Engaging an audience of one --- a very appetising icing on the cake

[Graeme Ginsberg]

I was thinking about segmentation and an idea came to mind I thought I’d try and flesh out here.

Apologies in advance for any simplistic/cod psychology and for shorthand in (implied) definitions of ‘engagement’.

I would greatly value any comments -- many thanks!

 

1. The idea [There’s a more detailed ‘thought flow’ for this idea at the end of this post.]

That the deepest engagement can be achieved by viewing employees as individuals and seeking to engage them as such.

 

• Each employee has their own particular thought-belief-emotion ‘DNA’.

 

• Each employee then has their own particular engagement driver 'mix’ and engagement needs.

 

• Employees are psychologically self-aware and (to a lesser or greater degree depending on factors such as their national culture) view themselves as individuals and want to be viewed, treated and communicated with as such.

 

• Engaging each individual at an individual level should, in theory, lead to deeply engaged networks of employees (so long as the dynamics between engaged employee groups and adjacent non-engaged employee groups are allowed for, etc), to engaged networks of networks of deeply engaged employees, and, ultimately, to a deeply engaged organisation.

 

• Ideally, then, to achieve the most widespread and deepest engagement across the organisation, leaders, managers and those charged with engaging employees would have a lot to gain by identifying and fulfilling the engagement needs on an individual by individual basis.

 

 

2. The idea in context

 

(a) Tailoring to an audience of one isn’t feasible

• Taking this idea to an extreme, this would mean segmenting populations down to audiences of one.

 

• Obviously, no organisation has the resources to treat each employee as a unique audience (‘engagement profit centre’?), identifying and analysing their particular thought-belief-emotion DNA and unique engagement driver mix, so that they can develop a unique and implementable engagement programme for each individual.

 

(b) Not to worry – broad-based engagement programmes and initiatives are very effective

• This doesn’t change anything about what leaders, managers and those charged with employee engagement are already doing. Thought-belief-emotion DNA and engagement driver mixes may be unique to each employee, but the differences are subtle.
  
  As the many engagement research studies out there tell us, there are key engagement drivers that recur among different populations (ie in general audiences) and population segments (ie in local audiences). The different research groups may have different terminology for these key drivers but, broadly speaking, the terminology is similar enough to imply that studies are describing similar manifest behaviours and underlying thought-belief-emotion sets.

 

• Because there are clear patterns of engagement driver mix commonalities within employee populations, organisations can and do, of course, create dynamic, broad-based engagement programmes and initiatives that build engagement among the general and local multi-employee audiences they target.

 

(c) But being able to understand individual employees and tailor certain key communications to each would be a very appetising icing on the cake

• But organisations can, perhaps, gain yet deeper employee engagement by seeking to understand how an individual’s thought-belief-emotion DNA might be different to a seemingly similar ‘person like him/her’ working on the same team, how the engagement driver mixes might differ, and how communications might be tailored to maximise engagement for each..

 

• This is the icing on the cake and a very appetising one at that – the sort of employee engagement that will be more robust and self-sustaining, the sort of organisational culture that will really deliver the organisation’s strategic objectives and even form a cornerstone for its competitive advantage in the short term, and build the foundations for its continued success into the future.

 

3. How might organisations achieve this very deep, individual-level engagement?

• Focus on one-to-one communications, particularly face-to-face
  If face-to-face is often viewed as the most powerful platform for successfully engaging an audience, it’s a sine qua non when it comes to engaging audiences of one. How else would it be possible to successfully identify the key characteristics of an individual’s particular engagement driver mix, develop meaningful, ongoing conversations that align with and support the individual’s thought-belief-emotion DNA, and maximise the employee’s engagement?

 

• Without the right managers and processes in place, this won’t work
  Managers need to be encouraged and given appropriate resources so they can meet with and have the regular (but highly focused) one-to-one communications with their individual team members. They may also require further guidance, and possibly even training, particularly when it comes to applying the sort of listening/facilitation skills and diplomacy that would be essential for this one-to-one engagement to be successful.

 

• The organisation’s leadership also has a very important role to play
  Not only does the senior leadership team need to actively sponsor their managers in these one-to-one engagement activities and hold them accountable for delivering engagement objectives in line with the organisation’s strategic objectives, they need to play an active role themselves in the one-to-one engagement of individual employees.
  
  This means regular office, factory and depot walkrounds with substantial discreet one-to-one meeting time rather than ‘waving at the crowd’, participating in lengthy ‘back to the floor’ programmes that will enable one-to-one situations, and so on.

 

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The idea in a bit more detail

 

1. Individuals have unique thought-belief-emotion ‘DNA’

Logically speaking everyone has their own own particular thought-belief-emotion DNA (evolving all the time), built around the particular nature and nurture components that are specific to them.

 

They have particular biological systems, particular personalities, particular life and work experiences, particular strengths and weaknesses, particular skills, and so on, which, in their unique combination, mean they may think, feel and behave quite differently to someone else in the same situation.

 

.2 Employees are increasingly self-aware

Employees have become increasingly self-aware. In this age, when psychologically-driven television like Mad Men, The Wire, House and The Office are two-a-penny and magazines encourage readers to analyse themselves, people will likely have rationalised in what ways they are unique and even have theories as to why it is. They may realise or be close to realising just what it is that makes them tick at work, how their emotions are aligned to the organisation and its strategic objectives – whether they are or are not engaged at work, why that might be and what will make them more engaged.

 

3. Key employee engagement drivers and individual driver mixes

Engagement researchers have identified particular key engagement drivers in employee populations and population segments. They are swift to point out that these drivers each have weight but ultimately have to be viewed in combination. Populations are complex and the relationships between the engagement drivers within the population are complex.

 

All the more so for individuals – everyone has their own engagement driver mix, with its unique driver weightings and interrelationships.

 

4. The benefits of focusing on individuals

The value of employee engagement to an organisation may very broadly speaking be the total commitment that employees have to contributing to delivering its strategic objectives and establishing/maintaining the foundations of its continued success in the future. And it might be said that an organisation's total employee engagement value is the sum of of all the individual engaged employees,

 

Broad-based engagement programmes and initiatives, targeting general and local populations of employees can create deep engagement within the organisation – no question.

 

But if leadership, managers and those charged with maximising employee engagement look at each employee as an individual, as well as part of a group that shares certain characteristics, they can (among many other things) more effectively:

 

• Identify and close those particular engagement 'gaps' that might be preventing the organisation from achieving its strategic objectives.

 

• Identify and leverage engagement champions, who can help grow the culture of engagement at a grassroots level

 

• Identify and support any particular employees whose levels of engagement are under threat (eg because they are experiencing negative thought-belief-emotion spirals as a result of an destabilising organisational change) and potentially damaging to the organisation.