We are now developing and will be delivering The Mastery of Empowerment Program for Doctors and Staff sometime next winter. This 1½ day program will eventually be delivered in major cities around the U.S. If you have an interest in this program, please contact Chris Creamer and we'll put you on the Mastery of Empowerment mailing list to keep you updated as this program becomes available.

THANK YOU for making VALUOCITY the top selling dental practice management fable in the world!

COPYRIGHT WARNING: This is a public notice. Do not repost copyrighted articles or materials from these eNewsletters without Dr. Marc Cooper's and The Mastery Company's permission. If you find something interesting in the eNewsletter, post a brief description and the web address. Brief quotes or extensive paraphrasing of an article is fine if properly cited. Wholesale copying without permission is illegal.

Dr. Marc B. Cooper
President and CEO
The Mastery Company

EMPOWERMENTThe Art of Key Dropping

EMPOWERMENT
The Art of Key Dropping