Want To Improve Engagement?

5 ways leaders can make it happen today

If you’re anything like me, you’re a bit tired of what seems to be an endless and ongoing discussion of the world’s dismal employee engagement statistics. As leaders, we’re striving to create organizations that are not just successful businesses, but are places where people enjoy being and where they give their best to contribute to a greater mission in which everyone is playing a vital role. However, if all the studies and surveys are correct, we’re failing. And no matter how worn out we are on the topic of engagement, there’s no denying that it is still a pressing issue for most organizations today. The good news is that there is a better way.
 

I believe there are five key behaviors and attitudes that can help leaders improve the levels of engagement among their people. It all begins with a willingness to change some preconceived and widely accepted beliefs. Once this is done and those blinders are removed, leaders are able to more clearly see the blind spots prohibiting them from truly empowering their people to get engaged at work.

Five Tips to Fostering Engagement

Tip #1: Leaders need to realize the true value of establishing an organization with purpose.
The most enlightened leaders understand that today’s workforce wants to work for an organization they believe in and want to be part of something bigger than themselves. In reality, a clear purpose may be the most powerful, financial growth strategy for any organization. Multiple research studies continue to reinforce this reality.
 
Tip #2: Leaders need to tell compelling stories that will resonate with those outside of the C-suite.
The average organization has a semi-generic vision statement that they seem to pull off the shelf from a generic story store. These stories pay lip service to the core 4 of stakeholders, which include customers, community, employees, and shareholders, but do little to invigorate people to strive to build something meaningful. Great leaders understand how to craft a strategy story that resonates with their people and meets them where they are at.
 
Tip #3: Leaders need to retire traditional PowerPoints and use the power of conversation as a key communication and engagement tactic.
Leaders need to move from presentations to conversations to create genuine engagement and involve people more meaningfully in the role everyone plays in winning as an organization. Today’s best leaders understand that their words alone will not engage the hearts and minds of their people, however, they know the fire of conversation—where everyone is given the opportunity to think together on the most important issues of the organization—will.
 
Tip #4: Leaders need to learn how to trust their people and the decisions they make.
Let's take the customer experience field for example. Most organizations realize customer experience is one of their most critical differentiators. Yet, they try to control the customer touch points through tight processes, scripts, and routines that minimize variability. That approach creates consistency, but it prohibits unique, differentiated, and personalized experiences that will allow a business to stand apart from the rest. The key to extraordinary performance is not to eliminate human variability, but to encourage it. Think hardlines (one way, no exceptions) and guidelines (clear boundaries and guardrails) and no lines (use your own special judgment and talents) as a way to create a human operating system where people support common standards AND contribute the best they have to offer at the same time. The key is to encourage and scale the care, judgment, and discretion of your people.
 
Tip #5: Leaders need to work harder to create workplace environments where people feel safe sharing their individual opinions.
Great leaders need to work diligently to create an environment where it is safe to tell the truth and where constructive conflict is embraced. If this is not the case, leaders need to realize that people will surely be sharing their truth, but only in the halls, bathrooms and at happy hour. To combat this, leaders must lead with vulnerability and constantly role model courageous, empathetic and honest conversations. If employees do not feel comfortable sharing their views with leaders, they will say yes and do work begrudgingly—prolonging the disengagement issue facing the workplace. 

Don’t Settle; Increased Engagement Is Possible

As leaders, you’re likely spending significant time and money to create the best strategy for your business. You have solid reasoning behind this strategy and have created clear steps to achieve it. But you can’t just create a great strategy and assume it will resonate. You have to engage your people to ensure they bring it to fruition in the way it was intended. 

I realize this often easier said than done. And when the strategy flops or produces less-than-ideal results, which most do, you wind up feeling frustrated. Your managers get stuck in the middle trying to motivate their teams and please their leaders. And employees go to work each day expected to execute something they either don’t really care about, don’t really understand—or worse—both. It’s a tale as old as business itself. 

Don’t Settle for This Cycle 

If you work on adopting the mindsets and behaviors above, you CAN and WILL make a difference in engagement at your organization. Leaders, you have the power. It’s time to change some of the most outdated leadership strategies and create an environment for your people that fosters a shared purpose, an understanding of the strategy that brings that purpose to life, a belief that every individual is important to that strategy, and excitement to play a role in that journey. 

The time to start achieving this result is now. Don’t be afraid to change. Creating a better workplace will benefit your business just as much as it benefits your people. 

Author Bio

Jim Haudan is a different kind of CEO, with a passion that goes beyond leading Root to success. For more than 20 years, he has been helping organizations unleash hidden potential by fully engaging their people to deliver on the strategies of the business. The impact of Root’s approach on so many people and organizations over two decades is captured in Jim’s national best-selling book, “The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities” (McGraw-Hill, 2008). Visit www.rootinc.com Connect Jim Haudan