Despite the fact that it has become one of the more ubiquitous terms of post apartheid South African society, the word "empowerment" is understood in many different and often contradictory ways. Much like it's older cousin "democracy", the term empowerment has come to mean anything from giving people the vote through to providing capital to establish enterprises and taking the cane out of the teachers hand. The implication that this ideological confusion has had on the rule of law alone suggests that this idea deserves further scrutiny and more precise definition.

In most cases, however, people will recognise that empowerment means the proverbial difference between giving a person a fish or enabling them to fish. On further investigation of this idea of "enabling a person to fish", most people that I have worked with would raise two categories of things.

Firstly, they would argue that enabling someone to fish would require giving them the means to do what is required of them. By means I mean anything that this not associated with skill or knowledge. This would include things like the line, the bait, the license to fish and so on. In organisational terms these means would relate to things such as giving a person the tools, the resources, the standards, the authority and the time to do what is required of them.

The second category that people raise very often is a category that I have come to refer to as ability. Ability refers to the skill or knowledge required to be able to fish. This category refers both to how and why the task should be done. Again, in organisational terms would require people to be enabled both in terms of the skill and the understanding of how to do the task that is required of them, and also to understanding the meaning or the significance of what they are doing.

What is interesting about this why is that the more benevolent it is seen to be the more inspiring it is to people. If people can see that what they do really does significantly contribute to others or the world that they live in, they are generally more willing to go the extra mile in terms of doing it.

Unfortunately, if the requirement is that the person who is being empowered to fish will actually feed themselves with the fish that they catch, these two criteria of means and ability are not good enough to guarantee that the person will actually catch the fish which they are required to. The reason for this is that the criteria of means and ability are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the person taking charge of their own fishing.

For example, assume that I have attempted to empower a person to fish by giving them all the means and ability to do what is required of them. However, I indicate to the person that, should they not feel like fishing it would be perfectly all right because I have a big chest freezer full of fish and I would give them some should they not catch any. The question I have here is, just how willing is this person going to be to fish? This clearly indicates that unless I bring something quite tough to the party, which is my refusal to give him fish, I have still not empowered the person to fish.

This suggests that empowerment means three things. It means to give people the means, ability and accountability to do what is required of them. Means and ability are not good enough unless you hold people accountable. This indicates that the fruit of the empowerment process is to deliver accountable people at the end of it, that empowerment is therefore, more than anything else, concerned with cultivating accountable people.

In an organisational sense accountability means that consistent rewards and punishments are applied to peoples performance. It means that people would be rewarded if they went the extra mile, would be recognised for doing what was required of them, would be censured if they did not do what was require of them because of carelessness, and punished for deliberately acting below standard. In short, empowering people means to require them to do what is required of them, to make the contributions expected of them. Empowering people means to require them to give.

Furthermore, empowering people means that the three aspects of means, ability and accountability are dealt with in correct order. It is unjust to hold people accountable who have not been given the means and the ability to do what is required of them. However, it is equally incorrect not to hold a person accountable for not doing what was required of them if you have given them the means and ability to do so.

This indicates that the musical piece of empowerment has three instruments, namely means, ability and accountability. Not to play any one of these instruments is to disable people. Further, the instrument of accountability has four strings, namely recognise, reward, censure and punish. Not to play the correct string at the appropriate time is equally disabling.

This connection between empowerment and requiring people to make the contributions expected of them relates to the existential requirements of power. If you want something from someone else, that persons capacity to withhold what you want makes you manipulable. This suggests that being here to get something from the other creates the conditions where the other has power over the self and the self therefore becomes weak and powerless.

However, if you are in the relationship to give something to someone, and that giving is completely unconditional, the other has no power over you. In this case the self is powerful. You have no power over what you get because what you get is not in you power. What you get is in the power of the other. This might concern you greatly but in essence you actually have no power over it. You only have power over what you give, what leaves you. Therefore, to be empowered means that you are focussed on what you should be giving or contributing, rather than being focused on what you want to get.

Weakness is connected with being here to get and strength is connected with being here to give. Empowering people therefore means to focus them on what they should be contributing or giving, and not on their expectations and what they are getting. This is why holding people accountable for what they should be contributing plays such a vital role in the empowerment process.

The sad reality is that the understanding of empowerment that is current our country at the moment seems to confirm the issue of expectation rather that that of contribution. As a result it is probably one of the key factors behind the disablement of our people.