Disengagement - Higher priority than engagement?

[Mike Healy]

Getting full engagement is clearly a worthwhile goal. Using a standard bell shaped curve of the organisation ( and in line with normal distribution in an organisation) I suggest that 20% of employees will be somewhat engaged, 20% will be somewhat disengaged and the 60% in the middle will be neither.

I wonder would it be worth while to focus on the disengaged first before attempting any engagement initiatives. This would be in line with Herzerg's theories of motiviation. i.e. no additional motivation will occur until the "hygiene" factors are in place.

Maybe it is just my own theory but I think it is very important to remove 'demotivators' ( causes of diengagement) first to get everyone to at least a neutral level. This is actually easier to do than improve from neutral to fully engaged and will have an impact on productivity/employee engagement. Removal of negativity/antipathy will reduce the drag on the organisation and put it in better shape to embrace engagement initiatives.

I have found from personal experience that this has worked well for me in managing change in organisations. Once the causes of frustration/anger/disappointment were removed it kind of cleared the air and the organisation became a more positive place. New ideas became more acceptable and once employees saw evidence that things were better there was renenewed faith in the organisation/managers. With this change in perception employees wanted to participate and improve things for themselves.

[Mike King]

Mike, I definitely think there is value in looking at the disengagement first. Understanding the reasons for that and sometimes taking a serious look at those employees can be what allows engagement to then move to a whole new level. It is similar to motivation and I belief there are a lot more demotivators in place holding things back than most want to admit. The same for engagement.

If all the disengaging activities were removed, things could drastically change if some of these were removed first, such as these typical examples:
-Vague expectations, just hope its done right.
-Put whoever is available on the task/job, not who its/their best suited for.
-Yearly performance reviews with no other feedback or regular reviews definitely need to go!
-Lack of delegation or appropriate interaction / reporting on delegated tasks. That hurts things.
-Same job, same positions, no changing roles, no new responsibilities. Yukk...
-Overwork your top performers and don't reward them. That is normal isn't it?
-Don't say so when someone does a great job, they know already.
-Push the fact that work comes first and should be your employee's #1 priority.
-Micromanage everything, expect to approve everything, you are the manager afterall!

[Mike Healy]

Thanks, Mike. It is always very useful to get practical examples
I found this article in People Manangement, the official magazine of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the UK (CIPD article)
Clearly there is plenty of work to be done in removing demotivation/disengagement factors.

[Stephen Booth]

"Yearly performance reviews with no other feedback or regular reviews definitely need to go!"

Definitely! As a union shop steward I've been faced with the situation a number of times where an employee is being taken to a disciplinary hearing or put on performance management. In all cases I've seen the first indication that the employee has had that there is any issue with their performance or behaviour is when they received the formal notification of the disciplinary hearing or performance management procedure. Their manager, however, has a long list of issues to bring to the hearing/procedure, but they never thought to tell the employee.

By the time you're in any sort of formal review or hearing it's too late to tell the employee anything. The only excuse a manager can have for telling an employee of a performance problem for the first time at their annual review is if the manager only became aware of it on the way to the review. Even then I'd argue that the manager should either discount it for the purposes of that review or postpone the review until the employee has had time to rectify the situation or provide an explanation as to why the situation is not as presented.

I'm a regular listener of the Manager Tools (http://www.manager-tools.com/index.php, I have no connection with Manager tools other than as a happy user of their services) podcast series. They advocate a management trinity of regular feedback, weekly one-on-one meetings and coaching for every employee. Under that system employees will be made aware of any issues as soon as they arise so their annual review should be no surprise at all.

Stephen

[Warren Young]

Strategies for develoing those on the 'north face' of the distribution curve are different to those on 'the south face'. I'd argue that those managers who score higher are more likely to be self-aware, more likely to be learning agile - enough to see the need for change, and more likely to demonstrate the subtle differences of managing for engagement (compared to just managing).

I agree the roadblocks need to be identified, understood and eradicated. It isn't that far from change management theory (eg Kotter). To achieve transformational change it's more likely we would achieve greatest gains from those who are most prepared.

On the other hand potentially we have to expend a lot of effort on just getting people to the start line - just to acknowldge a need for change - before actually start to grow engagement.

The demotivators and barriers must be addressed albeit wih different strategies. It takes accountability for results and no small amounts of fortitude and tenacity.

[Mike Healy]

HI Warren

Thanks for this.

I agree that the strategies/approaches used for the those north and south of the curve ( I like that expression) should be different.

Without getting into detail I tend to take the view that unwanted behaviour should be discouraged ( removed) and wanted behaviour encouraged. Although human beings can be complex creatures they often respond to very simple stimuli.

Keeping things as simpe as possible so that goals and expectations are clearly understood. is step one. Appropriate, quick and decisive action which reinforce the message of simplicity and clarity is step two.

We tend to get what we expect ( not the same as what we want) because our beliefs and consequent actions reflect our expectations and therefore influence the resuts we obtain.

As Henry Ford said "Whether you think you can or think you can't. you are right"

[Warren Young]

Yeah I Agree re "discouraged... " and especially agree with the need for clarity (I'll save that for another post.)
Bottom line is can a Southside manager thrive as a Northside manager (even as the curve shifts)? Can they make the shift? I have seen it, but I still think its rare.
Interventions are going to be highly individualised.

[Mike Healy]

Yes that brings up further questions..

Do you want to adapt to changing organisation/environments expectations?

Can you adapt to the changing organisation/environments expectations?

I have seen entrepreneurs leave their company and set up a new one because they didn't want to adapt. They were fully engaged but not with the aspirations of the employer they left.

I have seen supervisors tryng to change their supervisory approach from "tell" to "coach" but reverted to "tell" every time when under pressure.They wanted to engage in the new philosophy but couldn't

Final question is how long does the organsation wait for engagement to occur? Theory tells us about methodologies and techniques, but it tends to sweep the reality of "cutting losses" under the carpet. Yet the reality in most organisations is they cannot / will not / don't want to wait very long for those who cannot /will not adapt because the organisation must move on.

[Ken Milloy]

This is an absolutely fabulous discussion.

Unfortuneately it seems that far too many organizations simply place too much emphasis on "telling" managers to begin the process of engaging their staff. Two major faults I have seen over and over tie back to this idea - basically a "the responsibility is yours" approach that fails to prove adequate modelling from above and ongoing support to actually foster the personal change required.

Managers with disengaged employees are all to often (or so it seems) disengaged themselves - the forces of change swirling about them without the chance to gain context and understanding and with managers and leaders who simply push the notion of engagement down to those below. People are sent off to training and upgrading of interpersonal and communication skills - a 4 hour class, a nice binder and little else but a "go forth and engage your people" pat on the back. Moving these people requires that the engagement process actually become a process - talked about and debriefed on each and every week as part of the team meetings much like sales forecasts and other key issues are addressed. By having the managers actually look inside and outline what they have done on the engagement journey - what worked, what didn't and so on - in a free and 'engaging' conversation with their co-leaders / managers the possibility of moving people form the dis side to the engaged side of theurve can become real.

I agree that there is significant value in looking at the disengaged side at the outset and first - but only if organizations are prepared to support efforts to move people along in a way that (god I hate this word) institutionalizes engagement as a process rather than an event and dictum from above...

Ken.

[Warren Young]

Thanks Ken, I absolutely agree. We are seeing this type of active support of managers as being critical to achieving a shift of any significant degree. All to often it is left to forces of nature or up to individual mangers ("they should know this stuff") - neither of which are engaging behaviours.

One client has experienced three years of flat line results before realising that leaving it up to managers to determine what they need to do is not making a positive impact.

There have to be consistent messages, intrinsic accountabilities (but definately NOT target EE scores) and active support interventions for managers from the EE team or HR if appropriately equipped....but thats another story.

[Mike Healy]

Some great feedback folks. I really do appreciate it.

For me the organisation can be viewed like a soccer team. The fully engaged will be like the forwards scoring goals but the disengaged will be letting goals in on their own side and sometimes even scoring 'own' goals.

There is little point in having a fully engaged forward group if there are others undoing all the good work. Seems sensible to create a team that that doesn't let goals in - at least that way you are never defeated and you can build up success/motivation/engagement from there.

As to how/who creates a team that can do this - See my post What About The Workers

[Stephen Booth]

I see removing demotivators as part of the process of gaining the trust of employees for when you start to introduce motivators. Most people, in my experience, are quite change cautious. In many cultures there is a definite feeling of 'better the Devil you know' and often change can be viewed negatively as a risk of making things worse and obsoleting current coping strategies so people have to develop new ones.

Additionally often the demotivators present in an organisation will be a barrier to introducing the motivators effectively. For example, a common problem and demotivator in many large organisations (large in this context being any organisation where the owner/CEO isn't on first name terms with pretty much every employee and doesn't see them at least once a week) is poor communication due to intermediate managers either not bothering to pass on information from above or editing the bits they don't like or feel those underneath them "Don't need to know." Very often this selective or failed communication can generate distrust and employees find they don't know what's going on or may hear 'rumours' from colleagues who have more communicative managers or are friends with your PA or a senior manager. In that situation how are you going to communicate your new activities to develop employee engagement? You need to address the communication issues, and the resulting distrust they have generated, before you can start to introduce the pro-engagement measures.

Stephen

[Mike Healy]

Hi Stephen

I agree with you on the need for communication. Of course poor managers view this as a one way process ( from them to others) and find it a burden because they often struggle to find good things to say and often revert to listing tasks which need done or problems which need fixing......is it any wonder that employees become disengaged. I have so often heard managers say................what more do they want to know?

Of course communication is two way and it involves listening as well as speaking. It involves acknowledging input and respecting opinions. It involves much more than memos or emails and hearing about company facts, figures and success.

In a world where the only information provided is impersonal and sterile, workers will wonder what is going on behind the scenes and the grapevine will be created to feed the communication needs they have....and we all know how the grapevine ( like the tabloid newspapers) can spin information any which way it likes.