Because engagement is the cornerstone of the Social Age. Active listening, communicating in a deliberate manner, collecting and acting on input, providing both formal and informal feedback loops, giving recognition and expressing appreciation are all a huge part of success in a world gone big on social media measurement.
Engagement has earned its place in the buzzword hall of fame it is that important. So what’s the trouble with those who throw the word around like teenagers tossing popcorn at a horror flick? They have no idea what engagement really means. To many, engagement is posting a kitten meme on Facebook. Or broadcasting the link to their newest blog post or webinar registration form. Or an inspirational picture on Pinterest. They equate the number of Twitter followers and Facebook likes with long term successful engagement, as if 100,000 Twitter followers alone somehow made them good listeners and communicators. (One can have tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of followers and still be engaged quite actively something some veteran Twitter users take great pride in, your authors included.)
Engagement isn’t good marketing. It isn’t good content. Whether speaking digitally or in person, it is our ability to communicate well with all stakeholders in any conversation and not just employees, as the buzzword hacks seem to intimate. (“Employee” and “engagement” are too often tied together, as if there is no other kind.) In the Social Age, it is imperative that we engage with customers, candidates, vendors, influencers, advocates, and brand ambassadors as well as employees.
And yet, there is more to it than that . . .
Engagement has purpose and is quantifiable; it is effort tied to, and perhaps motivated by, loyalty. Engagement is an emotional investment in a brand, a mission, a product, or even a leader. Perhaps most important, engagement is maximum effort in exchange for maximum results, recognition, and respect.
IT ALL STARTS WITH THE EMPLOYEES
We give credit to the buzzword slingers for one thing: They seem to get that to succeed, engagement must start with employees. In fact, it is quite simply impossible to build an engaged customer base, inspire loyalty among vendors, and generate an attractive employer brand without engaged, passionate employees serving as a strong foundation.
In N Out Burger knows this. (Ever meet a grumpy employee at one of In NOut’s drive thrus?) Southwest Airlines knows this. (How many times have you sung along to a rousing version of “Happy Birthday” on a Southwest flight?) Conrad Hotels knows this. (Just try to make it through the lobby without receiving a warm smile and a warmer greeting from a half dozen or more staff ers.) Even legacy enterprises like GE Capital and Coca Cola get high marks for deliberately keeping their employees happy. How? Th rough trust and respect, and by treating them like the qualified adult decision makers they are.
We know intuitively and through countless studies on the topic that engaged, emotionally invested team members work harder toward achieving common goals. They feel a sense of personal commitment. They find inspiration in the company mission and often from the leaders tasked with furthering that mission. They understand and appreciate their roles in the organization; they believe in their own future and that of the company. Often, their personal brands are tied to their employer brands; when they do well, so does the company, and vice versa.
Engaged employees are far more flexible, meaning they are far more likely to adjust to changing workload commitments when necessary. Far less prone to find a grass is greener position with a new company, they stay longer. When workplace issues arise and they do, even in the best companies engaged workers show more emotional intelligence; they join the effort to find a solution. Engaged workers have been tied to higher productivity, customer satisfaction, innovation, more effective recruiting, sales growth, market share, and profits.
Who would not want a team of engaged employees?
The answer, history shows, is no one. Every organization on the planet would like its employees to be actively engaged. Th e problem with the majority of operations born in the Industrial Age and, apparently, those that insist on maintaining their command and control operations to this day is that they don’t know how to get there. They don’t understand what it takes to motivate employees all the way to becoming engaged.
In the twentieth century, work was dominated by those who would show up, do their jobs, take their prescribed coffee and lunch breaks, and go home. Unadulterated effort putting in the extra time and energy to do the job really well came only from those exceptional employees who dared not to be mediocre, those motivated by issues outside the management style of the company.
And, in the spirit of the truism at the start of this post, that was exactly what most companies deserved.
They accepted substandard performance because they failed to engage well enough to motivate past mediocre. Those employees who were not self motivated showed up to earn a paycheck, not to move the company mission forward. In most cases, the only time these employees cared about the financial health of the company was when job security was threatened. In far too many organizations an us vs. them, management vs. employee environment existed the polar opposite of engagement.
As a result of this poor effort, and from a century long, global failure to understand the importance of engagement, we have a lot of work to do. Even now, several years into the Social Age and with all the tools available to them, organizations are failing miserably at engagement. In fall 2013, Modern Survey polled 1,000 employees, all working for companies with 100 or more team members. The survey showed:
▶ Just 13 percent of workers felt “fully engaged” (maximum effort; high loyalty).
▶ 26 percent felt moderately engaged (moderate effort; moderate loyalty).
▶ 34 percent considered themselves underengaged (just adequate effort; little loyalty).
▶ 27 percent felt wholly disengaged (minimum effort; looking/leaving). Overall, Modern Survey stated that six of ten employees felt little loyalty and exuded little effort; just one in eight felt valued and worked accordingly. That is no way to live. Or work. And it is no way to run a company, especially with Millennials who have a much different view of work than their parents and grandparents already forming the majority of the workforce.
WHAT USED TO BE CONSIDERED ENGAGEMENT
So we can set the stage for discussing the Engagement Era, let’s step back to the Industrial Age for just a moment because sometimes, especially when it seems we still aren’t doing enough, it helps to look back at what we used to pass off as employee engagement and reflect a bit.
How many of these old school tricks and traps do you remember? Perhaps more important, how many might you still use today?
▶ Th e suggestion box | Remember the box mounted on the wall near the time clock or break room? Th e one with the slot on top, the mini lock to guarantee privacy, and the accompanying “We Value Your Suggestions!” sign? Executives proved over and over that the sign was a lie by failing to read, or react to, our suggestions. Th is wasn’t engagement; this was false hope in a box.
▶ Th e employee survey | Every other year or so (or when a frontline manager would declare an “employee morale” emergency), we would be asked to complete the dreaded employee survey. We colored in the scantron dots. Hoping no one would recognize our handwriting, we answered the essay questions. And then . . . nothing. Zero followup based on the data collected. No apparent action taken. Sure, C levels probably read the report synopsizing the results and then the survey died a lonely death somewhere in a locked cabinet in HR.
▶ Th e annual performance review | Throughout our corporate lives, some of us saw our HR rep once per year: during our annual review. Though the performance review took many different forms, we knew before we walked into the room our direct supervisors would have already graded us on our performance. It was the HR rep’s job then, with the supervisor in the room, to spin the comments in the report; everything had to be positive. Th is wasn’t engagement, it was an annual duty that HR and supervisors crossed off the to do list with the same “glad that’s over!” zeal that accompanied their mother in law’s birthday.
▶ The “need to know” Friday happy hour | Let’s gather everyone around the common area, tap a mini keg of beer and open some boxes of wine, dump three bags of Chex Mix into a bowl, bring out the sheet cake from Costco . . . and have an “informal” discussion among the executives, HR, and all the employees. Corporate utopia, right? No. Th e trouble with these “spontaneous” get togethers? Everything was planned; every rah rah “only tell them what they need to know or want to hear” word was scripted; very little actual dialogue occurred, in many cases because the employees were unwilling, or afraid, to engage in real conversation (“Don’t rock the boat!”). As we threw our red Solo cups away and headed home for the weekend, we often didn’t feel so much engaged as we did a little buzzed from the corporateprovided alcohol and a lot manipulated from the corporate BS.
Yes, compared to the standards set by some in our modern era, we still have a lot of work to do regarding engagement. So let’s get started, first by emphasizing that . . .
ENGAGEMENT WAS ALWAYS A TOP DOWN LEADERSHIP ISSUE
Even before social, engagement was always a leadership issue. It’s no secret: Companies with engaging, caring CEOs who came down from their penthouse offices (or dismantled them altogether) to interact with team members, customers, and vendors always seemed to foster an engaging culture. And still, a disconnect remains. Too many old school CEOs, board members, and directors seem to believe that engagement is a bottomup process driven by HR, middle managers, and veteran employees. Still others may think that employees are already engaged, that their efforts to improve engagement are working.
They may think employees are responsible for their own engagement, for bringing it with them as part of their uniforms, that conditions on the ground don’t matter one bit. Or they think they can engage employees with hollow incentives that in fact fail to inspire.
The reality is that engagement is a top down matter and the best among us lead by example in this area known to affect morale, productivity, culture, and profits.
Recently, Mark witnessed polar opposite attitudes to top down engagement.
Two CEOs were asked by a consultant to show a willingness to be more approachable and less aloof. Specifically, they were asked to walk their sales floor every morning for thirty minutes. Th e only other instruction was that the sales manager was not to act as liaison; this had to be one on one, human to human contact.
In other words: sincere engagement. From the start, CEO No. 1 let’s call him Dave was worried. He wasn’t sure how well liked he was on the floor. After all, some tough decisions had been made recently and about 15 percent of the sales team had been laid off . But down he went, the elevator carrying him four floors lower than he had been in months.
Dave opened the door. All he could see were cubicles, stretching into the distant grayness. No faces, only voices coming from behind the Steelcase enclosures.
He went straight ahead, past the floor manager’s office exactly as instructed. Eyes down for the most part, Dave walked the aisles slowly. Five minutes into his thirty minute mandate, he hadn’t made eye contact or spoken to a single person.
He did come close: A young sales rep leapt from his chair to get a deal signed off , nearly running into Dave as he left his cubicle. Surprised by the presence of his CEO on the fl oor, the sales rep’s eyes got big, he stood up straighter and threw his chin up in the air as guys do, and he said, “Hey.” Dave, not remembering the employee’s name, looked back at him, threw his chin up, and said, “Hey.”
And so Dave’s torturous walk continued throughout the week. Th e occasional “Hey.” Awkward eye contact. Many “what’s he doing down here?” looks. Only once did Dave actively engage a team member and that was when he thought a sales rep was not following company guidelines closely enough and decided corrective action was necessary.
Six months later, the company’s next CEO we’ll call him Bud walked the exact same fl oor. Same company. For the most part, the same team members. Same Steelcase cube farm. Yes, Bud was Dave’s replacement.
Given the same challenge, Bud owned the floor.
Working with HR, Bud had learned the names and backgrounds of many of the reps long before ever getting in the elevator. Working with sales management, he knew who were perceived as superstars and who underperformed. He looked at each of the employee’s social media profiles to understand their passions and motivators. To build rapport even before meeting them face to face, he sent a personalized connect request on LinkedIn. Th at morning, he tweeted about being excited to spend some time on the sales floor later and mentioned many of the managers and reps by their Twitter handles.
As Bud entered the Steelcase jungle, he listened. He then did something that surprised even himself. Without thinking, he decided not to “walk the floor.” Instead, he went into the break room and sat with his coffee and BlackBerry. Soon, a member of the sales team entered the smallish room furnished with just two tables surrounded by plastic chairs. Surprised, the sales rep stopped in his tracks. “Oh, hi,” he said, not knowing what else to say once he recognized Bud from his picture on LinkedIn.
“Hello!” Bud said back. “Time for a refill?”
“Yeah,” said the sales guy, not so eloquently understandable, since, unexpectedly, the new CEO was sitting in what had been, until that moment, the sanctuary of the sales team. “Let me buy this one,” Bud offered. He got up, grabbed the coffeepot, and, pointing to the chair next to the one he’d just vacated, said, “Have a seat; how do you take it?”
A casual conversation ensued, first about the traffic, then about family, and eventually about work. Over the next few minutes, Bud repeated this process with everyone who entered the break area. Underperformers and superstars alike joined him for coffee and conversation. Before he knew it, he had gone well past his mandated thirty minutes.
Th e next day, Bud did the same thing. And the next. On Friday, not only did he get morning coffee for everyone, he had a local shop bring in pizza for lunch. He sat, quietly enjoying his pizza, as those two tables in that tiny break room filled with conversation. Real conversation. About stupid stuff life stuff . Work was barely discussed.
And so this process went on for about three weeks. By then, Bud knew just about all the 110 salespeople pretty well. He’d pass them in the halls, join them in the elevator. He communicated with them on Twitter; he shared their updates on LinkedIn. He recognized their individual achievements and team milestones on both his personal and the company’s Facebook pages. No longer perceived as a threat, he’d sit in on meetings without saying much. And, of course, Bud would pour the coffee. Occasionally, he would tweet: Hearing some great ideas on relationship building and critical listening from the @<confidential> team today.
#alwayslearning
Within about thirty days, a miraculous thing happened. Members of the sales team started doing something they had hardly ever done. Th ey pushed the “up” button on the elevator. They deliberately went up four floors . . . to talk to Bud. No middle managers. No HR representative. No liaisons or filters just engagement. Employee engagement. From the top down. Soon, everyone could sense a different attitude. Trust developed. Best practices were shared. Personal agendas were quashed. No, it wasn’t some Pollyanna version of perfect. Bud was still a results driven boss even an autocrat at times, who frequently got frustrated enough to drop an out loud, red faced F bomb.
Th ere was no doubt, however, that a new culture had developed. Demanding, yes, but authentic. Sales went up, dramatically. So did customer retention, unsolicited testimonials, employee referrals and the bottom line. Th e moral of this story? A single person, especially in a top level position, can change an entire culture. It takes just a matter of weeks one conversation, digital or in person, at a time.
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