Engagement

[Keith Owen]

I have been away for a while (2 months) but have noticed a stream of blogs about specific behaviors that enhance engagement. I suspect this list is a loong one but since I am a bit of an academic, I was asked by a colleague to isolate the behaviors that enhance engagement.

To give you a backdrop to this endeavor - this colleague worked for an company that was interested in determining if there were specific leadership practices that enhanced engagement as we had already demonstrated that high levels of engagement were correlated with high levels of performance.

Anyway, I started off with a long list of practices (about 200 or so) and using a combination of factor analysis and mukltivariate analyses, we came up with two factors that seemed to produce the greated impact on level of engagement and hence business results. We called these factors relationship oriented practices and achievement orientated factors.

Included in the first factor were practices that communicated the importance and value of each person and that each person was to be treated fairly. Specific practices in this dimension including demonstrating that each person was respected and cared for, ensuing that each person would get home frok work safely each evening, rewarding people based on merit not on position or level, being accountable, ertc.

Included in the second factor were practices that enabled employees to be a sucessful contributor to team and ortganizaational goals. Specific practices were setting standards, providing information about performance, giving people frequent feedback about how well they were performing relative to those practices, removing barriers, and so on.

In fact this reseach led me to modify my definition of leadership, which I now define as the process of creating a relationship based, achievement oriented endeavor which produce value added results.

Anyway, on a micro level, I have consistentluy found that the direct supervisor is the person who has the greatest impact on the level to which employees will become engaged in the work of the organization.

Keith Owen

[Keith Owen]

This comment was motivated by Mitch's comments to whom I want to express my thanks for getting me off the slopes and back to thinking about these important issues. First, I am wondering if the names I gave to the factors really capture what they measure. The factors (relationship focus and achievement orientation) were originally named involvement and empowerment; however, in the interest of the writings of my colleagues and their need to be internally consistent, we re-labled them to be consistent with our company's working definition of leadership (the process of creating a relationship-based, achievement oriented endeavor).

Anyway, I think Mitch is right in many regards - the factors seem to replicate some of what we already knew about the influencers of engagement; however, as operationally defined by the items comprising these two scales, I think they go beyond the original concepts of people consideration and initiating structures and encompass some of the root cultural issues the influence level of engagement, too, such as demonstrating that employees are valued, not as resources but as people, that their health and safety is THE top value, that being able to meet the full range of their needs at work really is important. We call this (perhaps borrowing this from the writings of Wilber) the difference between DOING (a management process) and BEING (the practice of leadership).

Anyway, in all our research has isolated 10 - 12 factors that drive level of engagement and cultural factors make an important contribution to engagement apart from direct supervisors behavior. However, we also view the behavior of the direct supervisor as a mirror of the organization's culture that itself is shaped by the core values and beliefs of the organization.

[Mitch McCrimmon]

Interesting that Keith has isolated two factors affecting employee engagement that he calls "relationship oriented factors" and "achievement oriented factors." On the surface, however, these factors sound a lot like "consideration for people" and "initiating structure," factors that were identified some 40 or 50 years ago as two leadership styles. I wonder, then if Keith's factors are just old wine in new bottles or are they genuinely new and different? Personally, I suspect that the issues are much deeper than this, that organizational culture is to blame and that the factors Keith suggests really just scrape the surface. The problem is that too much ownership is concentrated at the top, hence why managers tend to be more engaged than other employees. To me, it seems that most of the talk about how leaders should engage employees just ends up sounding paternalistic and not having more than a superficial impact because the root cultural problems are not addressed.

[Terrence Seamon]

Keith,
You must be a very modest guy. This little blog entry is a major contribution to this site, as well as to the practice of employee engagement.

You've just answered, in two succinct parts (relationships and achievement), the question that so many Managers have when it comes to EE: How do I engage my people?

Terry

PS - I'd like to invite you to join the Manager Tools group and re-publish this entry there, maybe with some embellishments.

[Rob Fox]

Hi Keith,

I like it. I'm reminded of David Bohm - a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, who said the world is made up of two entities: Thoughts and Things.

Apparently, Washington sent an auditor to see him because they were concerned at the amount his experiments were costing, and when asked what he was doing, he replied "If I knew that, I wouldn't be working here!" That's innovation!

[Susan Robinson]

Hi Keith!
For specific behaviors that boost engagement, you may be interested in an article we published in the 11/20/08 edition of Incentive Magazine http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/content_display/incentive/e3i6158980e36306f73a2d29e7c5fa8f7f1

The article is called, "A Magical Wake-up Call: Maximizing Employee Engagement". Specifically, check out the "Key Rivet-makers". We also listed "Breakers" - the behaviors or cues that trigger disengagement.

I'd be interested to hear your response to the article.
Susan

[Keith Owen]

I like the way you have phrased this. When I talk to clients about the practices that enable the emergence of engagement I try to talk about the difference between DOING and BEING. Engagement seems more likely to emerge in sistuations in which a leader's way of BEING communicates caring, respect, etc.

[Rob Fox]

Hi Keith,

I sense better engaged people operate in enviroments that have specific and distinctive practises that enable enagement. It is therefore not about behaviour itself but the things that inspire engaged behaviour.

For instance, I am currently working on a brand to life project with a business that offers cocktails at 5.00 every Friday, operates a 3/4/5 policy and has a training get together every two months as well as other spontaneous cute things - its full of happy bunnies, albeit that the business is feeling the pinch.

Its not so much focusing on the feeling but focusing on the doing - actions - that promotes the feeling.