Where the hell are we going?
Does your team know where you’re taking them? Are you sure? One way to figure it out is to ask yourself, “What am I leading them toward? What’s the destination?” If you don’t know the answers right off the top of your head, think how confused your team is!
Imagine trying to coach a team to win a new game you’ve invented without telling them the rules or the objective. In other words, without telling them how to win!
One reason Employee Engagement is so low (30% according to Gallup) is that we have turned into robots. We show up at work each day, do what we assume are the priorities and have no sense of whether we are moving closer to the team goal or further away – either because we’re not sure what the goal IS or we don’t see how our work supports it!
Just showing up and working is not a big enough game for your team and that’s why they are disengaged.
For too many employees, the daily goal is to get through the day without showing up on anyone’s radar screen. They do enough of the job to stay out of trouble but leave their inspiration and passion at home.
So what’s the answer? First, it’s important that:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is,
- You clearly communicate it to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Over the next few weeks, we will take these one by one. For now, there is pre-work to do:
- Identify the destination/goal to which you are leading your team
- Why are you leading them there?
- How does your destination/goal fit into the larger organization’s destination/goal?
- How does it fit in with the overall Mission/Vision of the organization?
Your team is a reflection of your engagement. If you’re floundering, they will flounder. If you’re clear about where you’re taking them, they’ll be clear. If you’re engaged, they’re engaged.
Please don’t mistake engagement for working hard. In fact, when you are fully engaged in the work, it doesn’t feel hard at all. Engagement is about continually seeking ways to improve the end product, developing processes to achieve results faster and/or better, and growing your own skill set and knowledge base.
In short, Employee Engagement is about using the creative part of your mind every day. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore ways for you to do that and to encourage your team to do the same.
The #1 Employee Engagement Mistake
I am continually surprised by how many organizations think that employee engagement has to do with extracurricular programs like company picnics, or internal perks like an on-site coffee bar or billiard table.
While there is nothing wrong with any of these things, it is a serious mistake to think that they deeply impact employee engagement, particularly if leadership is not practicing the basics every day.
A friendly supervisor at the company picnic who tells your family what a great worker you are cannot make up for poor input and inconsistent feedback about your work the rest of the time.
A manager cannot make up for his lack of availability to meet with you about an important project by challenging you to a friendly game of billiards. Why does he have time for that and not what’s most important to you?
Too often the perks offered to employees to promote employee engagement have the same effect as putting an ice pack on a broken leg. It might feel good momentarily but it’s not a long-term solution.
True employee engagement has to do with how you involve your team day-to-day in the work. Are they only given “marching orders” or are they able to have input into the parade route? Do you honor and tap their knowledge and experience or are they treated like novices? Are they given honest and useful feedback about their performance or do you disrespect them by telling them “good job” when it was, at best, mediocre?
Employee engagement has to do with attention:
- Attention to employees’ capabilities
- Attention to their performance
- Attention to how they need to be developed; and
- Attention to your own development needs in the areas of delegation, feedback and how to approach leadership in a more lighthearted manner
Short-term, quick fixes cannot increase employee engagement—at best it creates a voracious appetite for, “What have you done for me lately?”Providing your team instead with opportunities to truly get involved in the work is what they most want. Doing so fulfills the definition of engagement which, in this context, Merriam-Webster defines as: b: emotional involvement or commitment.
Employee Engagement Tips that Really Work
TIP #1 – Spend 80% of your time with your top performers and the rest of your time with the others
This works in two ways:
- Invigorates those who are performing well to do even more
- Demonstrates to the low performers that the way to get attention is through performance, not by making mistakes
TIP #2 – Treat employees like adults; don’t micro-manage
If your employee has been with you longer than 3 months and you still have to tell them step-by-step what to do or you have to continually follow up with them, there’s either a training issue on your end or a maturity problem on theirs. Either way, it is imperative that you take action unless you enjoy doing their job AND yours.
Tip #3 – Look for things to appreciate instead of things to criticize
Psychologists tell us that it takes seven positive statements to offset a negative one. When you look for things to appreciate about each team member, it goes a long way toward softening the critical feedback that is sometimes necessary.
Tip #4 – Say thank you at least weekly
I once had a supervisor say to me, “You mean, I have to acknowledge them just for doing their jobs?!?” The short answer to that is, “Yes.” The longer answer went this way: I asked him, “If every one of your team came in every day and just did their jobs, would your work be much easier?” He ruefully admitted it would so I said, “THAT’S why you want to acknowledge them for “just” doing their jobs.”
Tip #5 – Give them a much autonomy as possible
Author/lecturer Dan Pink tells us that, to motivate employees, give them autonomy over: Time | Technique | Task | Team
Tips are great and the five above are among the best but they’ll only work if you try them. Try one/week and see what happens!!!
The Gift of Positive Expectation
Whether you are a leader or an employee, giving yourself and others the gift of positive expectation is a key to having work that is thoroughly engaging.
It starts when you wake up
- When you wake up in the morning is it with a groan or a smile? Are you happy to be alive or is the jury still out? When my friend William, who is very positive, wakes up, he raises both hands toward the ceiling and waves them around. He tells me, “If I don’t feel a coffin lid, I get out of bed, happy to have another day.”
- As you’re getting ready for work are your thoughts centered on expectations of having a good day at work? Or are you already steeling yourself for problems?
The Law of Attraction dictates that you get more of what you focus on. Shorthand for that is:
- If you expect negative experiences, that’s what you will get.
- When you expect positive experiences, life gets really good really fast. EVEN YOUR WORK LIFE.
It impacts productivity at work
If you are a leader at work (officially or not) you have a great opportunity each day to impact your company culture by giving coworkers and those who report to you the gift of positive expectation. Expect people to do good work. Encourage them by catching them doing something right and let them know you notice. And practice this on yourself, as well. Stop waiting for your boss to notice all the great things you do. Keep your own personnel file and write yourself up for good performance; keeping track of all the things you do well will result in you getting even better at your job and more productive. This is the same impact you will see when you do the same for others.
Fact: psychologists tell us it takes seven positive statements to offset a negative one. Ponder that for a moment. Think about the impact when you know someone important does not have faith in you.
Some of you use others’ negative expectation of you as motivation to try even harder. “I’ll prove them wrong,” you say to yourself. Because you use it to motivate yourself, you think having negative expectations of others will also motivate them, and it may. But it is much more motivating to want to live up to positive expectations than negative ones. When you have faith in someone, they usually will work hard because they don’t want to let you down.
Fact: Human beings would rather be right than happy. When you have positive expectations of others, you will go out of your way to notice the things that support your faith in them. Conversely, when you have negative expectations, you will notice all the things to support that belief!
Start practicing giving the gift of positive expectations. I’m not saying you won’t be let down from time to time; you will. However, when you expect the best from others and watch for it, you will be blown away by how often they rise to meet your expectations. Employee Engagement will rise and so will morale.
Need problem solvers? Use humor!
The very word “problem” doesn’t normally bring humor to mind. Problem-solving evokes images of late night work sessions – guys with their ties loosened and shirt sleeves rolled up and women with their uncomfortable dress shoes kicked off, all gathered around a conference table looking tense and wondering how to resolve whatever issue they’re working on.
Think how different that scene would be if those very same people were relaxed around that table, tossing soft toy balls to each other, making things out of pipe cleaners (remember pipe cleaners?), or squeezing squishy toys and laughing.
In the first example, their minds are totally focused on the problem. They think they are there to find a solution but it’s hard to get creative ideas when you are tired and stressed out. It’s one of the reasons brilliant ideas come to us in the middle of the night when we’re not actively working on them. Our creativity can finally reach us in our sleep!
Laughter is a gift from the Creativity Gods and a boon to Employee Engagement. That’s not just my opinion, scientists tell us that the more they research the benefits of laughter, the stronger the case for using it in work situations, especially those requiring problem solving. A study out of Wharton, for example found that laughter resulted in individuals demonstrating more creative decision-making and greater flexibility. According to the article Leading with Laughter by Eric Tytslin laughter “clears the mind and improves focus.”
So think about how you can make the problem-solving meetings at work more fun. Ideas could include:
- Have an air guitar contest
- Do a 10-minute icebreaker. Example: without showing it to them, tape to each person’s back the name of a cartoon character and get them to guess who they are by asking questions, “Am I male or female?” “Animal or human?” etc.
- Before the meeting is officially started, show one of the thousands of short YouTube videos that evoke contagious laughter
- Hold a “stupid human tricks” contest where everyone displays one of their unique talents
None of these require a lot of time but 5-10 minutes invested in frivolity at the front end will pay off handsomely when the meeting moves into problem-solving mode.