Don't insult your employee's intelligence with quick engagement fixes...

Did you know that companies spend $38 billion dollars each year in an effort to get their employees engaged in their day-to-day working activities?

I’m not sure which side of the tracks you grew up on, but I think $38 billion dollars is a lot of money to spend on gift cards, pizza parties, prizes, holiday banquets and other awards.

Despite this huge amount of money being spent - we also know (from Gallup) that 71 percent of America’s workers describe themselves as not-engaged in their day-to-day work.

Thirty eight billion dollars spent to reach engagement levels of 29 percent? That’s a pretty big disconnect if you ask me.

So, I was intrigued by an article I read this week penned by Daniel Goleman - Co-Director of Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. His primary thesis is that people are creatively engaged because they’re self-motivated to be that way.  Money and rewards played a secondary role in their day-to-day creativity and engagement – as long as they have enough money to suit their needs.

Coleman drives home an important point that can offer assistance to organizations willing to spend money on methods to engage their employees – That an individual’s primary motivation to do his/her most creative work comes from within. In short – an employee won’t be engaged until he or she chooses to be engaged.

Coleman goes on to discuss that there are things an employer can do to help nudge creative thinkers towards engagement. Chief among his recommendations is for companies to do all they can to contribute to an overall positive mood and to “have a pleasant, energetic and affective response to the work that they're doing and to the environment in which they're doing it.”

As I spent the past five years in collaborating with organizational development professionals, I often found myself prescribing fixes to their company’s engagement issues with pre-packaged products and training that I knew wouldn’t really fix their real engagement challenges.

And this is where the $38 billion dollar question comes into crystal-clear focus. Companies don’t need off-the-shelf solutions to fix their engagement woes. Instead, they must be willing to do whatever is necessary to nudge their people in the direction of engagement.

Sadly, management’s unwillingness to take uncomfortable steps to make the real changes needed to transform their company’s culture from negative to a positive almost always comes in distant second to that same company’s willingness to throw money at a quick fix they hope might accomplish the same result.

Remember – engagement and motivation is intrinsic. It’s a choice that each employee gets to make. Yet any employee can sniff out a half-hearted attempt to motivate them from a mile away.

If we know that creativity and engagement is proven to flourish in positive environments, then efforts to engage employees must start with the organization recognizing the need for a strategic and foundational shift in values, tone and employee focus. Until this happens, change initiatives have only a minimal effect at best.

The real change I’m speaking of means that actual progress towards adopting and growing a positive culture must be made.

This might mean letting go of people who trend towards the negative – no matter their spot on the organizational chart. This might mean getting rid of programs that management loves but the employees hate.

This absolutely means choosing to embark on a long-term vision that includes educating people leaders to transform their managerial functions to reflect a tone of positivity while continuing to drive needed and necessary business results.

Creative, motivated employees are waiting to provide you with their best work. The question is, are you willing to help them on their journey?

From Journalist to Leadership Consultant

I was hired right out of college to be the weekend editor for a small newspaper in Nampa, Idaho. After the interviews were over and the offer accepted – I was excited for the opportunities this new position would prepare me for. My reporting and copy editing skills were already significant – and the journalism world was mine for the taking. My confidence and drive to prove my value at this paper couldn’t have been any higher.

That is, until she showed up.

Who was ‘she?’

She is that reality of the workplace that college courses just don’t prep you for. She was my first manager.

She was grouchy, inconsistent, intimidating and not at all easy to work with and it soon became apparent that her expectations of how I executed my position were well beyond that which I had the natural capacity to fulfill.

My vision of my dream job slowly came unraveled at the seams and a mere two months after I had happily graduated with a journalism degree – I was called into one of those ‘not-so-fun’ meetings with my manager.

She took little time in going right to work on me; recounting a laundry list of things I had (admittedly) done wrong during my two-month career. She went on for a good fifteen minutes (while I stared at the floor) and finished her ranting monologue by reassigning my role and slashing my (already meager) salary.

When she finished her task and finally saw that I sat before her like the proverbial deer in the headlights, she asked me if I had anything I’d like to add.

Still stunned by what had just taken place, I managed to stammer a few lame sentences, saying something like:

“I thought a professional newspaper would be more understanding. My university newspaper understood when I made a mistake, or got sick, or didn’t perform my role perfectly – so why can’t you?”

“Your college career had nothing to do with the real world is truly like,” she snorted back. “This,” she said, pointing around the small, dilapidated newsroom, “is the real world.”

Those words penetrated by heart and stung me at my core, because I knew they were simply not true.

While I readily accepted that I had much to learn about how the real world of newspapers, business and management truly functioned, I also knew that her industrial-age view of management philosophy couldn’t have been more wrong.

Needless to say, my commitment and dedication to that job flew right out the window. Within two months, I was already working for another newspaper that paid a little bit more and treated its people a little bit better.

Yet - that uncomfortable exchange with an uneducated manager birthed a passion inside of me that soon became my career motivation.

And while I would continue to work in the world of newspapers for several years after that experience, I ultimately chose to embark on a career where I could help leaders to better manage their employees to achieve their greatest potential, unlock their greatest ideas and provide their best work.

During this second phase of my career I’ve been a first-hand witness to the power of innovation and creativity that comes to organizations whose employees are engaged in what they do.

I’ve discovered that employees become engaged in their work when four pieces happen in their respective workplaces.

1. They feel there is ample opportunity there to grow, expand and fulfill their life’s work as they see it.
2. They feel that their employer cares about their day-to-day well being.
3. They feel they can implicitly trust their employer.
4. They feel a sense of pride in the brand their employer portrays to the world.

When these four pieces are found in the companies I consult with - amazing things happen. Profits increase. Innovation blossoms. Employees are driven.

And that, my friends is truly how the real world operates.

Leadership Lessons from Jean Valjean

Hollywood has decided to give us a gift this Christmas in the form of the movie Les Miserables – based on the Broadway hit musical, which happens to be extracted the classic book Les Miserables, penned in 1862 by renowned author Victor Hugo.

The story chronicles the life of Jean Valjean – a paroled convict who through divine providence receives a second chance to become an honest man. He seizes the opportunity despite facing significant opposition in his new life from a host of dastardly characters along the way.

Shortly after being released from prison and armed with a new lease on life, Jean Valjean walks from southern France to a small village in the northern part of the country where he innovates a method to create a more efficient process of producing claps for the regions’ traditional black bead and bracelet industry. This breakthrough discovery leads Mr. Valjean to establish an extremely profitable factory in the struggling village that he now calls home.

As his wealth and fame grow, happy villagers appoint him to be Mayor and treat him like a demi-god.

It’s in this portion of the book where we’re allowed a brief glimpse into Jean Valjean’s business leadership attributes and Hugo presents a man bent on doing what is right – at any cost.

I’ve briefly drawn out five leadership principles that I feel resonate in our world today – 150 years after Victor Hugo wrote them into Valjean’s character.

Leaders are Innovators (and vice-versa):

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”  
- Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO

Victor Hugo used innovation as his key building block to portray Jean Valjean’s rise from galley prisoner to business professional as credible, casting Jean Valjean’s financial fortune as a result of thinking differently and taking necessary risks to turn his breakthrough idea into a method for achieving substantial profits.

Yet Valjean’s innovative streak didn’t end with this invention. When his new business began to flourish, Jean Valjean chose to reinvest his wealth to create a separate factory workspace for female laborers so they ‘wouldn’t lose their modesty’ – an unheard of accommodation for any factory owner to make in the mid-18^th century.

Innovation rests at the doorway of every successful business plan. As leaders, are we doing everything to encourage and reward innovation in our workplaces?

People before Profits:

“If you have a strong, people-focused, values-driven culture, it creates satisfied, engaged, motivated people who want to bring their best selves to work every day and want to do a great job and that boosts performance.”
-- Michael Weinholtz, CEO of CHG Healthcare

I’ve run across countless organizations that give mere lip service to the notion of placing the needs of their employees before everything else. The harsh reality is that precious few companies actually take their employees well being into account with every major corporate decision made.

That’s not to say that those companies don’t exist. They do and you can find them with relative ease because they’re the companies everyone wants to work for.

In the case of Jean Valjean, we find that instead of using his newfound wealth to bulk up his personal bank account, he returned the lion’s share to his employees in an effort to lift them out of poverty.

“This very slight change … had rendered it possible, first to raise the wages of the laborer – a benefit to the region – secondly to improve the quality of the goods – an advantage for the consumer – and thirdly, to sell them at a lower price even while making three times the profit – a gain for the manufacturer.”
“The profits of (Jean Valjean) were so great that by the end of the second year he was able to build a large factory and … whoever was needy could go there and be sure of finding work and wages.”

Slowly, companies are starting to see the positive correlation between happiness at work and solid business performance. A study found in the 2009 New York Times bestseller The Carrot Principle shows that companies who choose to put their people first outperform their competition by a 3-1 margin.

Victor Hugo understood this simple principle more than 150 years ago – yet organizations continue to sweep this one under the carpet.

Accountability:

“It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.“  
-- Alfred Adler, Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology

Despite Jean Valjean’s open-door employment policy, he still required his workers be honest in their everyday dealings with each other. The book also points out that while honesty was a personality trait he had struggled with in his previous life, during this passage of time in the narrative he held himself accountable to be an honest man with unparalleled enthusiasm.

Do we set goals with those we manage and hold them accountable to be accomplished? Do we invite our employees to change their behaviors to accomplish culture change when we have no intention of doing the same? Do we encourage a ‘Do as I say – not as I do’ approach to leadership?

Social Responsibility:

“Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors … Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations."
-- Albert Einstein

Jean Valjean amassed a fortune of 1.6 million French Francs through his hard work and innovation in the mid-19^th century. This amount would easily be worth over a billion dollars by today’s standards.

We he chose to spend a cool million francs of his fortune – roughly two-thirds of his wealth – on upgrading the health care and educational capacities of the village he lived in.

He paid to have the local hospital expand its woefully inadequate amount of beds available to care for the sick and afflicted. He also paid upgrades to the local school and established two additional teachers at competitive salaries.

He saved the remaining six hundred thousand francs for himself – of which he continued to use to assist the poor and the needy with home he interacted with.

Our world is filled with examples of the power of wealth to corrupt. Victor Hugo chose to create a hero who understood the power of wealth to heal entire communities.

Integrity:

"If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless."
— Moliere [Jean Baptiste Poquelin]

While walking through the streets of the village one evening, Jean Valjean witnessed a crime against a helpless victim, the watched as this victim was wrongfully arrested as that crime’s perpetrator. At this point, Valjean could have avoided a host of challenges in his life if he would have simply chosen to not say a word and gone on his way.

Instead he chose to defend the wrongfully accused victim, which sets off a chain reaction that eventually brought uncertainty, fear and pain for the rest of his life.

A short while later, he is faced with another golden opportunity to assign his blame on another and live the remainder of his life in comfort. Yet, he again chooses the follow the honest route, allowing his nemesis to pick up his scent anew.

How often do we as leaders chose to do what is right, no matter the personal and professional cost? Do we allow others to take the fall for something we were responsible for? Are we the kind of leader who defends the morally wrong actions our employers choose to embark on?

Choosing to become a leader of integrity is not an easy path to follow; yet leaders of integrity are the ones employees will follow anywhere.

On the other hand, leaders who choose to lie, deceive and mislead their employees lose their ability to lead altogether.

John Livingston

It's been two weeks since a layoff pressed me into a new chapter of my working career. Over the past five years, I've been fortunate enough to work in a field that allowed me to become an expert in the field of employee engagement, social media and traditional marketing, leadership and organizational development, project management and corporate recognition best practices.

Yet, when you're 42 years old and suddenly without employment, you tend to do a lot of reflection of your life, your beliefs and then strategize your next move.

My 10th great grandfather was the Reverend John Livingston - a Scottish man who struggled to decide what to do with his life when in his early twenties. He felt a desire to become a doctor yet also felt a strong inclination to join the ministry.

Now, being in these straits, I resolved I would spend one day before God alone; and knowing of a secret cave in the south side of Mouse Water… I went thither and after many to's and fro's, and much confusion and fear about the state of my soul, I thought it was made out to me that I behooved to preach Jesus Christ, which if I did not, I should have no assurance of salvation. After which I laid aside all thoughts of France, and medicine and the land and betook me to the study of divinity. 

http://www.revjohnlivingston.com/Johnbyhimself.html

As soon as I read this passage I felt an instant kinship with this great man who lived in the 16th century near Glasgow, Ireland. I was also delighted to learn that both John Livingston and his father - The Reverend William Livingston - were zealous reformers against the Episcopal church to the point that both had their licenses to preach revoked and were exiled for their views and actions.

These men stood up against the status quo of their day, preached the ideas of change in the face of sharp disagreement and were forced into uncertain futures because of their actions and beliefs.

--

So, I find myself in a similar point in my life , exiled and ready to reflect  - and so I will use this space as my cave of reflection, thought and advocacy for practices and beliefs in the workplace that I feel passionate about sharing.

Please feel free to comment, push back, and challenge as needed. I welcome the exchange.

- Pat Poyfair

Wednesday, October 17th, 2012