Six Things To Do To Help Maximize Engagement

[Steve Roesler]

Engagement is really about commitment.

So, think about your own experiences. What have you needed in order to commit to, and engage with, an organization, program, or idea? Think about it and see if the six steps below match pretty closely.

To maximize your chances of gaining commitment, be real and use engaging leadership. That means:

1. Tell people what you want to accomplish.

2. Tell them what led you to believe it's important to them and to you.

3. Tell them your own struggles along the way.

4. Tell them how long you've been thinking about "it".

5. Tell them you are committed to it.

6. Tell them your plan for helping them be able to do "it."

Then, give people a reasonable amount of time to think about it, question it, be uncomfortable with the newness of it, begin to accept it, and then be involved with how it will be implemented.

Would that sequence help engage you?

[Steve Roesler]

Diane and Maggie,

First, thank you for taking time to weigh in.

Second: Please forgive the delayed response; I have been doing the consultant "get on and off the plane" thing.

I'm not sure that we actually disagree on anything of substance. There is nothing in either of your comments that is inconsistent with best practices and all that we know to be true about introducing changes and goals. If you go back to the post and look at the underlying psychology of each step--including the last, which includes the people in the solution--I don't understand at all where we differ, except in this:

It seems that using the word "Tell" is disturbing. In this instance, the person in charge of the initiative was clear about what (s)he wanted and why. The sequence that follows offers direction, selling, consulting and ultimately backing off once things got started. This is consistent with the Ohio State Leadership studies which led to Ken Blanchard and Paul Hersey's Situational Leadership model.

In this instance, as so often happens in the real world, someone is tasked with the accomplishment of an initiative. If (s)he is the only one who, at the outset, understands what has to be accomplished and why, then "Telling" is the only way that people are going to find out and understand the context. In this case, the manager knew that it was an initiative with which the people had little or no experience; but the manager was highly experienced. As a result, the most appropriate action was to tell people the plan, discuss it for understanding and, of course, hear what their thoughts were. They did not have the background needed to sit around the table and figure out the "how" on their own. That would have been akin to gathering a group of glider pilots and asking, "What do you think is the best way to fly this jet?" In the absence of knowledge and experience, people need and want direction in order to engage. Without it, they are left floating at sea on a bamboo raft.

As for influence--I do understand, Maggie, what you are saying about that pillar. In this scenario, the exec indeed gave people the opportunity to be heard in the closing paragraph after #6. Perhaps I should have used 7 steps and put a number before that one.

[maggie chicoine]

Hello Steve. I have to agree with Diane's comments. Perhaps if you replace the word "tell", with "begin a dialogue about", then you will have better odds in creating engagement.

Dennis Kinlaw, in his seminal work on "Coaching for Commitment", introduced a model for commitment. In short, commitment rests on 4 pillars: Clarity (big picture, vision); Competency (skills, knowledge, ability to do the job); Influence (being heard); Appreciation (for a job well done in the past, present and future). A committed employees understands his/her place in the big picture - has the skills etc to do the job - is heard - and is appreciated. If any of the pillars are not understood, or are lacking, then commitment wanes. Your "six things" lists may be missing the third pillar, "Influence".

If you'd like more on this, just ask.

Regards,
Maggie Chicoine
www.theideasculptor.com

[Diane Desjardins]

Not quite . I mean that there is more to "selling" goals to achieve than just telling your employees what to do. The energy I felt reading your 6 points is not engaging, there is too much YOU and not enough US in it. The autoritarian bias of this approach is not as engaging than other kind of leadership. The question you asked was : Would that sequence help engage you? I simply replied to that question and told you why.

[Steve Roesler]

Diane

The scenario in the post is that of a leader who has a non-negotiable goal for which (s)he is accountable. As a result, the person is quite clear about direction and equally respectful about discussion, timing, and implementation (see #6).

Are you suggesting that leadership/engagement is only attainable by everyone being equally involved in everything? And that everyone is involved in defining every aspect of every organization?

[Diane Desjardins]

Sorry to say that what I feel, when I read your list, is that you have not used my talents, experience and creativity to define our future and the steps necessary to get there. It is all about what you see, want and have decided is best for our organisation. What I can contribute and what my coworkers can contribute is much more, synergistically, than the execution of your plan. Sorry, I would not buy into this kind of leadership that leave us out of what define our organisation.

In my experience, telling others what to do does not engage employee, it often foster resistence.

Diane