Leadership Engagement: the Next Big Thing

Leadership Engagement: the Next Big Thing

Why the C-Suite Should Care about Executive and HiPo Engagement

You’re the CEO of a mid-sized firm, and the vendor you’ve hired to run your employee engagement survey has just told you that with the survey closing in 24 hours, only 25% of your executive population has responded. Is this good or bad news?

Recently, I described how the experts I interviewed for my dissertation research asserted that employee engagement might manifest differently based on population characteristics such as demographic traits. Besides millennials, the group they talked about most frequently as critical to engage is the executive leadership (e.g., Director and above) population.

Intuitively, this makes sense. Leaders are the agents of the employment relationship for most staff, so it is easy to imagine a snowball effect if a leader disengages. If a leader disengages, she is less likely to provide her team conditions that nurture engagement, such as authentic, two-way communication; recognition, or connecting the dots between individual objectives and business strategy. Conversely, when a leader is engaged, she is likely to empower, inspire and energize her team, leading to increased engagement and, of course, business performance.

But why executive leaders and not all managers? At the time I was conducting my research, the idea of executive engagement wasn’t on my radar and I didn’t think to probe – now, of course, I really wish I had. I have a theory: if one has a limited budget to invest, it makes sense to focus on the most influential decision-makers in the management ranks. I welcome alternative hypotheses from readers and leaders.

So, getting back to the original question, is it good or bad news that your executive team hasn’t completed your survey? If they are out working their tails off on high-value projects, maybe that's OK. But what if they are not responding because they are disengaged? That's bad news, not just for today but for tomorrow. 

It’s worth noting that not very many companies have implemented engagement programs targeted at executives yet. The progressive practitioners I interviewed are leaders in our profession.  I concur that they are right about the executive population, and I assert that there is an equally important and overlapping population we need to focus on through similar logic: high potential (or HiPo) employees, who not only perform exceptionally today, but who are also expected to lead the business in achieving results over time. 

I'd love to hear more from others who are thinking along these lines and your best practices.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Demographics and Employee Engagement

http://blogs.law.widener.edu/

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation: Demographics and Employee Engagement

How to Think about Building Engagement Models for Diverse Populations

Last month, you were promoted to a new executive-level role overseeing two teams: one is a young, enthusiastic group of experience designers; the other is an older, more experienced group of software developers. Your HR manager says that you need to engage your employee and recommends a social media-based approach. What do you do?

If the arguments I'm making about employee engagement being an individual's attitude towards their work in their organization comprising feelings of vigor, dedication and absorption; perceptions of empowerment and motivation to act both within and extra-role to benefit the firm, then it can be inferred that employee engagement is very personal. As such, it can manifest differently in different people. If it manifests differently, in different people, then the things that drive it in differing individuals might vary by degree as well. 

When I interviewed practitioners for my dissertation research, many spontaneously talked about how important it is to adapt engagement programs for differing employee populations. In the words of one, "There is an engagement model for every population." The most-frequently mentioned population of note was "Millennials," the group just coming into the workforce, born from the early 1980s-2000. 

Although many of us are familiar with the concept of "generations," in case you're not sure exactly what that means or how it differs from someone's age, let me clarify. A generational cohort is defined by birth year and comprises a group of people who have undergone a common set of experiences (in this case cultural) over the same period of time. These experiences are adapted into a sort of common identity. Think of "Baby Boomers" or the "Facebook Generation." The sorts of events that generations share can be diverse, but common historical events (wars, moon landings, etc.) and technological innovations (think internet for Gen X and social media for Millenials) are two significant ones. There's a scientific argument behind generational theory: the common stuff that happens to a cohort early in life effects brain development, specifically with respect to social identity.

Which is all to say that the people I interviewed are right: Millenials are substantially different from their colleagues in other generations. In the example above, having had access to social media during formative years makes it likely that a social-media based engagement program would be a natural fit for them. The same may not be true for their Baby-Boomer colleagues in the software development team. In fact, some might read a social media based program as explicitly excluding them if they've never used it before.

Does this mean you literally need to target engagement programs to each individual? Of course not. Because fundamentally, as human beings, we are substantially similar to one another too. The ideas I've laid out in prior posts about trust and communication driving engagement, for example, apply across generations and most cultural differences.

What it means is that as a leader, you should be discerning when someone comes to you with a "one-size-fits-all" approach to engagement. Ask questions like: 

1. Is this solution as appealing to me as it would be to a recent college graduate? If you aren't sure, go ask a couple recent college graduates.
2. Does this solution have a technology learning curve? If so, have a generationally-diverse set of team members preview it.

Although many practitioners recognized the value of population-specific engagement programs, few firms seem to be actually implementing such plans for differing generations. I'd love to hear from readers if they are aware of good work going on in this area!

Ch-ch-ch-changes: How Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Organizational Transformation

Ch-ch-ch-changes: How Employee Engagement Can Make or Break Your Organizational Transformation

Employee Engagement Matters More During Change than Leaders Might Expect

http://www.alliancetechnologiesllc.com/

If you still equate employee engagement to happiness fueled by free sodas in the break room and  perpetually cheery senior leaders … well, you’re missing out on one of employee engagement’s most important functions: to help organizations navigate through challenging changes.

In my dissertation research, the employee engagement practitioners I interviewed made a point to explain that employee engagement is meaningful not only during boom times, but also during some of the hardest periods that businesses face: leadership changes, mergers and redundancies. As one noted:

“During a redundancy, people may see colleagues leaving their jobs. If they understand why their jobs were eliminated and what the long-term outlook for the organization is, they may still be engaged with the organization because they know the rationale for the decision-making, and they can have a voice and say what they want to in the business if they like. But they wouldn’t be satisfied or happy.”

In fact, engaging employees during these periods can make or break an organizational transformation. Why? Fundamentally, many people don’t like change, and they really don’t like change that they didn’t choose. We may know intellectually that certain aspects of our environment are out of our control, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

When it comes to managing through change, the best leaders I've worked with are the ones who intuitively understand a few simple concepts:

1.       Change is much more likely to succeed if people are on-board. As the quote above illustrates, it is possible to align employees with the next right step for the business, whether or not they agree. All that’s necessary is to explain transparently how the business got to the decision it did. Remember that deep down everyone wants the same thing: a healthy organization in a strong position to meet its objectives.

2.       People don’t need you as a leader to have all the answers, they just need you to treat them with respect. This goes back to the one most important thing underlying employee engagement: a mutually trusting and communicative relationship. Your employees are bright and capable people – otherwise you wouldn’t have hired them. They know that sometimes there are no easy answers. But if you treat them like adults, they’re much more likely to act like them.

3.        Change will result in churn. It’s naïve to think that even the best leader can manage through change without consequences. Some people are not going to want to participate in an organization after certain changes. That’s OK – you don’t need everyone to like you. But you should be smart about identifying at the start of every change effort who you NEED to keep and taking actions to engage and retain this talent specifically.

Managing through change is always challenging, but having a foundation of employee engagement can help you navigate organizational transformation successfully.