Partnership, not empowerment, creates excellent organizations

Over the last decade empowerment has been offered as a prescription for creating excellent organizations. This article suggests that empowerment is inadequate and offers partnership as the guiding principle for organizational change. Empowerment efforts focus on giving employees more power in decision making. The results of such efforts have often been disappointing. Partnership focuses on increasing participation within the context of agreed on objectives with each person having a vested interest in achieving these outcomes. Practical implications for health care organizations are presented.