Employee Engagement-What They Never Tell You
While it is important to create an environment in which employees have the freedom to be enthusiastic about their work, what no one ever says is:
You cannot engage others without their cooperation.
You cannot force employee engagement. You can create the most amazing environment ever, one in which the leadership is open to input, provides meaningful and useful feedback, involves the staff in decision making and shares information that many businesses withhold. You can do all that and more—ping pong tables, complimentary massages, nap stations and gourmet food—and if some members of your team don’t want to be engaged, they won’t be. You can’t make them! If you do create that kind of environment, the good news is that those members of your team who are willing to be engaged will significantly increase their productivity.
Look at yourself. Are you engaged? Do you get excited about solving problems or making things work better? Do you think about how to do so even when you’re “off the clock?” I don’t mean, “Do you worry?” Worry is not engagement; worry is focusing on something you don’t think can be solved. Engagement happens when you are focused on potential solutions and when you are continually asking, “How could we do this better?” If you answered “no” to the previous questions, I will bet wads of money you are disengaged in your personal life, as well. And anything your employer does to engage you on the job will be a wasted effort.
The desire to engage comes from within and permeates every aspect of your life.
So how do you “fix” employees who refuse to engage? You can’t. The best you can do is ask them questions that might get them to tap into their own motivation. You may be skilled enough to do this, you might need support from your Human Resources department, or it could be worthwhile to engage the services of a Professional Coach.
If you want to increase your own level of engagement the most important question to ask yourself is,
Why do I come to work every day?
When I pose this question my programs someone inevitably jokes, “Because I like to eat” which, translates to, “I have to” which is a lie. There are plenty of people who decide not to work and suffer the consequences—they sleep on friends’ or parents’ couches or even become homeless. No one HAS to work and if you are working, it means that somewhere within you is a strong why; you’ve just forgotten what it is.
Your why doesn’t need to be about the work itself, it’s simply important that you know what it is. 
My grandmother’s cousin Annie loved to travel. Her entire life she would get a job, work really hard at it, put as much money away as possible, then quit and travel until her funds ran out. She was crystal clear why she worked—it made it possible to indulge her passion for travel. When she passed away, I was cleaning out her house and found her passport. It is one of my more cherished possessions.
If you’re waiting for someone else to somehow motivate you to become engaged in your own life, it’s going to be a very long wait. If you want work you enjoy so much that it gets you out of bed in the morning, then figure out your “why” and watch what happens!
Ann Miller Circa 1920
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.
2
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.
1
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.