Why is the Gap? Academicians vs Practitioners >

[Vijay Shrinivas Nanduri]

As most of you would be knowing, my dissertation on Employee Engagement was given a perfect start through this forum, during the weeks, I had the opportunity to review plethora of literature pertaining to Employee Engagement. 

I am curious to know

1. Why is it most of the authors state that there is lag in academic research literature with regards to E.E?

2. The recent surveys tells us the less than 50 % of the employees around the world are completely engaged. Despite the awareness that EE has close relationship with individual performance and business outcome, why haven't we, as practitioners unable to make an impact?

I would be interested to know your views?

Thanks

Vijay 

[Craig Althof]

Hello again, Vijay!

It is good to hear you have made progress on your dissertation.

Just an opinion, on the "lag" you note. Academic research, by the time the researchers are comfortable they have a rock-solid, validated study, is history. There is a world of difference in the reality of the business world (must be flexible, adaptable, lightning-fast responsive to changes in the market and competition) compared to academics (well-researched, proven methodologies only are published, because academic peers are waiting to tear imperfections apart)

As far as not making an impact in spite of the acknowledged benefits of EE...when you find it please share your solution! ;) Just kidding--that is probably the oldest issue OD / change practitioners have faced. It's like rainfall-everyone knows we need it but no one wants to get wet.

My opinion-engagement is so shrouded in mysterious terms and theories (and academic research with too many big words) that all but the true believers are simply too uncomfortable to embrace it.

[Vijay Shrinivas Nanduri]

Thank you Craig. I see your point - off late we tend to complicate things with too many jargon and framework, most of the academic research which I have reviewed has in fact complicated my thought process in writing my thesis. I keep going back to square. Its high time i come out with my own framework and theory :)

[David Bowles]

Vijay, I think one reason the academic research lags is because this requires large numbers to make any sense, i.e. thousands or hundreds of thousands of workers polled, etc. A small scale study doesn't cut it, just because you show that EE improved at one company because you did X, does not mean much and is not generalizable to the whole. But when Gallup or Sirota come along with millions of people polled, then you can start to make relationships. Its very hard for academia to get those numbers because of cost.

Secondly, most companies don't want outsiders nosing into their EE or morale information and carefully guard it; outside consultants are OK because they can be controlled as far as confidentiality, but academics....that's different.

As far as implementation, I think EGO has as much as anything to do with this. Great companies have to give up some control and give more power to the average person to raise morale and EE. Managers have to support workers, almost like they work for them rather than the other way round in the command and control world. That's hard to do if you didn't start out that way from Day 1, which most didn't. I am thinking of the US now, but we have a very self-centered, ego-driven culture, and that is true of management ranks in many cases. Hard to have a big ego and be a great manager with high EE workers! One by product of this is that we have an out of control ratio of CEO to average worker pay in the US, 300:1 versus 25:1 elsewhere in the world and that is part of the problem of de-moralized and disengaged workers These CEOs get up and say "we're all in this together" but the workers know that's not true in many cases. The game is fixed for CEOs with golden parachutes etc. No pay for performance for them! Some 13 years ago already Graef Crystal, an executive compensation guru, researched over 800 medium to large companies and found that 98% of the differences in CEO pay were NOT related to performance. I think it has become worse since then. More about this here.

best

David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Vijay Shrinivas Nanduri]

Thanks a ton for sharing those two articles with me. I have got so much to ponder now. does the change in the values and belief of the organization with more flat structure help its cause?

[David Bowles]

Vijay I am not sure that just changing the structure changes the culture or makes an organization more effective. The human element creeps in no matter what! The values are critical, not just to have them but to live them.....that's the key. Beliefs and values drive culture which drives engagement which drives performance. That's how I see it and its quite simple.

As for academics making things complicated, they do that to keep their jobs! If it were so simple (as maybe it is) they would have nothing to do.......of course we consultants do the same, we add some jargon to make it sound that we have a unique offering. All part of the game...

I've been in this field a long time and am not sure there is anything new under the sun.

best to you

David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Craig Althof]

David, you gave me my morning laugh...

As for academics making things complicated, they do that to keep their jobs! If it were so simple (as maybe it is) they would have nothing to do.......of course we consultants do the same, we add some jargon to make it sound that we have a unique offering. All part of the game...

Classic-thanks for the smile, even though it was a cynical smile because that statement is too true.

As far as flattened structure having an impact on values, etc...even though it's "old" by business model standards, I really like McKinsey's 7-S model that Tom Peters was involved in developing.(google it if it's too old to be studied in business classes!) Simply, a change in any one of the "S" elements impacts the others. Structure, strategy, staff, style, shared values, systems, skills...if you want to change one of the "S" elements you'd better consider the interconnectedness and what needs to change in the others.

Systems thinking before systems thinking was cool.

[Jean Douglas, CMC]

I wish we had a "like" this button. You captured it so well - it is both hilarious and sobering.

[Rob Fox]

Vijay,

Do corporates strategically desire people, or do they, moreso, regard them as a tactical necessity?

Best,

Rob
www.engagingideas.co.uk

[David Bowles]

Rob, if I may answer something directed to Vijay, I think that CEOs and leadership with enough EQ have high regard for people. Those with low EQ and perhaps rather sociopathetic tendencies see them/us as a necessary evil! Unfortunately the latter tend to staff their companies with those who think like they do, and see them as a "good fit".

best, David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Rob Fox]

Hi David,

It could be. Yet the corporate has an engineering (in all its forms) based heart. Their factories and offices are filled with people in a kind of limbo - by this I mean waiting to be engineered out of the machine. And these peoples' implicit recognition of this base fact could well be a root cause of the widespread disengagement with the world of work we experience.

People are the corporate machines queer cogs: the ones with the least mean time to failure, that require the most maintenance, that are the most unpredictable, and are expensive to run.

This is why I sense corporates tactically require people, but do not truly strategically desire them. When the corporation is able to innovate to engineer the queer cogs out, then generally, does not it decide to do so?.

Best,

Rob
www.engagingideas.co.uk

[David Bowles]

Rob I think your vision is a bit dark! In working with (and surveying) a lot of organizations I would say that few are as cold and heartless as that which you describe as the norm. It does not make sense to engineer all the people out of a company, who will then interface with the customers? A computer? We all know how much doing that pisses us off...!

Most of our clients had employees who liked...and often loved...their jobs; yes they didn't all love the company itself, but your description of people being in a kind of limbo does not ring true for me. As for people being disengaged, I think that sense comes from the Gallup data that show only 29% in the US are "actively engaged" but I don't subscribe to a binary world such as that; instead there is a sliding scale of engagement or morale and not all are at the bottom in some miserable state, by any means.

Perhaps I am just a bit more optimistic, even given the competitive challenges we face, which will drive organizations to cut costs to be able to survive against China, India, etc. Its a Darwinian world out there. I am sure if the creatures which were "naturally de-selected" into oblivion could speak from their graves, they would be a bit disengaged too....but I believe we in the developed countries have the knowledge and the means to avoid that oblivion and survive, if we put our minds, and yes, hearts, to it.

best to you

David
www.moraleatwork.com

[Rob Fox]

David,

May you remain optimistic. I take heart in it.

I am intrigued though regarding your observation: WHO will interface with the customer?

My experience is that corporates are more commonly attempting to answer the the question WHAT will the customer interface be: from call centres, , automatic tellers, automatic check-outs, telephone push button options, dark factories, and so on and on.

And even if we do get hold of a person, then is not that person increasingly confined to a script and to operate within very tightly defined decision making capabilities?

All this is designed to take the human out of corporate human resources: to reduce dependency on the uncertain cogs.

And off course engagement is shade - how could it be anything else? But perhaps your use of the word "binary" as a metaphor implies a deep-seated acceptance of the machine world?

Hee Hee.

Thanks for the conversation David.

Rob.

www.engagingideas.co.uk