David Zinger asks you to raise your hand if you are disengaged?
Not 80%. What percentage of people that you work with are disengaged? I sometimes hear people site statistics as high as 80%. I don’t believe it. I also believe that some people are disengaged but not as many as statistics would have us believe.
Who is disengaged? Two weeks ago I made a presentation at a large HR conference. I had 120 people in my audience and I asked everyone who was disengaged to raise their hands! How many do you think raised their hands? That right, not one person! Some of these very same people believe we have huge levels of disengagement.
Who are you? I am not naive, some people who were disengaged might not have raised their hand. Yet, I think we need to go public with engagement measures. I don’t care about abstract measures of disengagement as much as I care about who specifically is disengaged, why they are disengaged, and what we can do together about it.
360 degree evaluations make me feel like I am going around in circles. As much as I think employee surveys and 360 degree evaluations can be useful I think they are getting overused. I don’t need any more anonymous feedback or data, I want to connect with others so we can see what is behind the numbers and they feel safe saying what they are experiencing (I don’t know about you but that sure gets me engaged). What happened to authentic direct asking, conversation, trust, integrity, openness, caring, honesty, connection, collaboration, and listening?
Let’s bring employee disengagement out into the open where it belongs. Before you hand out another anonymous survey to employees, how about sitting down and having a real conversation where they feel safe to talk about what is going on, you are open to listening carefully, and together you work at addressing any key engagement or disengagement concerns.
Employee disengagement does not exist. Employee disengagement is far too abstract. It we really believe that engagement benefits the employee then they will want to come forward into the real conversation and reap the benefits of experiencing full engagement.
Organizational disengagement. If there are no benefits to employees being engaged then let’s change the term we use from employee disengagement to organizational disengagement. Why do we call it employee disengagement when it may be the organization is not fully engaging the employee? It would seem to me that it is organizational disengagement not employee disengagement.
Goodbye employee disengagement. With one short blog post I just got rid of most employee disengagement. Now, lets get busy helping people who are engaged become more fully engaged by creating engaging organizations through engaged management and leadership.
Engage along with me the best is yet to be.
Of course engagement/disengagement is organizational—they’re both a function of corporate culture.
No one opens up when they know the messenger is likely to be killed, but when they are truly safe you won’t be able to shut them up.
Ah to have the voices of everyone in the workplace contributing to engagement. Now that is an organization that is transforming itself into a community of engaged practice.
Finally, someone who’s got it right – It’s the corporate culture, Dummy!!!
So hide behind “culture” because you have not got the courage or energy to engage. You need to be trusted and that needs to be earned and that is something that YOU can work on.
Corinne:
Trust is such a key. And now we have some interesting research on “honest signals.” I plan to write about this shortly. Good point about the course and energy to engage.
David
I agree that trust needs to be earned, but it needs to be earned on both sides—and the organization needs to earn it first. “Trust us” no longer cuts it in the corporate world.
The organization and the manager earn it by clearly telling people exactly what’s expected of them and what they should expect from the organization and from the individual manager and then living up to their word.
Ah, that is the key: living up to their word…well said…as we are all employees for the most part…I guess you could say living up to our word.
David, could not agree with your points more, but I think there is something else that needs to be addressed…………. Damage Control.
Employees have been beaten up for taking risks and attempting new initiatives after they have been “empowered” to do so. When the outcome is not successful, blame and shame is offered rather than learning; creating environments where engagement falls apart. Damage control needs to be done to this group – and perhaps first.
Rich,
Excellent comment about empowerment and damage blame and shame. I appreciate your language choices and the impact on engagement.
David
Great post, David.
There is a great book out there called “The Integrity Dividend” and it addresses how integrity engages employees (and profits). People call this “trust,” but it is really integrity — you say you will do something and then you do it.
People may not agree with what you are doing, but they do agree that you are being honest.
I would love to get behind a corporate mission that did something other than make money for the company. But, I quickly come to my senses.
In a world where executive management will lay you off in a cold-blooded minute — while keeping their lofty bonuses and contractual severance agreements — why would an employee actually trust what management is telling them?
Bailouts, but still huge bonuses. 50,000 people laid off at Citigroup, but management is still saying the company is great.
Until this sort of disconnect between what management says and what they do, employee engagement is elusive at best.
To the detriment of both management and employees.
Scot
You always provide such rich commenting and information. Excellent points my friend and I will need to read the Integrity Dividend…thanks for the tip.
David
Hey, David, Scot and others–
I wrote “The Integrity Dividend,” so your mention popped up on my Google Alerts.
You are on the right track, of course. The scent of hypocrisy is a sure-fire damper on engagement. Likewise the perception that management has broken promises, and that those promises are undiscussable for fear of consequences.
It gets tricky when you realize these management failings are usually not due to character deficiency: living by your word, and being seen as doing so, is WAY WAY harder than it might seem. It calls on a discipline and a skill set that demands focused attention.
The full title of the book is “The Integrity Dividend: Leading by the Power of Your Word,” and I have a website at http://integritydividend.com.
Happy to weigh in. I hope I was able to move the conversation forward.
–Tony Simons
Excellent content and style…keep up the good work!
That’s the problem – not recognizing the importance of culture. Most CxOs don’t either – and since they don’t believe they are IMPERFECT – they don’t change. “Dummy, underlings, you change into US! [CxOs – CEO, CFO, COO, etc.]). For TRUE CHANGE – EVERTHING AND EVERYONE MUST CHANGE – otherwise, all these ideas are just fluff – USELESS FLUFF!!!!…