Employee engagement

Recently, we’ve been talking openly and candidly with the employees (in ‘town hall’ meetings) about where we are and where we’re going (including sharing financial information that we historically haven’t). We’ve been clear that the recipe for future success will be driven by becoming better at what we do (with an emphasis on process improvements across the board). While employees have been engaged and participative, I’m not sure they fully appreciate what’s necessary to move ahead. ‘Change’ seems to be a scary word for some of them. Do you have any advice for how we can do a stronger job of engaging the employees?”

Answer:

I appreciate your inquiry and the story you tell. It’s a pretty common story in terms of my consulting practice. I commend you and your colleagues for being confrontive and assertive in teeing up the kind of dialog you reference.

To me, corporate culture (“way we do things around here”) is the central issue you are confronting. Culture is what I like to call the organization’s “other bottom line.” It’s reflected in the methods the organization uses to do its work, the norms that are established, the leadership tone that is set, the words and behaviors that pervade, etc.

Leaders, especially top leaders, need to realize that they are the principal architects of the corporate culture. By what they say (and don’t say) and do (and don’t do), they are powerfully shaping the corporate culture of the organization.

Your idea of town hall meetings makes sense to me, especially if in doing so you are operating in a way that is consistent with your corporate culture. If the culture is open and participative, then these kinds of public forums are a legitimate extension and representation of the way you do things.

Something to keep in mind as you engage in these discussions is that culture can be well understood when we step back and reflect on the following three variables:

Espoused values

What does the organization say it believes? What are the vision, mission, and values elements that have been articulated and promulgated?

Artifacts/symbols/actions

What are the tangible representations that tell people what the organization values? What behaviors are reinforced? Which ones are punished? Who gets rewarded and promoted? On what basis? And so on.

Assumptions

What unspoken truths (real or perceived) are held by organizational members including, importantly, the organization’s top leaders?

In our consulting practice, we spend a lot of time working with leaders to flesh out impressions and perceptions using these three variables as discussion organizing devices. In doing so, we often uncover the brutal reality of things, the way things really are around here.

For example, a powerful truth emerges in a conversation that unfolds as follows:

Q: What is an espoused value or principle around here?

A: People are our most valuable asset!

Q: What practices do we have in place to demonstrate that we practice what we preach?

A: We have a pay for performance compensation program.

Q: What is an assumption that we, in the senior leadership team, hold about our employees?

A: We’d actually make some money and get some things done around here, if those goldbricks would just get off their backsides and do something!

Which element, above, do you think says the most about how things are really done in this organization? Which element has the most potential to shape organizational practices and performance? I hope you agree with me that it’s the assumptions aspect. My experience has been that it’s not until the real story is told, can substantive and meaningful action be pursued.

Getting back to your inquiry, I encourage you to dig more deeply into the concerns and perspectives of your employees, perhaps making use of the three aspects of organizational culture that I reference above. Specifically, I suggest additional information gathering focusing on specific issues, conducted with focus groups and perhaps augmented by an employee engagement survey. The idea is to explicitly, tangibly, and practically identify and discuss significant issues.

As an example, I have a sneaking suspicion that an assumption some of your employees who are change resistant might be making is, “top management can’t be trusted.” Or, “top management, despite their open stance, isn’t telling us the whole story.” Surfacing the underlying issue of trust, what it means, how it is practiced, can be very powerful in shaping how employees understand the emerging situation at the company and the extent to which they will buy into the process improvement (represented by new tools, technology, methods, etc.) that are being pursued.

While the idea of even more interaction with your employees might feel like too much touchy-feely, do yourselves a favor and see what you can do to create an even more open and accessed communication channel with the people who populate the organization. In our information age, knowledge is indeed power. Employees today, especially Generation Y, have a high need to know. Ambiguity breeds assumptions and the wrong assumptions can breed suspicion, disengagement, contempt, or worse.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner, noted leadership researchers and consultants, titled one of their books, “Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose it, Why People Demand it.” Building a corporate culture based on integrity and trust (i.e., human operating system) that is driven by leading edge (i.e., continuous improvement) methods and tools (i.e., technical operating system) is a proven strategy for success. Engage with your people to find the right formula, the right mix of these two sub-systems, and you will ensure that the performance of your organizational system is enhanced.