3 Misconceptions about Employee Engagement
Misconception #1
Employee Engagement is just another term for coddling employees.
I am not asking you to baby employees; I’m asking you to do what works!
Is your current leadership style working? Are the members of your team performing at the levels you want and need? Or are you living in the past, still trying to use the old command-and-control style of management? Ironically, that old-fashioned management style DOES treat employees like small children who need to be told what to do, step by step!
Misconception #2
I manage to be engaged without any external motivation, why can’t others do the same?
I’m going to challenge you. “ARE you engaged? Really?”
- When was the last time you came up with a more efficient way for you or your team to get the work done?
- What is the last project that you couldn’t wait to sink your teeth into?
- How often do you count the days to the weekend? To retirement?
Merely doing your job doesn’t mean you’re engaged. Engagement involves creative thinking, a search for innovation and regularly being surprised by how much time passed while you were absorbed in what you were doing. And this is possible at any level, whether you’re part of the management team, a server at a restaurant, or the janitor.
It’s not about what you’re doing; it’s about how you’re doing it.
Misconception #3
Some employees just don’t want to be engaged.
Door #1 – a job where you are routinely asked for input on how to produce the results needed and where you are given feedback that supports your growth.
Door #2 – a job where you are routinely told what to do and how to do it, where there is no consideration that there might actually be a better way and where you are given either no feedback or “constructive criticism.”
Do you sincerely believe that there are employees out there who would choose Door #2? These would be people who have come to accept that they simply don’t want to think for themselves and just want to be told what to do.
Ask yourself, and others, “Tell me about the best boss you ever had.” How many times do you think you will hear someone describe a person who gave them orders, breathed down their necks while they were fulfilling them and then told them in detail all the ways they had done it wrong?!?
If your management style is successfully producing phenomenal results, I applaud you. If you think there might be “more to go,” then give me a call and let’s figure out together how to get you, and your employees more engaged and more productive.
5 Powerful Questions to Influence Performance
- How do you think we should approach this?
- What obstacles might prevent you from completing it (at all, or on time)?
- What resources do we have, and what others do you need?
- What’s a reasonable deadline?
- What do you need from me? –OR- How can I support you?
If one of your goals is to increase performance and employee engagement (and it should be) then getting your team members involved in planning how a task or project should be done is a simple and powerful way to do so. These five questions will do just that.
Of course, if they have been used to you simply telling them what to do and how to do it, the initial shock of your new approach might be significant. If this is a new style for you, let them know what you’re doing and why so they can be part of the culture shift versus suspicious about what the heck is going on.
Far from the Command-and-Control model of yesteryear, the questions above are designed to get the person to whom you are delegating immediately engaged. Use them at the very beginning of any new initiative and watch how quickly your team gets involved.
P.S. Once you ask any one of these 5 questions – STOP TALKING! Let them answer, even if it takes a while.
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Visible Progress = Employee Engagement
I recall an afternoon when I was very discouraged with my work. I looked at the accounts receivables and they weren’t high enough. I looked at the engagements I’d booked and there were too few. Knowing that the Law of Attraction says, “You get more of what you focus on,” I determined to pull myself out of this self-defeating funk before I made things worse.
What worked was to re-shift my focus onto the things I’d accomplished: my blog that had been going strong since 2002 (before they were even called blogs), a book I had written and published, the number of conferences at which I had spoken and the number of referrals and repeat clients I enjoy. Once I could clearly see my progress, I became re-motivated to keep going.
Therefore, when I read the book The Progress Principle, it came as no surprise to learn from authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer that after extensive research, they learned what motivates people: “the ability to show progress on a daily basis.”
Progress is encouraging; lack of progress (perceived or real) is discouraging.
What are you measuring at work: progress or lack of progress? When you meet with your boss, do you start the conversation as if you’re in a confessional and have to reveal all the ways you’ve “sinned” by not being on track?
When you have meetings with your direct reports, is the conversation primarily focused on the progress being made or do you use it as an opportunity to point out all the areas where they are lagging behind?
The response of many leaders to the above is, “What are you saying, Silver? I should ignore it when they are behind in their work?” And of course, the answer to that is “No;” we all need to be held accountable. Having said that, it is imperative that we shift the focus. Instead of using the traditional 80/20-feedback model—focusing 80% of your feedback on what’s not working and 20% on what is—why not flip it to 20/80? Spending 20% of your time discussing what’s not progressing fast enough and the balance focusing on the progress being made.
Progress is encouraging; lack of progress is discouraging. For greater employee engagement, find a way to highlight daily progress.
I work with the Solid Waste Department of a city. One of the Supervisors inherited a mess: there were over 50 commercial clients whose sites needed to be cleaned up and the division was way behind on the project. The customers were not happy.
When I walked into this Supervisor’s office, I noticed a map with yellow Post-its on various spots. I asked him about it and he told me that they had started out with 50 Post-its representing each of the sites that needed cleanup. As they completed each one, the Post-it was removed. He reports that it is very encouraging and energizing to him and to his team to see this visual representation of progress.
What can you do that is similar? If you are an independent contributor, what kind of visual representation could you use to show the progress of your work? If you are in a leadership role, how can you do this for your team?
The more progress you can show, the more you and your team will be engaged in the work. And that will pay for itself ten-fold in productivity.
Delegation’s Role in Employee Engagement
According to Wikipedia, “Publish or perish” is a phrase coined to describe the pressure in academia to rapidly and continually publish academic work to sustain or further one’s career.
The equivalent in organizations would be, “Delegate or disintegrate.” Dramatic? Well, yes, but also true.
When the leaders within an organization do not know the subtleties and finesse required for delegating well, this lack of skill has a dramatic impact on employee engagement and ultimately the bottom line. Over time the result is a slow disintegration of your company, similar to the damage caused by water dripping on a rock.
Here are just a few ways in which your organization is impacted by leadership’s lack of delegation skills:
An inability to hire top talent
We are in an age of over communication. If your company has lackluster leadership and widespread employee disengagement, it is well known within your industry. Although you may be able to hire, you won’t attract the most talented because they have options. These are the individuals who strategically choose the companies they work for with an eye toward enhancing their resumes. Your company’s reputation will be considered strongly when they make career decisions.
Employee Turnover
Most experts conservatively estimate the cost to find and train a replacement to be one and a half to more than twice a staffer’s salary. Why?
- Reduced productivity,
- Organizational wisdom that walks out the door with the employee
- Time taken up by the hiring manager and human resources
- An overworked and stressed remaining staff
- Training expenses
- The direct costs of hiring such as advertising and recruiter fees.
There is an adage, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses,” and although there are a myriad of reasons why people leave a job, the direct supervisor has the most impact on their job satisfaction. When the supervisor is a poor delegator, the result is employees who are discouraged and disengaged.
Increased cost of productivity
A question every leader should take time to ponder is: why is it we don’t have the time to clearly delegate tasks and projects at the beginning but we always have time to clean up the mess when they are not done properly?
Take a look at the “do overs” within your area of responsibility and spend some time tracing the root cause. Often mistakes are made for a couple of reasons:
- The person delegating the task or project has not clearly defined the expectations and the required results.
- The person to whom the task was delegated did not have all the information required to do the job and did not feel engaged in the process.
I have heard far too many managers say, “My employees will come to me if they have questions.” Please believe that, no matter how good your relationship, most employees are reluctant to voluntarily display their lack of knowledge, especially to their boss.
Loss of employee development
There lies within the delegation of every task or project an opportunity to further develop the employee to whom you are delegating. When a leader spends time at the front end discussing how to achieve the required result there are opportunities to uncover any gaps in the employee’s knowledge and to coach the employee on how to achieve the result more efficiently.
Conclusion
Whether you are a C-Suite executive or a front line supervisor, the ability to delegate efficiently and effectively will not only make your job a great deal easier, it will ultimately add dollars to the company’s bottom line. Employee engagement will increase.
Instead of disintegrating, your company will flourish and excel—and so will your employees.
For information on how to delegate, refer to our earlier blog on the topic: http://silverspeaks.com/blogs/2015/12/socratic-delegation-whaaaatttt/
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Socratic Delegation? Whaaaatttt…?
Do you know how each of your team members thinks about and approaches his/her work?
Do you have an in-depth understanding of each staff member’s capabilities?
Do you know how to empower your team?
One of your most important roles as a Leader is to understand the core competencies and capacity of your team.
If you are a Star Trek fan, you are familiar with the Vulcan Mind-Meld a touch technique that allows a Vulcan (Mr. Spock) to merge his or her mind with the essence of another’s mind.
As a leader within your organization, it would be useful for you to be able to do your own mind-meld. The more you are aware of how your team members think—how they plan to carry out the tasks and projects you assign them—the more impact you can have on the results achieved.
A quick and effective way to achieve this is through the process of delegation using the Socratic method. I call it Socratic Delegation.
When you delegate using the time worn “command and control” method, it does little to increase your understanding of what your team is thinking and capable of doing nor does it increase their ability to think for themselves or problem-solve.
One of our readers, Dean, responding to a blog I’d written on this topic put it best:
“Awesome! What a timely reminder for me not to over-manage. I’m constantly railing about how people learn by doing—not by being told or reading. Yet I continue to leap into problems because (my ego) knows how to fix it. I can’t teach empowerment to marionettes.”
When you utilize Socratic Delegation, you begin to develop your knowledge of each team member’s thought processes when it comes to work and achieving results.
What exactly is Socratic Delegation? Here is the process:
Socratic Delegation 101
Step #1 – Identify the task or project
Step #2 – Clearly identify the measurable result or outcome. (By the way, this is often the culprit of problems. If you don’t clearly define how to measure success, how is your employee to know?)
Step #3 – Meet with the employee or team to whom you are delegating and have the following conversation:
- “Here is the end result I am looking for __________ and here is the date I need it _______.”
- “Would you walk me through how you think it should be done?” (Or “how we should approach it?”)
- Listen and only listen until the end. Take notes.
- If you identify a problem and interrupt to mention it, you may also interrupt the employee’s thought process.
- It could be that the employee will, while talking the task through, identify the very problem you noticed and correct it.
Step # 4 – Fine tune
- If, while the employee was outlining his plan you noticed any potential concerns, bring them up. Use questions:
- How will you get to that point?
- Where are those resources coming from?
- Help me understand…
- What tools are you planning to use?
- What obstacles might stand in the way of getting this done on time?
- This fine-tuning process is your opportunity to coach the employee and develop his skill level.
- It’s also an opportunity for you to learn some approaches you hadn’t thought of yourself.
- It allows you the perfect reason to acknowledge the team or employee for their critical thinking.
As you lead your team be certain that YOU are clear about Steps 1 and 2. Each step is crucial to achieving success.
Whether you are a C-Suite executive or line manager, your role as a leader is to produce results through people.
Delegation is a core competency and something that, once you master it, will make you one of the few rather than one of the many. Start with Socratic Delegation as outlined above and hone it to fit your team culture—and watch as results increase and mistakes decrease.
As always I appreciate all feedback you provide. Send me your comments and stories. You and I are working together to change the work world. Your input is part of my Socratic Method.