The Engagement Agenda: How to Have More Engagement
What needs to happen if leaders want to have more engagement in their organisations?
One part of the answer here is that almost everyone needs to recognise that engagement is their priority – from the CEO down to the latest office recruit. This doesn’t mean that everyone has to engage in the same way, but it does mean that it becomes a ‘front of mind’ activity for all staff. In this respect the following pointers about the key characteristics of engagement make interesting reading:
- Engagement happens inside a relationship.
- Engagement switches people on to what they want to achieve.
- Engagement requires of managers that they play to their people’s strengths.
- You can only tell if you’ve been engaging by asking about your impact.
- Engagement requires us all to value, appreciate and acknowledge one another.
- Engagement depends on people speaking straight to one another.
- Engagement requires belief that this is the right way to behave and commitment to act accordingly.
Naturally enough there will be some managers and employees who exhibit behaviours that are far removed from those above, and for companies committed to making engagement the norm, these people may find themselves challenged. Poor engagement behaviour will have many faces, but classic examples might include managers who habitually make their decisions behind closed doors, leaders who consistently rely on command and control, people who say that the real work is always done when they are out of the office, team leaders who say they don’t have time to coach their people, bosses who claim that they don’t do fluffy stuff or who say they aren’t the ‘rarr-rarr’ type.
Behaviour and comments such as those above will, if allowed to continue, undermine engagement and will need to be tackled if a new culture is to emerge. It is expected that many such ‘old’ behaviours will be ingrained and people will be need to see the value to themselves and others of making a significant change in their approach. This isn’t about implementing a new orthodoxy but rather in helping those who find it hard to understand the value of engagement and the benefits it can bring.
How this process is led is, of course, essential and as with any culture initiative, it has to come from the top of the organisation. In an engagement world the Board needs to accept that people will be watching them to see how they engage each other and their direct reports. When a new culture is required, the last thing that a Director can afford is for his or her people to believe that they are being asked to do something which their leaders are avoiding themselves.
Engagement happens in conversation
Engagement is a conscious process. It’s not only about doing things differently; it’s about people being different in the way they show up at work.
You don’t get engagement happening if you rely on a performance management system or an incentive programme to deliver it. The cornerstone of engagement is a 2-way conversation between people, and this depends on both parties being able to listen generously, ask powerful questions and be able to speak openly and directly to one another.
The Institute of Employment Studies (IES) has concluded that the main driver of engagement is people wanting to feel valued and involved, which in turn enables them to contribute more. The key components of this are said to be inclusion in decision-making, the freedom to voice ideas to which managers listen, feeling enabled to perform well, having opportunities to develop the job and feeling the organisation is concerned for people’s health and well-being. All of this happens inside the conversation and the relationship that the employee develops with his or her colleagues and manager.
To provide a concrete example of such a conversation happening in action let me highlight the PassionWorks!™ process and research – an engagement approach that sets out specifically to provide a framework for managers and their teams to have these bigger human conversations.
PassionWorks!™ – Helping People Perform with Passion.
The PassionWorks!™ approach is at the heart of our Employee Engagement and Passionate Leadership courses. It is based on in-depth research into the nature and components of passion – or engagement – at work. That research led directly to a new definition of passion at work, together with a unique model that elegantly describes the components of passion at work and how they work together.
It focuses on two key characteristics which help people to release their energy at work. The first of these identifies what gives people a sense of meaning or value in their work. The second helps them identify actions that can help them realise this value in a tangible way.
The facilitators in this process initially help people to get in touch with their passion through a diagnostic tool. Using the outputs of the diagnostics as a start point, the consultant then facilitates a 1:1 conversation or a team workshop in which people can explore their PassionWorks!™ results and think through the implications of the insights they gain. Specific actions are identified through this process to improve individual and team productivity and passion.
Dave provides an example of this approach in practice. Dave was a senior manager who had no idea what gave him any sense of meaning at work. Co-incidentally at the time Dave started looking at the issue of his passion at work, he was thinking about turning down a promotion because he didn’t know whether it was the right move or not. What he understood through his coaching conversation was how motivated he felt when working with dysfunctional teams and turning them into high-performers. On assessing the promotion within this context, Dave realised the team he’d be taking over in the new job was completely dysfunctional and that it would therefore be the perfect fit.
In essence what Dave had uncovered through the coaching conversation was an understanding that his motivation came from helping others fulfil their potential. This was his passion. And Dave then went on to use the principles he’d discovered for himself with his team – helping them to explore what engaged them at work. And through this conversation with his people he helped his whole team build a sense of purpose which had previously been missing.
Read our article: Implications for Managers and Leaders
Find out more about our engagement and motivation programmes:
Find out more about the PassionWorks online diagnostic here.
