I recently came across an excellent book which provides a simple yet effective test for understanding how engaged your employees are. Contrary to what you may have heard, it seems it’s not so much about ‘us and them‘ as it is about ‘they or we‘…
We: How to Increase Performance and Profits through Full Engagement by Rudy Karsan and Kevin Kruse points out that for businesses, a disengaged workforce causes lower levels of productivity leading to lower growth and profits. As individuals, our emotions at work spill over to the other areas of our lives and impact on our health and relationships. But what I like about this book is the simple litmus test, a question, that the authors to test employee engagement.
They Or We?
Karsan and Kruse provide ask: when your employees speak about your company/organization, do they use “we” or “they”? Take some some time to listen to your team. When asked what your business does, do employees respond with something like “they provide widgets to the end user market” or do they say “we provide widgets to the end user market“. The two responses communicate a very different relationship with your business.
- ‘They’ tend to see things as being done to them, despite them, without consulting them… ‘they’ stay at arms length and are not emotionally engaged with, or attached to, your business. Where as,
- ‘We’ work side-by-side, we make decisions together, we support each other, we are more emotionally attached and we are less likely to want to separate.
Rudy Karsan and Kevin Kruse describe the nature of work in modern organizations and provide tips for engaging employees based on findings from over 10 million worker surveys in 150 countries. They highlight three high impact drivers of engagement:
- Growth: Team members need to feel they are growing in their careers and learning new things.
- Recognition: Team members need to feel that their ideas and accomplishments are appreciated.
- Trust: Team members need to trust senior leadership and feel confident about the future.
These finding reflect my own experiences working with managers to help them develop into leaders using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (based on the Full Range Leadership Model):
The Full Range Leadership Model TM
Managers tend to use behaviours such as Monitoring Mistakes, Fighting Fires or in worse case scenarios Laissez-faire (avoiding involvement). These are all behaviours which tend to promote a ‘They’ type of attitude from employees.
Leaders use transformational leadership behaviours which encourage their employees and develop more ‘We’ responses. Such behaviours include:
- Rewarding Achievements;
- Building Trust
- Acting With Integrity
- Encouraging Innovative Thinking; and
- Coaching People
The good news is that the leadership skills that encourage employee engagement, increase performance and improve staff retention can be learned. So, if like the large majority of business owners and managers you were not born with great leadership skills, don’t give up. Reading books such as We: How to Increase Performance and Profits through Full Engagement by Rudy Karsan and Kevin Kruse can help. Better still contact us and ask about our Leadership Development Programs.
Onwards & Upwards!
John Belchamber
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