Some people, me included, rely heavily on empowering people to gain the kind of insights, input, and feedback that enable us to propel ourselves forward. These include peers, affiliates, and a wide variety of others, drawing from the best of those you might encounter at work and in life, as well as coaches.Essential to having empowering people in your career is to be open to having them! This sounds simple enough, but many career professionals don’t embrace the notion. Think about anyone from work who always:

• looks forward to hearing from you,
• listens to you closely,
• heeds your advice, and
• is appreciative for having received it.

Is this the kind of person you want to be around? Of course. That’s the kind of person I am to my empowering people. They know that I want to hear from them and that I value what they tell me. I often act on what they recommend so rapidly that they’re amazed how quickly their advice took effect.

You for Me, and Me for You

People who empower you are also empowered by you in some way. Otherwise the relationship would not continue. The way that you empower them often vary. Perhaps simply valuing what they say in a way that few others do fulfills a need in them that prompts them to want to keep the relationship going. Here are other ways you may be empowering those who empower you:

• Perhaps few others value them the way you do.
• The energy, discipline, and enthusiasm you exhibit in pursuit of your projects may be inspiring to them.
• What you want to get done in and of itself may be of notable interest to them.
• The questions that you ask of them may require answers that they previously may not have articulated and they value this interaction.
• They value being exposed to them elements of your world and your insights.

Empowerment is Where You Find It

You can find empowering people in your career nearly everywhere you turn. Your peers, the next function you attend – all represent fertile arenas. Here are some more ideas:

• Professional association meetings, i.e., if you’re a financial planner, perhaps you meet somebody at the state chapter meeting of the Institute of Certified Financial Planners
• At civic, social, charitable association groups’ meetings.
• At an adult-ed course you take.
• Through friends.
• At conferences you attend, particularly if they’re a presenter.
• On airplanes, especially if you’re seated in first class.
• When you serve on the same task force, special committee, commission, or other elected or appointed group.

Obviously you can only connect with so many people on a regular basis. The relationship with each of your empowering people requires some type of sustenance. What effort will undertake to maintain the relationship?

The process of identifying and nurturing relationships with empowering people is a dynamic one; you’re always bringing new people into the fold, while encountering yet others you suspect will become empowering people in your life.

Advisory Boards: Empowerment Formalized

I actually have an advisory board of directors and I suggest that you devise one as well. Your initial response might be, “Okay, Jeff, you’re an author and a speaker. I can see why people might want to be a member of your advisory board. Me? I simply work at XYZ organization assembling computer chips. Who would want to be on my board?” There are lots of people who would like to be on your board!

If you poll most people whom you know, you’ll find that they’ve never been asked to be on a board in their entire lives. They’ve heard about people on boards, but they’ve never been asked.

Begin to look for people in your immediate surroundings who can be members of your advisory board. These could include people in local associations, one or two people from work, perhaps somebody from your church or community group, perhaps a mentor as well.

I’ll briefly describe my advisory board so that you’ll have ideas as to who you might choose to be on yours. I have two people from radio, a radio host and a radio manager. I also have a couple of people from associations, both national and local. I have a lawyer or two, a magazine editor and a newspaper editor, a professor, a high school teacher, and three entrepreneurs.

I invite the whole group to dinner twice each year. It doesn’t cost as much as you might think; you can usually feed everyone for under $180.00. I let everyone know in advance what career and business challenges I’d like to tackle at the session.

First we have dinner, usually some kind of smorgasbord or a buffet. Afterwards, I pass out the agenda, which is a repeat of the questions I circulated to them in advance before that evening. One by one we discuss the things that I want to get done and they freely give me their ideas. I turn on my pocket dictator and capture it all!

I record everything and later carefully transcribe each of those gems. You might think, “Sure, people will come to my advisory board dinner once or twice, but would they come over and over again?” My board has met 14 times and I almost have to laugh because I get requests from people I’ve never met who have said, “So and so is on your board and suggested that you might invite me to be on it as well.”