The Empowerment Ventures: The Tutu Dance Toward Empowerment

First, I took some guidance from your comments and tried re-doing my logo. How's this one:

The Tutu Dance Toward Empowerment

FOR WHEN IT MATTERS

Too bad great philosopher kings are not always rhythmic poets. Still, some years ago I titled these words from South African Bishop Desmond Tutu "For When It Matters." They reflect a defeatist sense of goodness from someone who was feeling rather down on the world at the time. Maybe I liked it because I was feeling the same then, having not yet gotten my empowerment act together.

Schematics work for war. Visions inspire peace. One cannot really "empower" the skeletal infrastructure of the house one might want to build; one needs step-by-step architectural plans. The same might be said for the battle details of invading and taking over another country to rid that place of evil.

But when it comes to offering guidelines for peace, justice and an overall sense of empowerment, we do not need specific step-by-step processes, at least not yet. What we need are inspirational guidelines to help us get to the place where progress happens in a good, healthy way.

Tutu's words remain a small step in that direction. I think that we can do a little better today, so I offer a recitation of his ideas and my "updated" version. I even did one better, having come up with 10 steps to trump his 9. Or perhaps this is just a testament to the fact that even technology doesn't necessarily eliminate all the steps we must follow to make change work?

So lets dance the Tutu steps to progress:

FOR WHEN IT MATTERS

* People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway.

* If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

* If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

* The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

* Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

* The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

* What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

* People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway.

* Give the world the best you have, and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Here are my thoughts on the same game, warped with 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and twisted with the thinking of empowerment in action:

 The Empowerment Principles

1. The world is a big place;bigger than a tyrant of any persuasion.

2. There is wisdom in even the most distressed of crowds.

3. Possibility has many faces.

4. Little people can generate great impacts.

5. Community victors glow in many colors.

6. A good design has many intelligences.

7. Errors are the ambrosia of Wiki-ness.

8. JetPaks should be able to out-maneuver Jet Sons.

9. Justice must come from the movies.

10. What we know best we know for sure when we get there.

Now some of these may be a bit confusing. What the heck is a JetPak, after all?

Figuring out what they mean and how they apply in practice is basically what The Empowerment Ventures is all about. As you can see from principle number nine, there is in my mind a strong connection between achieving an empowerment mentality and instilling such beliefs into commercial investments.

That's where I believe this conversation will end up. I was just giving you a chance to begin thinking about that before we wander here and there toward a better end.

If there were specific directions as to which roads to travel, the trip would be easy. Since we have no such map our quest will not appear with the click of a submit button. But it should still come into focus with an additional lifetime of practice.

Thanks for starting the journey.

Now, what do you think of these Empowerment Principles?

Post a comment here or send me a message: Epower.Ventures@hotmail.com.

Allan