by David Zinger
What do we need to remove or take out to foster more employee engagement in our organizations? If you have done this already, I would especially love to read your answer and you can click on the comment link right under the title of this post and let me know what you have done. Of course, I would also love to hear what you think should be done even if it has not been done yet.
Here is a partial list from my perspective.
Fear. We need to remove fear as much as possible. Fear of each other and fear of the leadership. Fear of not measuring up. Fear of creativity. Fear of engagement. Fear of failure and its subtle twin – fear of success.
Isolation. We need to remove isolation. Isolation from each other. Isolation from customers. Isolation from play at work.
Meaninglessness. We need to remove meaningless work.
Blind focus on results. We need to remove a focus on results at the cost of relationship.
Simple solutions. We need to overcome the idea that there is a magic elixir or a simple solution to employee engagement.
Blame. We need to remove blame when things go wrong. We need to stop blaming employees if they are not engaged. Each person is responsible but we are all accountable for employee engagement.
This list must continue and I need your help.
What else do we need to remove to create more engagement? Please comment.
One more that your list triggered, David, is Negative-ism.
Negative-ism (the tendency to say “No” to most things) is a real killer of engagement.
Terry
You have a great start here! I wish I could give you a laundry list of things my organization has already removed… but we’re not there yet. One of the things we’re trying to remove is:
Micromanagement. Decisions must be made expeditiously and at the level where the greatest knowledge and experience resides. That’s not always at the executive level. It’s not always at the manager level. We must empower the right people to make decisions and then just get the heck out of the way, IMHO.
Indifference: We need to remove indifference, provide direction, state an educated opinion and be enthusiastic about the anticipated results!
Terrence, Jennifer, and Jessica:
Thank you so very much to adding to what workplaces or organizations can remove to enhance engagement. Negative-sim, micromanagment, and indifference can now be thrown out!
David
Lack of faith or disbelief.
Call it whichever you prefer but not believing in one’s or the company’s ability is a major roadblock!
I believe you Mike!
I think engagement is 100% about trust and thus could be drilled back to a character flaw in the leader.
Every one of the reasons sited in your post and in the comments, to me, is a different way of saying, “I don’t trust you.”
I would go so far as to say that until you create an environment ripe with trust you will never have a meaningful organization. It’s not to say that an organization won’t be successful, it will just never reach it’s full potential.
1. gossip…a form of workplace violence…no matter how much folks attempt to justify and rationalize it – in order to “go along with it to get along”;
2. making judgments about others based on “you need to be more like me”
3. emotional naivete – inability to maturely handle one’s emotions when interacting with others
4.taking others’ achievements as mine
5.being engrained and attached to old ways, habits and patterns of doing things even when they’re self-limiting and self-destructive
6.failure to say “thank you”
7.assuming that others should accept my idiosyncracies (that are destructive to the team/organization)simply because “hey, that’s me.”
Mike:
You make such a good point of trust and how vital it is for full engagement. Thank you.
Peter
You packe so much into your 7 points, I will need to come back again (maybe a couple of times) to review them from gossip as violence to the lacks of connection believing “hey, that’s me” instead of looking at us.
Thanks to both of you.
Hi David,
I have recently written a doctoral thesis on learning in natural environment using the conceptual framework “communities of practice” by Wenger (1998). I think one thing that needs to be taken out is personal or individual enterprise. Any organization needs to focus on establishing a joint enterprise that employees will buy into and that will lead into a mutual engagement into the joint enterprise.
Thanks for your list, I wish my current employer would take the time to read this, as my workplace has just about everything mentionned on the list of things to be removed.
Leon,
What an interesting thesis. All the best with it. It can be a challenge to create that joint enterprise but when it happens…so much engagement can develop.
Thank you for you comment.
David