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A Gallup poll revealed that only 26% of U.S. employees are fully engaged at any time. On the other end of the spectrum, 19% of employees are actively disengaged -- meaning that they intentionally act in ways that negatively impact their organizations. The annual cost nationwide to employ this actively disengaged group exceeds $300 billion.
The Letter, an online newsletter published by Lee Colan and the L Group, recently featured an article outlining a communications process that could help increase colleague engagement. The writer focuses on three key communication steps:
- Explain It's critical that you clearly explain how the issue and his/her performance affects the team. Sometimes it's hard to decide what to communicate with employees and what to withhold. But the truth is that leaders who underestimate the intelligence of their employees generally overestimate their own. When employees' questions aren't answered or situations aren't fully explained, people tend to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions.
- Ask Explaining is fundamental, but it's a one-way process. Ask employees what they think. When you do, they will be participating in two-way communication. Leaders tend to stumble on this step. One reason may be the myth that a leader has to implement every employee suggestion. The key to asking is listening. The test for effective listening is learning. Are you learning about your employees' needs, how they view their contributions to the team's purpose, how appreciated they feel, how much autonomy they want?
- Engage To have truly productive communication, you must engage your employees in ongoing, meaningful dialogue. Engage them in the process of developing solutions to problems, identifying areas for improvement and finding opportunities for growth. Some leaders feel threatened at the idea of involving their employees involving problems. Perhaps they feel they're giving up control. Remember this: your team is closer to the actual work and to your customers than you are. And there is more than one way to effectively solve a problem.
What do you think of that three-step process: Explain, Ask, Engage? Does it go far enough? What communication tips and tactics would you throw in the mix?
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Recent Comments | 4 Total
April 8, 2004 at 1:57pm by John Moore
It's a great question to ask, and the three categories are sensible ways to approach it. What I would add, with some vehemence, is for leaders not to frame the problem as how to get other people engaged with them. Instead, the need to challenge themselves on how engaged they actually are with those around them.
Second, I think far too many brands and organisations fail to create any sense of cause or purpose worthy of people engaging with emotionally. Years of subservience to creating shareholder value have reduced too many companies to mediocrity and passionlessness. The leader must ask: what is - apart from the money - that really gets me going in the morning? Am I passionately engaged with something more than my own self-interest.
April 9, 2004 at 9:33am by chris macrae
Measurably and systemically, doesnt go far enough. Until or unless organisations govern trust-flow and value multiply the intangibles of human relationships; the rule of tangible measurements not only explain the disengagemnet you get but the disasters of distrust that compound all around.
People need the transparent introduction of a second governance system that is in particular mathematical and human ways the very opposite of that which monopoly rule by traditional global accounting enforces.
Note what humanly deprivational assumptions lurk in accounting's bottom line balances, reflecting the slave-age, whose times they were founded in:
-all people are to be cut as costs whereas all machines are investments
-every performance is to be measured separately, as if teams or knowledge sharing or human (win-win) relationships, or compound emotional flows like trust have no interacting value with what pappens next
THE FUTURE IS NOW MEASURABLE
The pro-human organisational governance system exists, uses multiplcation to map the intangibles value of relationships, is open sourced at http://www.valuetrue.com Play it if you truly wish to engage people and compound the trust-flows that virtually all sustainable wealth of a networking age requires.
April 9, 2004 at 5:11pm by fouroboros
Very useful conversation!
We created a game called Insulated Decider, Isolated Deliverer in order to get employee and leader teams (used advisedly--we're usually doing this because they're not!) to understand the self-organizanizing instinct many of us fight to our detriment.
It always amazes me that the word Resources gets tossed about in conversations by people far more learned than me, ignoring a fundamental principle: The properties of a resource are immutable: Wood is wood, iron is iron, water is water. You can change its state to a degree, but you can't un-Iron ore, Iron ore. You may pulp your wood up and make paper or fiberboard, but it's not wood anymore, it's a derivative specialized and inflexible product. Needless to say, we all know how people feel when tossed into the metaphorical chipper. Let's say they lose their versatility and resilience.
Adam Smiths oft-overlooked disclaimer accompanying his Division of Labor idea: ...if man is not asked of his work to exert his understanding, or his invention when presented with challenges, then he generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become."
All this is my long way of agreeing with John, and you too Chris, we don't manage [Human] resources or leverage what is immutable (feeling, ambition, energy) so much as try to wish or will them into being facsimiles of people for corporate and measurement purposes. We then expect to send them out to interact with people/consumers unfettered by this odd QWERTY-like pose and are surprised when the results are lackluster or disastrous.
[ Seems FC does not like strings containing "*ysite.com" and wouldn't let me post a correct email or blog URL. If you wish to click--you're very welcome--please remove the dash (-) from http://www.alchemy-site.com/blog/fouroboros.html ]
April 10, 2004 at 6:42pm by Donald E. L. Johnson
This three-step process makes sense for certain types of work groups who are in environments that promote and allow good communications. Most important, we're talking about good management and supervision, which starts with good hiring and firing, training, assignments, scheduling and measurability of results.
Fall down on any of these points, and productivity, quality and morale will falter. It's called "paying attention to details."