Tune Out, Turn Off: Disengage or Engage

There is a consistently-reported high level of disengagement linked to leadership in the workplace that manufactures both passively and actively-disengaged people. The level of disengagement is often quoted at up to a staggering 80% of the workforce[i]. But this problem is not restricted to the UK or USA it is a worldwide phenomenon. Leadership is routinely stated as one of the major sources of disengagement.  A quick look at Gallup’s 12 Questions on engagement show how most questions can be directly or indirectly related to leadership.

Since 1997 the Gallup Organization has surveyed approximately 3 million employees in three hundred thousand work units within corporations. This survey consists of 12 questions which measure employee engagement on a five-point scale indicating weak to strong agreement. Analyses of survey results show that those companies with high Q12 scores experience lower turnover, higher sales growth, better productivity, better customer loyalty and other manifestations of superior performance.

Q1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?

Q2. Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?

Q3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

Q4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?

Q5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?

Q6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

Q7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?

Q8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?

Q9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?

Q10. Do you have a best friend at work?

Q11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?

Q12. In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

The Gallup Engagement Index slots people into one of three categories:

• Engaged employees who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.

• Not-Engaged employees who are essentially “checked out.” They may be in the building but they are sleepwalking through their workday. They are putting in time, but going through the motions with low enough energy or passion in their work.

• Actively Disengaged employees who aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness in their relationships with their colleagues. These workers undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish every day through virtual sabotage. They would rather be somewhere else, even if they can’t think of an alternative.

Results of the survey vary from country to country, organisation to organisation, age, education and gender. The results have ranged from 70% to 80% in disengaged employees over nearly a decade. Here are the results from Gallup Employee last year.  The Gallup Engagement Index in the US shows that the current trends remained relatively stable throughout 2011:

A.      Engaged = 29%

B.      Not engaged = 52%

C.      Actively disengaged = 19%

Summary

What you will notice is that the population of A (29%) is probably carrying the remaining population of B & C (71%) on their backs. An obvious conclusion is that MF Leaders need to focus on reducing the B & C population ratio and converting significant populations into A-type Engaged workers if the business is to grow and innovate.

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[i] Blacksmith, N., Harter, J. (2012) Majority of American Workers Not Engaged In Their Jobs - Highly educated and middle-aged employees among the least likely to be engaged. http://www.gallup.com/poll/150383/Majority-American-Workers-Not-Engaged-Jobs

 

Why Mind Fitness is Essential in Uncertain Times

Where are we now?

All economies and businesses go through cycles of decay and rebirth. This means that the natural tendency to plug away at doing the same stuff in the hope that the familiar old reality will return, whilst comforting, is ultimately futile. The old rules don’t quite work the way they used to.

Part of the problem of the recession is that the nature of business decay has been disguised by artificial and unsustainable levels of government borrowing that created an artificial boom in growth that has become seen as a normal state.

Innovate or Die

The current economic climate is unpredictable because cash-rich businesses are holding on to their money and not investing it, because they cannot predict where the market will go next and how low customer demand may fall. And yet we know that the old trick of manufacturing products or delivering services that people actually want to buy still works under most conditions: the long-delayed but welcome success of the British Automotive industry says it all, JLR is having problems meeting global demand. Apple is having dip in analyst expectations because its customers are not buying the current iPhone because they know that the replacement will be available in November. What marvellous challenges to have to face in a global recession!

Do the Right Thing

There’s a great quote from Warren Bennis to the effect that: “Managers are people who do things right. [whilst] Leaders are people who do the right thing”.

Under stress, organisations and individuals tend to do 2 dangerous things: firstly they focus on hygiene behaviours (tidying or focusing on cosmetic issues – hence “re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic”) that comfort with familiarity instead of coming to terms with the new situation.  This tidying behaviour under pressure often takes the form of ensuring that “things are done right” are done properly even when they are not solving the real problem that needs to be addressed. The second dangerous behaviour is the tendency to work on solving the problem they are already familiar with, which is usually not the problem that needs working on.

How Mad Do You Have To Get Before You Want To Change?

There is an old definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, and Rita Mae Brown. How much insanity can we afford? 

Mind Fit is about learning to face your current reality and deliberately changing your thinking approach in order to succeed, by learning to pay attention to new variables that determine success in a changed situation or a situation you want to change by changing your performance.

Just as Lean Thinking was a response to the 1973 Oil Crisis, a systemic methodology that focused on waste reduction by identifying forms of waste that were an accepted cost in the automotive industry and eliminating them, Mind Fit is about recognising forms of behavioural waste in your current situation, confronting them and reducing them drastically to release energy to innovate.

Mind Fit awareness is the equivalent of an athlete learning to change the self-imposed rules of performance by removing an invisible rucksack full of rocks that a careless coach made them wear, and learning to run faster, different races without it. Mind Fit is about giving yourself the freedom to innovate personally, in your relationships, and in your organisation.

As Ghandi said: be the change you wish to see in others.

http://www.mindfitltd.com/mind-fit-programmes/

LEADERSHIP BEYOND LEAN - FOR INNOVATION & GROWTH

To paraphrase an old quote, insanity is the expectation that old approaches will still work when the context you are operating in has changed. If managers are supposed to do things right, and leaders to do the right thing, then a recession deepens the requirement to support today’s strategy, whilst crafting its innovative replacement.

But what do you do in the interim before the new, “effective” strategy is operating? Just as the 1973 oil embargo forced the adoption of lean thinking in the Japanese automotive industry, we need to adopt a fundamentally different approach to forms of waste that we may not at first be able to see or even characterize by creating new, dynamic way of thinking about the most valuable resource that organisations possess – their people. It is ultimately through people that growth will come.

We’ve all heard of Not-Invented-Here, and I have written elsewhere about “sticky” organizations and how closed Relational Capital protects the status quo, but understanding the problem is not the same as solving it. Ordinary people are like athletes in that both have all the innate assets needed to become innovative and succeed, but few dare to systematically realise this potential by developing a form of mental fitness that reduces expensive defensive, paternalistic leadership and its partner incompetence, in order to liberate new, hidden capability to innovate and grow.

Throwing money at the recession will not solve the problem. Telling the banks to lend money just begs the question of what exactly are they going to invest in, within a recession? So what is required in order to be worth investing in?

Current Recession Context & Innovation Credo

·    Growth in a recession will come from different and better use of current resources to innovate, chiefly through our people and their talents.

·    Champions are the product of the ability to focus and control their own minds and fears to deliver outstanding behaviours combined with a conscious use of technique under difficult circumstances.

·    Successful leaders in difficult times are able to lead themselves and also influence the behaviours of those around them.

·    The problem for leaders is how to get more and different outcomes for less, by understanding how to develop and apply a form of mental and behavioural fitness to manage their own attention in order to change behaviours and expectations, more.

One of the strategic imperatives that Clive Woodward brought to British Athletics (and he knows he will never be forgiven for doing it) was to focus investment on athletes in events where they were likely to win a medal. Successful growth in a recession requires a similar approach to mental fitness to enable innovation and growth.

On 19th September 2012, Graham Williams and I will be presenting a showcase workshop on this topic, entitled "Mind Fit - To Innovate for Business Growth" at the University of Greenwich's Hamilton House in Greenwich. Details to follow.