December, 2007

The Engagement Myth, Gee-Wiz Social Media, Level Consciousness and (Yawn) "Not Another Program"

Employee Engagement Has No End

Engagement is a popular subject today. It seems that every company thinks it needs to engage people or is already doing it. Most aren't. Their performance shows it.

Engagement is a condition that exists when people are willing to go the extra mile to make their organization successful because, in part, they passionately believe in the values and purpose of the organization and they have the ability to improve its performance. The simplest of definitions.

Businesses leaders are looking for sources of strategic competitive advantage. Managed properly, engagement can serve as one of those sources.  But business leaders need to know that engagement isn't just another fad du jour, or a touchy-feely subject espoused by consultants and academics. They need to understand the financial argument based on real work that demonstrates clearly that engagement can take an organization and its people to unheard of heights.

Current research and case work makes it clear: engaged people perform better on hard, measurable issues such as quality, service, cost, speed and productivity than those who aren't engaged. Among engaged people, there's as much as a 57% increase in the use of discretionary effort and as much as an 87% reduction in the desire to leave a company.

There are plenty of companies successfully using engagement to improve hard business results. FedEx, for example, has used engagement to improve U.S. export volume and reduce accidents and damage, with returns often as high as 1,600 per cent.  ConAgra Foods has used increased employee engagement to generate 30-plus percent improvements in safety in manufacturing and quality in its supply chain.

But, business leaders need to use engagement judiciously. Engagement efforts can and should be targeted where they'll do the most good—where they provide the most leverage.  Investing in engagement can hit a point of diminishing returns where the cost of the engagement investment doesn't yield an acceptable return. Many call centers and fast food restaurants have learned this as they work to reduce turnover.

Engagement is not a program. Programs have beginnings, middles and ends. To create acceptable returns, engagement needs to be a mindset and a process—a way to lead.

Not Another Program—Redux!

I hear literally every day from employees how sick and tired they are of distracting, time-consuming, energy-wasting, productivity-draining disconnected programs that end up going nowhere. Call in the program police! Adopting the latest gee-wiz silver bullet for a year and then letting it fizzle out tears down leadership credibility and often represents the first hurdle that those of us who are trying to create real sustainable change have to overcome.   

Social Media—More Gee Wiz

One of the latest things to gush over is so-called social media—podcasts, blogs, wikis and the like. Of course each has value. My friends at Eli Lilly and IBM, for instance, have had huge success with social media to improve innovation and reduce new product development time and costs.  But Stu Reed, executive vice president of Motorola's integrated supply chain, helps puts it in perspective.  Asked what he thinks about internal blogging, he answers:  "Let's get the communication fundamentals right before we introduce anything new to our strategy."

Reed's comment reminds me of a response to a question put to Fred Turner, former CEO of McDonald's, about diversification. "When we have all the restrooms in our company clean, then we'll talk diversification."

First, fix the heart-of-the-business communication breakdowns—those that hurt quality, service, cost, speed, productivity and innovation.  Then go to that social media conference that beckons you.  Make sure you're not chasing a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. 
 
Levels Consciousness

Most organizations have flattened themselves to increase efficiency.  But levels seem to be creeping back into the hierarchies, with some companies operating with the 10-12 levels that plagued businesses 20 years ago. 

Of course some structure is needed.  It facilitates communication and enables accountability.  Beyond a point (five in a big company?), levels have the potential only to do bad things because each level represents a filter that can slow down and distort information. Think of the old game where players whisper a word or phrase down a line of fellow players. The word "tree" can emerge as "knee" at the end of the line.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's excellent research for her book, When Giants Learn to Dance, points out conclusively that what's known as segmentation (levels and silos) has a pernicious effect on innovation, creativity and, in turn, overall business performance.

Most often levels creep into organizations through the reward and recognition process. "We need to give Sally, the manager of such-and-such, a raise or renewed feeling of importance so we'll create a senior manager position." Pretty soon senior such-and-suches and assistant vice presidents of such-and-such start popping up all over the organization.

Are customers willing to pay for all those levels?