Disengaged Employees? A Better Solution

By Marlys Tamte on April 11, 2010

After a few lean and mean years, statistics show us the impact on employees of tough times: employee engagement figures are at an all-time low. In many recent surveys, as much as 60% of the workforce is reportedly disengaged from the purpose or outcomes of their work. Business advisors tell us that disengaged employees negatively affect customer satisfaction, productivity and performance and cause expensive turnover.

So if you’re finding high levels of disengagement among employees, what do you do? My recommendation is to ignore the tactics in common practice today, and think counter-intuitively. Why? Because standard tactics – incentives, imploring employees to buy into the corporate mission and vision, communication plans with positive spin messages – don’t work on disengaged employees.  If they did, engagement statistics wouldn’t be so dismal. Employees become disengaged for a reason, and it’s not a lack of messages from the CEO. To find out how to engage people, you have to stop talking and start doing something else.

Disengaged employees are bringing you their labor, but not their hearts, minds, creativity and commitment. You need to find out what it would take for them to bring their whole selves to work. And to do that, you have to do several things:

  • Understand the nature of change. Change is difficult for both organizations and individuals. It’s even more difficult for people to change if their circumstances or environment remain the same. So if you want people in your company to change, to become more engaged, you and the company must change first.
  • Know that you can’t make engagement happen. Only individual employees can decide if they want to be more actively engaged in the workplace. No amount of persuading, threatening or rewarding will talk them into it. All you can do is make it easier for them to say “yes, that’s what I want,” and move toward greater engagement.
  • Ask questions. Investigate. Use surveys, but don’t rely entirely on them. Learn from individuals, from their stories. Find out what the obstacles are, what’s in your culture, systems, processes and traditions that keep people from fully engaging in their work. Check that they have the tools, abilities and management to do their jobs.
  • Make sure you have the right people doing the right things. Nothing kills the joy of work and achievement like the wrong job.
  • When you know what needs to change, Act. Don’t justify, rationalize or try to convince people they are misinformed. Don’t worry about PR. Just do what you can to clear away the obstacles, and let employees decide their best future is in participating more fully.

The above list is a formidable undertaking; it requires guidance, patience and the ability to sustain an effort for the times it takes to turn things around. It can be painful (a good guide helps), but in the long run, it’s less painful than the alternative.

For more information, see our services and case studies at www.theprospergroup.com.

Marlys Tamte is a change management consultant who specializes in resolving people-related issues. She has an uncanny ability to see things others don’t see, to build trust, and to find the leverage points that lead to greater productivity and performance.

Photo by Flickr member stibbons, used through Creative Commons license.

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Six Techniques to Really, Finally Solve that Operations or People Problem

By Marlys Tamte on April 10, 2010

Technique #1: Why Times Five

When you think you’ve buried a problem, and it keeps returning, chances are you’ve solved the wrong problem. Departmental conflicts and interpersonal spats are rarely about the accusations and shortcomings being charged. To unearth the real causes, you have to dig deep. Use the “Why Times Five” technique to get to the bottom of it all. To use this technique, ask one of the parties to the problem to tell you what the issue is. Ask why. When they tell you, ask why again. Continue until you’ve gone down five levels. It looks something like this:

Example

Two departments have been blaming each other for the late delivery of a critical project. The fingers are pointing at Ted, a normally reliable project coordinator.

Why wasn’t the project done on time?

Because Ted was on a business trip.

Why was Ted’s not being here important?

Because we couldn’t finish the project without him.

Why couldn’t you finish the project without him?

Because he’s the only one who knows how the computer program works.

Why is he the only one?

Because none of the rest of us were sent for training.

Why is that?

Because we had to reduce our budget, so management cut our training.

When you apply Technique #1, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll learn about your company’s operations.

Technique #2: Multiple Perspectives

It’s easy to assume your know the source of a problem, but the problem may not only originate in a place you didn’t consider, it may be a type of problem you haven’t considered. In the first example, the source of the problem was not only not Ted, it wasn’t even a personnel or workflow problem. It was a lack of training caused by a budget decision that was made without thinking through the consequences. Every problem should be examined from multiple perspectives: To use Technique #2, view the problem from several of these perspectives:

Technological Social/Interpersonal Language barriers
Existential Communications Software incompatibility
Cultural Values and ethics Terminology differences
Accessibility Accuracy of data Hardware limitations
Time constraints Psychological Generational differences

Technique #3: Conflicting Interests

Often, managers are puzzled when a previously good employee runs into trouble. When investigated further, you find that she is still a good employee who is just trying to do her job. But doing her job interferes with another good employee’s ability to do his job. The problem is structural, putting good people in needless competition for necessary resources, or pitting them against rules, processes or budgets that restrict their ability to carry out their tasks. In other cases, employees may have been asked to do jobs that are contrary to the company’s culture or value system, or to co-workers’ personal value systems. In either situation, the constraints need to be recognized and removed, or the task itself made more acceptable to employees.

To use Technique #3, ask employees what one thing could be added to or subtracted from their situation that would help make their jobs easier. Use this technique with Technique #1.

Technique #4: Look for Micro-managing

When an otherwise capable employee isn’t doing his job, look at how that employee is managed for possible clues to solving his performance problems. An over-controlling manager can kill initiative and willingness in an employee. Almost no one likes to be micro-managed, and the resentment from being micro-managed can manifest itself in apathy or even sabotage. Micro-management can also create employee drones who follow directions but are unable to contribute actively to building your company.

If you or your managers are micro-managing, training is the best option to resolve the problem, along with a mandate that managers must develop their employees’ talents, or else.

Technique #5: Look for Unclear Expectations

The opposite of micromanaging is under-communicating goals and expectations. A project gone awry, or an employee making a false step may be the result of too little direction. Look at how your company sets the parameters for employees, departments, or project activities. Boundaries such as ethics, values, budgets, minimum performance standards, and acceptable behavior tell employees what their limits are, while clear-cut expectations and well-defined deliverables point them in the right direction. If everybody has a good understanding of the desired results, and their role in achieving them, then fewer problems will occur.

Technique # 6: Stop Tolerating Bad Behavior

Ask yourself how your staff can possibly have enough time available for complaining, backbiting, and conducting a campaign against another person or department. Look closely at staffing levels and workloads. Pile on the projects. Get rid of the chronic complainers (your staff will thank you). Set a good example, and then move on.

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Building Your Management Team: How to Delegate Authority, Retain Control, and Grow Your Company

By Marlys Tamte on February 15, 2010

The Problem

Every successful company reaches an important turning point—the point where it has outgrown its entrepreneurial stage and the ability of its owner to be involved in every aspect of the company. In addition, the owner may wish to spend more time on other pursuits, retire, or turn over control of the daily operations to others in order to have more time for family or heath issues.

Whatever the reasons, the company must now transition from an entrepreneur-run to a professionally-managed company. This transition is one of the most difficult for most companies and owners, and is the point at which many companies lose momentum. The time and energy an owner has available is a limiting factor to a growing business, so the development of a professional management team and the delegation of authority to that team is critical to future success.

Three Steps to Delegation and Control

An owner who wishes to develop a management team capable of running the company independent of the owner must take three majors steps:

  1. The owner must relinquish daily control and follow the same rules and professional practices as the rest of the management team (don’t worry–owner perks and other benefits can continue!).
  2. The owner must assess the abilities of potential managers, and hire or train people capable of becoming professional managers. The owner should encourage learning from mistakes. At any given time, a potential manager may be at one of four skills levels:
  • Direct – complete directions and close supervision are required
  • Coach – suggestions for how to manage a project, regular reporting, and feedback are necessary
  • Support – minimal direction and supervision are needed; reports and feedback are exchanged on a weekly or monthly basis.
  • Delegate – the potential manager takes both authority and responsibility for the project, and reports to the owner when the project is completed.

To successfully make a transition to professional management, key managers must be operating at a “delegate” level in most areas.

  1. The owner must make sure control systems are in place. Defining the roles of managers and employees, and providing boundaries they must work within are the keys to maintaining control and monitoring activity while empowering managers to operate. There are several key systems that establish and maintain control.

Why, What, How

An owner leads a professional management team by establishing the why. The why is the reason the company is in business, why we are all working here, why we care. The why is the mission of the company, the owner’s vision for the company, and its goals.

The management team is responsible for the what. The what is the business we are in, the products or services we sell, the markets and customers we serve, and the strategic plan to achieve the why. The owner may also be involved in the what.

The how is how the plan is carried out on a day-to-day basis. Both managers and employees are responsible for deciding how their work is done.

Empowered managers and employees learn the why, contribute to deciding what, and are expected to determine and carry out the how.

Values

Another control system is values. An owner who has defined and communicated the values of the company, models the values of the company, and rewards people who operate within the values of the company has built a strong barrier. A clear set of values is a control system that will help keep managers and employees from taking actions contrary to the wishes of the owner.

Performance standards

Minimum performance standards, tied to employee reviews and compensation, help assure that the company is being operated to the owner’s expectations. Standards can be financial, customer satisfaction, on-time delivery, etc. Performance standards should be measurable and clearly communicated. Actions to be taken when performance standards are not met should also be clear, and consistently applied.

Constraints

Specific timelines, budgets, and other constraints give managers and employees additional operating boundaries to work within.

Reporting Systems

Financial reports, progress reports, regular management meetings, and other feedback systems help keep the owner “in the loop” when management has been delegated.

Other Information

A wide variety of choices are available for tracking, reporting, feedback, assessment, training, and other tools that make development of your management team and control of your company easier. There are several books, seminars, and articles that can be recommended to the owner interested in pursuing more information on this topic.

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