If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going…
…Any Road Will Get You There
In my last blog (see below) I asked if you know where you’re taking your team and whether your team is clear about the destination. We identified four key action components of leading your team:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is
- You clearly communicate that destination to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Before we can tackle each of the four components above I asked you to complete some pre-work. If you didn’t do it, take some time now to complete it:
- 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?
Today we’re going to talk about the first component:
Know and completely understand what the team destination/ goal is.
This might seems obvious and yet often, when you try and articulate it, it becomes confusing. Did you discover that to be true when you did the pre-work?
Here’s why. Let’s take the example of a Customer Service Department. The goal, of course, is to provide a level of service that results in satisfied customers. But what’s the final destination? How do you know when you’re there?
The final destination for any Customer Service Department is 100% customer satisfaction. And that can be frustrating because, based on human nature, it seems impossible. Nevertheless, that’s where any Customer Service Manager worth her salt is leading her department.
Unrealistic? Sure it is but that’s the thing about destinations in the business world. They ARE unrealistic. Who could have envisioned Facebook, Apple or Amazon? Could our great-grandparents have imagined flying to Europe let alone the moon? Well, someone did and today the impossible becoming reality is no longer surprising.
So wherever you are leading your team, understand that if the destination is easily reached, it’s not challenging enough for them to become engaged in its achievement. Remember, Employee Engagement is about your team having opportunities every day to use the creative parts of their minds. Our creative minds kick in when we have problems to solve, not when we are tasked with maintaining the status quo. Create a very big challenge for your team and watch them flourish.
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.