UNLEASH EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
7 Initial Conditions for Outstanding Results
By
Wally Hauck
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Wally Hauck on Smashwords
ISBN 978-0-9829591-1-4
Unleash Employee Engagement
Copyright © 2012 by Wally Hauck
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Discover other titles by Wally Hauck including
The Art of Leading: 3 Principles for Predictable Performance Improvement.
Discover the webinar series by Wally Hauck
The Essence of the Most Valuable Skill Engaging People for Desired Results at www.artofleading.biz
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Table of Contents
Employee Engagement is More Vital Now - Two Global Trends
#1 Identify and Communicate ALL the BIG Whys to Enroll Everyone
#2 Adopt the Most Effective Thinking
#3 Create a Foundation for the Culture of Trust
#4 Create a Specific Plan for Transformation and Communicate it Continuously
#5 Empower a Small Group of Committed, Well-Connected and Influential Leaders
#6 Create Fearless Feedback Loops on Interpersonal Interactions and System Interactions
#7 Communicate and Celebrate Successes but Don’t Bribe
Introduction
Aspirin is very useful. It reduces or eliminates pain. It removes the symptom of some physical problem(s). It does NOT, however, address the root cause of the problem.
For too long American leadership has been treating low Employee Engagement with “aspirin” and not addressing the real root causes. The purpose of this little book is to correct that by identifying the action steps leaders can take to begin to address the real root causes.
Organizations are Complex systems. Complex systems are a collection of interdependent processes. These processes are designed and grouped into a network to achieve an aim or a purpose. Orchestras are complex systems. Each instrument, each musician, the conductor, the music, the lighting, the venue, the furniture are all interdependent parts and processes that intend to provide a great musical experience.
Organizations have a myriad of processes and parts that are interdependent (not independent). Too often, leaders focus their attention on the symptoms of problems with each of these parts. Because the root cause never fully gets addressed, the problems keep resurfacing and the leaders (and employees) continue to waste their time with the symptoms.
I love golf. To play golf well one must appreciate the initial conditions that help create a great shot. A great golf shot (or any sporting move) requires an ability to understand and manage the initial conditions of the swing and these include the grip on the club, the athletic stance, the alignment to the target, and the direction of the club head at the start of the swing (the take-away).
All these “initial conditions” will greatly influence the outcome (where the ball lands). I want the ball to be on the green, close to (or ideally in) the bottom of hole. To do this I must do my best to manage all these initial conditions. The better I manage these initial conditions the closer the ball will be to the bottom of the hole.
The quality of the swing is important but the quality of the swing is influenced significantly by the initial conditions. This is also true for employee engagement in organizations. We must be able to recognize and manage the initial conditions of employee engagement. If the initial conditions are not right, they will cause problems later. Those problems will appear as symptoms. They are the results of the incorrect initial conditions. Hitting a ball “out-of-bounds” is a symptom of the initial conditions of the swing. Poor employee behaviors are symptoms of poor initial conditions. Most leaders don’t agree and continue to blame employees for poor performance or attempt to control behaviors with policies such as performance reviews and pay-for-performance bribes.
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is the emotional connection employees feel for their organization or their team. This positive emotional response allows them to willingly volunteer extra effort in order to help the organization meet its goals. Again and again we see the power of engaged people. They can either support a leader or protest against a leader. People (or employees) eventually have the ultimate power especially when they reach a tipping point and act as an aligned team. The more a leader attempts to control people, the more he/she erodes that control. Leadership is fragile and so is engagement. Employee engagement in organizations (or communities) is truly a measure of the quality of the leadership in that organization.
Disengaged employees can damage a business by just barely doing the minimum work expected. Countries can also be damaged by citizens revolting against a leader when their tipping point is reached. We have seen examples of this recently in the Middle East, in Egypt, Libya, and Syria when engaged protesters were able to overthrow their country’s leaders.
Employee engagement can either support the leader or damage his/her influence. Employee engagement significantly impacts organizational performance.
Employee Engagement is More Vital Now — Two Global Trends that Compel Leaders to Change
The other day a friend asked my advice on how he could convince his CEO that employee engagement is critical for performance improvement. He questioned, “Are there any performance measures that show a direct connection between higher levels of employee engagement and improved profit and/or improved performance?”
Although there are performance measures (productivity, quality, loyalty, attitude) that show this connection, that's not the reason to improve employee engagement. Rather, there are two global trends influencing the need for employee engagement that leaders need to understand. Leaders must align their environments with these global trends or risk losing their competitive edge.
Trend #1: Organizations Must Become Self-Organizing Systems (Social Networks)
The Internet and mobile phones are accelerating the development of social networks. Networks are communities of people who have certain things in common and who want to communicate quickly, consistently, and frequently. Each community is connected to other communities through individuals who share those common connections.
People love social networks. They feel a sense of belonging when they are connected with people who share their interests, passions, values, priorities, and trust. Facebook is a great example of people who want to stay in touch. LinkedIn is another example of business professionals who want to network or to find jobs.
These networks are voluntary, chaotic, complex, self-organizing, and innovative. Organizations who want future success must embrace the paradox of needing to be predictable in product and service while embracing the complexity, voluntary nature, and chaos of a network. Members of networks are naturally already engaged. That is why people opt-in. Organizations that adopt the right methods of leadership will naturally create a network environment and that will generate engagement.
Leaders must shift their thinking and behaviors from the old industrial model to the new social network (systems thinking) world to influence employees to “opt-in.” This means treating employees more like volunteers than like “slaves”. Diverse, high-change environments that allow flexibility, mobility, flexible work hours, work-life balance, and collaboration are now needed more than ever. Unfortunately, most leaders are unprepared with the skills needed to deliver these environments.
Chaos and disequilibrium are necessary for networks to continuously learn. Organizations must get comfortable with this disequilibrium in order to continually adapt to change. Leaders must be expert facilitators of chaotic environments and must understand how to manage trust. The question is, will leaders provide opportunities that allow employees to operate with freedom?
Vast amounts of knowledge are generated by social networks. Look at Wikipedia. The accumulated input and knowledge is more valuable than any other asset in the organization. Another website, the Huffington Post was just purchased by America Online for hundreds of millions of dollars. Leaders no longer control this knowledge. A healthy network naturally generates the knowledge.
As a corollary to this trend, individuals now have increased power because they're connected to communities that have influence and can either promote or destroy a product, a service, or a leader’s influence. Mass marketing is out and personalized products and services are in.
Now, organizations must customize and
personalize products and services in order to influence the social
network communities to speak about their products and services.
If
enough people within the community like and recommend the product or
service, then company success will follow. This is the reason Pepsi
manages forty-two different drink brands.
Social networks also create a need for total transparency and managerial integrity. Leaders now need to display impeccable behaviors; otherwise employees will simply “opt out.” Opting out in an organization usually means the employees are doing minimum amount of work in order to collect a paycheck because they have become disengaged, this allows productivity to suffer. This might explain why only 26-31% of employees in the average United States organization are actually engaged.i
Trend #2: A Great Need for Talent with Skills for Managing a Social Network
There is a great need for talented problem solvers. Leaders in the networks must be expert problem solvers and facilitators. There's an increase in the need for talent and an increase in the competition for talent, in part because the baby-boomers are aging and retiring. The new “social network organization” needs talent with updated leadership skills that match the demands of the knowledge economy.
Effective leaders must now attract talent while considering the new skills necessary to manage self-organizing systems and social networks.
Yet talent alone is not enough. There are specific skills that are critical for engagement and success. For example, Charlie Sheen is a tremendous talent. However, he lost his job on the hit show “Two and a Half Men” because he did not possess the skills necessary to interact positively with the rest of the show’s team.
The new competencies needed by leaders are problem solving, collaboration, cooperation, ability to create trust with every interaction, systems thinking, process improvement, and creating environments that expand trust, relationships, innovation and synergy. The current performance appraisal process and pay for performance tools are now obsolete in the network model because a leader’s control is trumped by the influences in the community. Leaders must now depend on influencing skills because employee engagement is more critical than ever before.