According to Forbes, employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals. Simply put, it’s an attempt to measure the degree to which employees care about their work and the companies they work for. After all, employees are more likely to succeed in jobs that bring meaning to their work.

Here are five actions you can take as a manager to improve and emphasize the importance of employee engagement in your workplace.

Become Engaged Yourself

A Gallup survey found that about one-third of employees love their jobs and are engaged at work. On the other end, 16% of employees are actively disengaged — they’re miserable in the workplace and may be undermining what the most engaged employees are building. The remaining 51% of employees are neither engaged nor miserable — they’re just “there.” 

Disengaged employees show up, put in their hours, do the minimum amount required to keep their jobs, and go home feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. The best way to emphasize the importance of employee engagement, then, is to lead by example and become engaged yourself. 

It’s one thing to be able to recite the mission, vision, and value statements of the company, but it’s another to live them. Become authentic in the way you lead by living the mission, vision, and values and interpreting them into your everyday language about what each of you does.

Know Your Team Members

Engaged employees don’t feel like they must choose between work and life. As a manager, you can engage your employees by supporting them as individuals — not just as employees. Find out what motivates them, what their interests are outside of work, what they’re passionate about, and what expertise they bring to the job.

The importance of employee engagement extends beyond simply motivating an employee to do his or her job. Rather, it’s about getting your team excited to come to work everyday, getting them to ask questions, share feedback, and really look forward to growing in their roles.

Increase & Improve Your Communication

If your employees aren’t hearing from you regularly, they may assume you’ve forgotten about them. Most of us want to improve, and consistent, meaningful communication allows you to both give and welcome personal feedback, shows your employees you value them, and stresses the importance of employee engagement.

Give your employees the same benefit of the doubt that you give yourself every day and assume they want to perform well. We hold employees back by not providing critical information to let them know how to improve and remind them that we know they exist.

Plan for Success

Employees know when the organization is just drifting along, so engage the team in planning for strategic initiatives. Let them see how the team helps to improve the company and work toward its mission and vision. By engaging them in the plans, you get buy-in and commitment toward measurable goals and action steps. 

As a manager with a plan, you can see clearly how to support each team member. Further, working together to develop a plan illustrates the importance of employee engagement while allowing you to model accountability for your own mistakes and foster a mutually accountable team that both succeeds and fails together.

Invest in Team Member Development

Demonstrate your commitment to your employees and the importance of employee engagement with a written development plan designed by and in collaboration with each team member. This may be in the form of training or certifications. 

At the same time, many people find challenging work assignments and work experiences even more meaningful. Allow employees to measure their own success with measurable and attainable development goals.

Generic programs and enthusiastic, motivational speakers may keep us engaged for a day or two, but the real key to emphasizing the importance of employee engagement is a manager who prioritizes his or her team and actively moves the engagement meter every day.
Contact us today to discuss ways to increase your company’s employee engagement.

How many of us understood how many calories we were consuming at our favorite restaurants before that feature on menus became a trend?  It influences what I order today. 

Transparency is the new model.  How have you adjusted as you lead your firm?

Without transparency in business, you empower the rumor mill in your organization.  My experience with the rumor factory is that it is rarely accurate and does not give the company leaders the benefit of the doubt.  Openness and vulnerability over time create an environment where trust is built and maintained.

We begin the transparency journey with the first step – some hard questions. Do you admit your mistakes?  How do you explain setbacks?  What do you do when a valuable employee departs?  Do you blame and complain?  How often do you tell the truth and avoid the spin factor?

As leaders we are held to a higher standard, now more than ever.   Therefore, we must be open, honest, and straightforward about our operations and strategies for the future.  Transparent companies share information relating to company performance, revenue, processes, pricing, and business values.  When things go wrong in business, transparent companies don’t try to hide it. Instead, they’re upfront about the issue.

Benefits of Transparency in Business

Transparency in business builds trust with employees and clients.  In fact, one of the mantras of one of our client CEO’s is “bad news does not get better over time.”  Employees and clients insist on doing business with companies they trust.  Even when the news is not pleasant, we should be honest and share it in order to build trust.  I find that moving through conflict and difficulty can cement trust in internal and external relationships.

When employees trust their employers, there’s an increase in advocacy, loyalty, engagement, and commitment. If you want employees to trust you, be transparent with them. You just may see that decline in turnover and spike in productivity that all businesses desire.

You may be wondering, “Can we be too transparent?”  Absolutely.  We need to guard our business models or technical expertise so that competitors don’t copy our unique solutions.  In some industries it is appropriate to have confidentiality agreements and non-compete clauses in employee contracts.  We must guard our competitive advantage.

Ways to Promote Transparency

Share Information with Your Employees.  Write an internal news article with regular frequency to give your employees the last business news. Host meetings with employees that are a two-way communication between key leaders and line employees.  Answer questions honestly and openly.  Use your managers to relay news to their employees and ask employees what they heard to make sure the cascading message is forthright.  Explain the facts about revenue and pricing structures.  Compare your strategies to your competitors.  Admit mistakes and how the firm is rectifying them.

Affirm Your Values.  This is hard work and if we’re not careful we will have a list that is too long and not memorable.  I heard Patrick Lencioni say in a conference that if we have more than three priorities, we have no priorities.  Can you distill your values into three distinct statements?  As these three values inform our decision-making and our actions, others will see us as trustworthy and authentic.  When measuring performance and strategies, the values should be front and center.  Employees observe what we do much more that what we say.

Don’t Spin; Tell the Truth.  People can always tell when we are in “spin mode”.  What have you learned from your mistakes and failures?  Be human and connect to the other humans in your organization.  Share information with honesty and provide solutions for repairing the mistakes or building on the lessons learned.  Give credit to the true contributors in the organization.  Highlight successful projects and let the performers receive the credit that is due them.

Though it is not easy, transparency in business builds trust and trustworthiness.  Over time transparency increases employee engagement, client loyalty, company revenues, and innovation.  It is well worth the effort!

I have a designer friend who accepted a job that she knew she could really own.  In the interview process, she was encouraged to hear that she would have the opportunity to (finally) utilize her talents to move the company forward in creative and innovative ways.

It’s been 6 months, and she’s more discouraged than I’ve ever seen her.  She accepted this job with an excitement that was missing in her previous role.  She saw an opportunity to make a difference and got the impression that her new team was looking for someone to bring change to improve the organization.  In those first few critical months, she began to realize that her lived experience was not measuring up to the interview.  Her ideas to improve processes were rejected by her team, and she found that her manager would often side with junior team members for the sake of maintaining the “this is how we do things here” mentality.

She quickly realized she did not have support from her boss to move the company forward, which is what drew her to the position in the first place.  Now, she feels like she’s a “nobody” at work, and therefore, does not feel motivated or creative in her work.

How should I encourage or guide my friend?

Life can be discouraging.  Our best-intended actions can be counterproductive.  My heart goes out to your friend as her situation clearly illustrates the importance of motivation in feeling satisfied at work.  It sounds like she needs your friendship and encouragement.  Perhaps you can add new perspective.

In reading your story, I found my curiosity directed towards the boss.  I wondered what he or she would be writing if asked to describe this scenario.  Perhaps he or she is also discouraged and by practicing counterproductive behaviors.  It’s all about perspective. 

We are all human. 

Bosses and employees share the responsibility of acknowledging when we make mistakes, misjudge intent and actions, or miss the picture entirely.  Our behaviors are well-intentioned, but our actions are often misinterpreted, misunderstood, or misguided.  The boss, the team, and your friend are all human.  There are no innocent victims here, and everyone plays a part and can become owners or “somebodies”.

Let me explain by starting with your friend.  You paint a picture of a victim who is trying to “own a job” instead of owning herself and her responses to some negative circumstances.  I find victim thinking always leads me to be reactive and those responses lead to ineffective action.  It is indeed sad when we allow these thoughts and reactions to shape our self-image.  Your friend feels like a “nobody” because she is choosing to think of herself this way. I believe she can change, but it will require an intentional shift in her approach.

The Importance of Motivation Shifts

What if she was to ask herself: “What’s the best action that I should be doing to make a difference in this situation?”  This simple question can lead to personal ownership, which highlights the importance of motivation and spurs us towards productive behavior.   For instance, one way to exhibit ownership is to make promises to your trusted confidants that you will (rather than should) take specific action.  Rather than expecting immediate change, over time, your friend will begin to learn about the boss, the team, and the organization.  She will develop a new purpose to better understand all the well-meaning humans (not enemies) that surround her.  This new purpose will pay off with feeling like a “somebody” who can know her surrounding cast and facilitate effective change within the organization’s culture.

How will this change her relationship with the boss? The boss will begin to understand her beyond the posing that occurs in all interviews.  With this newfound perspective, your friend will know the best communication approaches, the speed of change in the organization, and understand the boss’ purpose.  In addition, she will begin to give the boss the benefit of the doubt, allowing him or her to be a human with flaws and strengths as well.

How about the team?  We all resist change, particularly the ones imposed upon us.  What might be the outcome if she spent the next three months getting to know her team?   What if she asked them what is going well and what needs to be changed?  She could explore barriers and challenges.  She can ask about available resources, or the lack thereof.  In this learning, she will likely find ways she can support the team, and she will better understand how and when changes should be implemented.

What are the alternatives? 

She could leave and start over somewhere else, but I’m afraid she will face the same challenges and risk making the same mistakes.

Owners always ask:  “What can I do to be effective right where I am in an imperfect system?”  The answer to this question is often difficult because we all long for perfection within imperfect systems.  It requires a humble and courageous response, as well as a willingness to work on improving one’s skills as a leader. 

Often this response requires change personally in perspective and action.  I will leave you with this quote from Maya Angelou, which encourages me.  “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

I invite your comments and insight. How have you seen the importance of motivation – whether intrinsic or extrinsic – represented in your line of work?

In an article two years ago, I shared data from Elevate, a book authored by Rich Horwath.  He stressed that strategy is about the intelligent allocation of resources and time.  Of the organizations he studied, managers said that a lack of time was the primary reason they are not strategic.   

Every day your choices can help or hurt your organization, depending on how strategic they are. To make decisions that generate the best possible results overall, you need to consider the big picture and how to effectively allocate your time.   

As you look for trends internally, externally, and globally, you may discover specific actions your team can incorporate in its strategy to use your time and resources in more productive ways.  Making these changes can yield exponential dividends for the organization.  

Here’s one set of tools to build a team of strategic thinkers. 

Strategy: Look for Trends

Use this brainstorming activity individually or with your team to identify trends, business problems, and new opportunities.* You could do this annually or as the need arises.  This tool will allow you elevate your perspective beyond the day-to-day and seek insight internally and externally.

Internal Trends

What are the signs of weakness or challenge in each of the three areas within our firm? 

• People:  How is our engagement, turn-over, growth in expertise, etc.?  How are we duplicating or delaying work products or blocking each other’s efficiencies? 
• Products:  Think about backlog, contract negotiations, profitability, and other key measurables. 
• Strategy:  What are the company priorities/strategies?  How is our team aligned?  

Now, consider the implications of the changes you see.  Where are the opportunities?  What changes do we need to consider? 

One manager we work with discovered an alarming trend of turnover in her business unit. She has taken employee engagement to a whole new level by using a simple tool to measure engagement and then working with her team with transparency and proactivity.

External Trends

• What are the signals of change outside the organization?  Look for ways to monitor change in the industry and in your specific market segment. 
  • How do you stay well-informed of the changes outside the company?  What publications do you read?  Who provides you with insight and the latest research?
  • How well do you keep the team informed? Do you encourage team insight or sharing of information learned?  
  • Record the most important insights and opportunities and track as a team. 

We have a team leader who works with clients at least once a year to host an extended lunch where he listens to their concerns and ideas for the future. He fosters idea sharing by asking probing questions in advance by email.

Societal Trends

• Next, examine societal trends that impact you and the organization 
  • These will be very diverse trends to study: demographic, economic, regulatory, social, cultural, environmental, technological, and political.  These trends are often long-term and are at best predictive and not prescriptive. 
  • Determine one or two that present threats to your organization as well as one or two opportunities.   
  • Continue studying these trends and facilitate conversations with your team about taking positive actions to prepare for the future. 

Take Action

• Lastly, determine the trends that are worth monitoring 
  • Narrow the monitored list to just one to three areas that are critical to your team and market. 
  • Make assignments with volunteers and continue to expand insight
  • Develop concrete action steps with deadlines for future meetings. 

This exercise will help everyone on the team to “zoom out” from the strategic paralysis of day-to-day tasks and explore the possibilities for the future.  As strategies, action plans, and follow through occur, the team will become more cohesive and individuals will feel empowered to be more strategic in their roles. 

* These ideas originally appear and are expanded in the “Worksheet: Spotting Trends” in HBR Guide + Tools for Thinking Strategically published by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2019. 

Do the people you work with really know you?  Do they know your passions? How well do they know what really motivates you?

This three-part series on enhancing trust acknowledges that trust is valuable.  Our teams are more productive and engaged when they have trusting relationships. Yes, particularly when they trust their boss.  This kind of environment yields bottom-line results and personal satisfaction.

The ideas and suggestions in this series are built on the CrossGroup Leadership Model.  In this article, we focus on passion or social goodwill. The previous articles emphasized credibility and insight.  All of these focus on you as a leader. You have the ability to influence others in positive ways as you build these qualities into your life and practice.

Passion

Jack Welch of GE fame said, “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” Passion creates a drive to solve challenges and succeed where others languish.  Synonyms for passion include affection, dedication, excitement, emotion, fervor, intensity, zeal, and spirit. Would you like these words to describe your boss? Now consider the antonyms of passion: apathy, coolness, indifference, disinterest, dislike, or disregard.  Who wants to work for that boss?

So, what are you passionate about?  When you reflect this passion professionally, what does that look like?  According to Robert Kaplan: “Passion is about excitement. It has more to do with your heart than your head.  It’s critical because reaching your full potential requires a combination of your heart and your head. In my experience, your intellectual capability and skills will take you only so far.”*

Going through the motions of life can drain you of passion.  Take some time to explore the times in your life that you were doing what you love and you were doing your best work.  Find ways to rekindle that emotion and express it in your current work. These kinds of connections can reignite your professional passion.  Experience the passion and share it with others. Don’t hide it.

Share Your Passion

People genuinely want to learn what you care about.  Your direct reports want to see that enthusiasm and sparkle in your eye.  Don’t hold back for fear of being misunderstood or showing your heart to others.  Being vulnerable engenders trust. And it makes you human!

Share Your Intentions

Being passionate about the development of others is contagious and generates trust.  We can articulate the plain facts, or we can share the facts with our motives attached.  For example, the boss can say, “John, you’re approved to attend the Atlanta conference.” Or she can say, “John, congratulations, you are attending the Atlanta conference next month.  I am eager to hear about that new method that is being presented.  Take great notes and plan to share these ideas.  The whole team will benefit from hearing from you in our next staff meeting.”

It’s one thing to ask everyone to work an extra 10 hours this week on the project to get it done on time and a whole other thing to describe client retention, quality, excellence, or keeping promises to our clients. Telling someone that they are attending a conference versus sharing with them your reasons for doing so will go a long way in building these relationships.

Seek the Passion of Others

Professionals are at their best when they are engaging with their desire. Some are passionate about learning. Others want to get the details right or work collaboratively.  Some like to make important decisions while others are enthusiastic about telling the story. As you learn what others are passionate about and allow the job to somehow embrace this preference, you are building a powerful social bond.  

Trust is built when we let down our guard and allow others to see our own emotional enthusiasm.  Trust is truly bonding when we craft job responsibilities so that just a few minutes or hours each week are reflections of personal passion.

Bosses who are credible, insightful, and passionate always make a difference for their employees.  Sometimes this difference can last a lifetime!

I hope you made the journey through the other two parts of this trust series.  Check our website for these articles and feel free to share your comments.

* https://hbr.org/2015/03/two-ways-to-clarify-your-professional-passions

My question is this: when she returns, how do I support her while she is in this new (somewhat challenging!) life stage while also making sure the work gets done and the rest of my team doesn’t feel overworked? I want to continue to have the great relationship we had before she went on leave, and continue to build trust and loyalty among our team.

– Leave Supporter

First of all, congratulations to your employee! Growing a family is an exciting and yes, challenging, time in anyone’s life. It sounds like she is a dedicated employee and will be happy to come back to work when her leave is over. You are right in that her routine will be different while she juggles her job and caring for a new baby at home. However, because she has already shown to be a key player, you shouldn’t have to worry about her completing her work unless and until she gives you a reason to do so.

You’ve done a great job so far with recognizing how valuable this employee is; I encourage you to continue this upon her return. Patrick Lencioni in The Truth About Employee Engagement says that the three signs of a miserable job are: anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurability. Conquer these three, and you’ll have an employee who feels valued and supported when she returns to work.

Anonymity

Team members need to be known and understand that they are important to the team. We all need acknowledgement. Managers demonstrate that they care about us when they let us know them and they get to know us personally. When a manager really knows and understands someone and takes a sincere, genuine interest in the person, the impact on the individual’s sense of fulfillment, self-worth, and motivation is extraordinary. Trust is built and can continue to grow over time.

It looks like you’ve already taken a sincere interest in your employee before she went on leave. When she comes back, a nice gesture would be to have a “welcome back” card signed by your team. This shows that her absence was felt and the team is excited to welcome her back. Since you spent some time doing her work, be sure to express your gratitude that she manages these tasks every day. Now that you’ve been able to experience part of what she does during the day, it should come naturally to you to be able to talk with her about the intricacies of certain parts of her role and see where you can support her in it as the tasks transition back to her.

In addition, showing you understand that her life is different now than before she had a baby will go a long way. You should still expect the same work output and professionalism as you would from all your employees, but you may need to be a bit more flexible as she transitions back to work. Showing you care for her as a person and mother will build the trust between you both, and she will work doubly hard because she respects you and you respect her.

Irrelevance

Team members need to know that their work matters. When we understand that our job serves and improves the lives of others, we feel fulfilled at work. Managers can highlight regularly where the job matters – internally, externally, and even (or especially) for the life of the manager. This impact must be real and show how the employee makes a difference. People who see how their work influences others have a greater sense of purpose and motivation.

Similar to the above, because you were more intimate with some of her tasks than you previously were as her manager, you see how what she does intertwines and supports your job as well as those of the rest of the team. You can ensure she understands that what she does is relevant to the team’s goals by having conversations like, “Taking all the calls regarding confusion around the product helped me understand what customers’ experiences were at a much deeper level than before you went on leave. I realized that you translate these issues into action so effectively that it makes it easier for our team to solve the customer’s problem. Thank you for that.”

Immeasurement

Team members need to be able to measure their own level of contribution and success. This measurement must be concrete enough that the employee understands it is not left to the subjective measure of a manager. Without a tangible means of assessing one’s own success or failure, motivation begins to deteriorate. Managers in conversation with employees can bring clarity to these measures of success.

Maybe you realized that neither of you were doing a good job of measuring successes or failures. I encourage you to build some key performance indicators into her role before she returns. This will give you time to test them out since you are the one doing the work. When she returns, having a conversation like, “I realized we weren’t measuring our effectiveness around this task. I’ve added some ways to measure that in the future. Please test it out and let me know if you have any other ideas on how we can show our value.”

Improving Engagement

In doing these things, you will continue to deepen a relationship by understanding her needs and providing remedy in real time. Because of this, your employee should be more understanding and loyal upon return. As your team carries out her responsibilities, you are learning about her relevance and should record specific ways you find her role to be impactful to you and others. The more you understand her and her role, the better you can navigate this important element.

How about you? Have you ever had an employee go out on a leave of absence? How did you support them during that time, and did you make any changes upon their return?

Not entirely. Leaders must engage and grow people. They demonstrate a genuine care for their team. Teams notice this and desire to work harder for someone who they know truly cares about their professional and personal growth.

What if you could re-engineer your leadership style to reflect a selfless and more supportive role? How might that affect your relationships and team dynamics?

What is Servant Leadership?

While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in “The Servant as Leader”, an essay that he first published in 1970. In his essay, Greenleaf describes the qualities of a servant leader. These center around the core concept of putting others before yourself.

The servant-leader puts the needs of others first

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve.” A boss tells you what to do and waits for results. A leader guides you through a project while asking, “How can I help you be successful?”

A great leader constantly communicates with his team and removes barriers for them. What exactly does this look like? One example is that a process is broken, causing excessive administrative burden for an employee. They’ve tried to fix it on their own, but don’t have access to or even know the right individuals involved. With your company knowledge and professional contacts, you arrange a meeting to get all the key players in the room to discuss the issue and next steps. Then, you let your employee manage the process from there, all the while letting them know that you are available to step in only if the problems are insurmountable. After this first intercession, your employee may be able to manage on his own, fix the situation, and move onto the next thing on the list. This approach improves work output and personal confidence.

Some people may think you are doing your employee a favor, when really you’re just doing your job. As a leader or manager, it’s up to you to help your employees with what they need. Your own projects come second.

The servant-leader develops and helps other people to perform with excellence

“The difference between [servant-first and leader-first] manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to become servants?”

In the example above, the servant-leader puts her own projects aside to make sure the employee has what he needs to be successful with the process improvement project. After the project, we see that he’s healthier because he has a good dose of confidence; wiser because he knows how to fix similar future problems; freer and more autonomous because he was supported while still doing all of the work himself; and more likely to become a servant himself because he was led with a great example.

if leaders simply ask for straight-forward work and/or take over a project when it appears an employee needs help, there is no employee development. Skill, morale, and development is ignored. Your best employees want hard, challenging, and interesting work. Give it to them, especially if they aren’t 100% ready for it. With your support, they’ll do what they can, turn to you when they need your expertise, and grow immensely. Afterwards, you’ll have an employee who can problem-solve and think creatively, and continually engage in their work.

The servant-leader shares power instead of holding it solely

It’s lonely at the top. A leader that clings tight to power finds that he or she is less productive, lacks solid professional relationships, and is overall less effective. A leader who empowers his team gets more done because his team has the ability to be more autonomous. Great employees with good ideas can act on them and add value, without hand holding or extreme oversight from their leader.

I’ve been fortunate to see this in action. I know an employee who works hard and builds trust with her leader. Her ideas get a hearing. Her leader asks for an action plan, a timeline, and what resources are needed. The employee feels support. The leader encourages. And both are rewarded with on-time, excellent execution.

What was the leader doing while the employee was working hard? Supporting, encouraging, and helping all her other employees! You can see how much more productive a team of employees such as these can be versus a team who is micro-managed by a boss. A good leader will trust employees to execute, while also verifying the quality of the work product and offering assistance and feedback along the way.

So, Is Servant Leadership Just Masking Weakness?

Is this just soft leadership? Absolutely not. This style of leadership tells the truth and delivers difficult messages. The leader must put the organization’s purpose and need to develop other leaders over his or her own ego and popularity.

This approach requires self-awareness and careful introspection. The servant leader must seek feedback and desire continuous growth and development within him- or herself. There is no way to stay focused on others and maintain a healthy ego without continual cycles of personal focus and humility.

What do you think about servant leadership? Have you seen the effects of great leadership? Let us know in the comments how this might impact your leadership style!

Spontaneous vs. Planned Conversations

There are two ways to meet with your employees. One is a casual, unplanned conversation where you could drop by their desk to see how their weekend was or if they need additional help on a project they asked you about last week. The real relationship-building happens in these small, frequent meetings. This is where you show you care about them personally and professionally on a consistent basis.
 
We recommend that you have one of these short 5-10 minute meetings with each employee at least once a week. You may find that you have more in common with some employees over others, so it’s easier to chat with those employees. Therefore, it’s important that you keep track of who you’ve talked to and make sure to give the same amount of time to everyone.
 
The second meeting style is a formal one-on-one quarterly performance review. These meetings should be held every few months, so you and your employee can discuss how their goals are progressing, correct course if necessary, and have a general discussion about how the year is going. We recommend multiple performance reviews instead of the one yearly review so that employees aren’t surprised by your feedback at the end of the year. Instead, this provides them with constant feedback and encouragement that they can use and act one. Your employees want to know where they stand, where they’re doing well, and where they can improve. Having these regular meetings give them the feedback they need but may not feel comfortable asking for.
 

Planning one-on-one performance reviews

Maintain a regular schedule

Even though you have your own work to do, remember that your primary job as a manager is to manage and support your team. Your role has shifted from task-oriented to people-oriented. Keep this in the front of your mind and it will be easier to organize your many to-do’s.
 
We recommend that you plan your meetings around the same time each quarter so employees know when to expect them . Send the meeting invite a few weeks in advance to give your employee plenty of time to prepare. Some managers schedule these meetings on the same day so they don’t have to shift in and out of this performance review mindset. That could be a good tool for you as you manage your time.
 

Design straight-forward meetings

Keep employees comfortable with the regular meetings by maintaining the same structure in each one and make it fun. We recommend providing the following outline to employees and requesting that they send this to you the evening before your meeting. This gives you time to review and prepare anything in advance.

Regular One-on-One Meeting Outline

1. Follow-ups from previous discussions
   • Accomplished tasks, something interesting or funny that has occurred, anything that hasn’t been addressed since the previous meeting
2. New Items to discuss
   • New projects the employee may have questions on
   • Obstacles that are preventing the employee from moving forward
3. Manager Feedback
   • Report on what you have done on their behalf, team progress, team challenges, interesting developments in the organization, specific praise on a job well done, areas of improvement, etc.

 
At the beginning, these meetings may take 45 minutes. Items 1 and 2 should take about 30 minutes and be solely employee-driven. The last 15 minutes are for the manager to give constructive feedback. Be sure to keep this positive and discuss ways to improve, if applicable. During these meetings, don’t unload everything the employee has been doing wrong in the last few months. Instead, corrective feedback should be given as incidents occur so it is applicable and timely. If you end the quarterly performance review with a list of mistakes, the employee will start to see these meetings in a negative light instead of how productive and team-building they can be.
 
If some employees need less time than others, you can shorten the meetings to 30 minutes. The key is to make the time meaningful and effective for each individual. Honor their time and try to keep the meetings substantive but brief.
 

Set expectations for follow-up

Make commitments of specific items you will do and record what they will do before the next check-in (or other deadlines). Set a reminder in your calendar. If you’re working with an employee you know well who doesn’t need reminders, let the time flow to the check-in. If you’re working with a new employee or one who is not timely, create interim calendar reminders for yourself. This will make sure you catch any miscommunication before it becomes a problem. Follow up questions like, “how’s that task going?” or “how can I help you?” are low-key ways of touching base informally.
 

Keep your open door policy

If consistent informal or quarterly performance review meetings are new for your team, it will take some getting used to. Make sure you let them know that you are still available on a daily basis and that they can always approach you with questions or challenges. These new meetings are to set aside more time for longer discussions.
 
 
Do you have regular meetings with your employees now? If so, what are some of the benefits you are seeing from them? If not, I’d love to hear from you after you implement these ideas in your own creative way.

Improve Your Working Relationship

 
As a manager, there are some steps you can take to rebuild your relationship with your employee and ensure they are satisfied with both their work and their role in the company.
 

Take Initiative

 Good managers always go first.* As managers, we always need to take the initiative and examine our own changes in behavior. It’s important to make and carry out commitments to our employees. With this in mind, review your own behavior and find reasonable, rational, and plausible reasons how your behavior may have sent the message that your employee is unappreciated.
 
This may not seem fair, but it is the first step in having a respectful conversation with the employee. You are not dismissing the behavior of the employee; instead, you are acknowledging that you may have contributed to their feelings.
 

Invite Their Perspective

 
Sit down face-to-face with your employee and share what you are observing. Invite her to share her perspective and listen carefully without interrupting. Paraphrase what the employee is saying without emotion or defensiveness, and clarify with them that you are hearing them. Once you’ve identified the issue, start exploring solutions. Ask for some tentative solutions from the other person’s perspective.
 
Use your best emotional intelligence skills to quiet your own emotions and capture the emotional response from the employee. What did you see and hear?
 
Later, examine your own emotions and write them down. How well did you receive the employee’s feedback?
 

Make a Plan

 
In a follow-up conversation, begin to outline a plan for addressing the employee’s concerns. Make sure that the employee brings ideas and solutions to this discussion. Ideally, the solution should be outlined in measurable and accountable goals that have deadlines and action plans. Sometimes, managers must also make commitments to improve the working relationship.
 

Enhance Employee Satisfaction

 
I am indebted to Pat Lencioni for ideas in improving work environments and employee engagement. In his book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, he suggests three ways to promote engagement and protect against dissatisfaction.
 

Guard Against Anonymity

 
We all need acknowledgement. Team members need to be known and understand that they are important to the team. Managers can demonstrate that they care about employees individually when we let them know us on a more personal level. When a manager really knows and understands someone and takes a sincere, genuine interest in the person, the impact on the individual’s sense of fulfillment, self-worth, and motivation is extraordinary.
 

Eliminate Irrelevance.

 
Team members need to know that their work matters. Employees are more likely to fulfill their job duties when they we understand that their our job serves and improves the lives of others. Managers can regularly highlight where the job matters – internally, externally, and even (or especially) for the life of the manager. This impact must be real; you as a manager must be able to show how the employee makes a difference. Those who see how their work influences others have a greater sense of purpose and motivation.
 

Rule Out Immeasurement**

 
Team members need to be able to measure their own level of contribution and success. This measurement must be concrete enough that the employee understands it is not left to the subjective measure of a manager. Without a tangible means of assessing one’s own success or failure, motivation begins to deteriorate. Managers can bring clarity to these measures of success so their employee can clearly see their contribution.
 

Following Through

 
Work on these areas and look for solutions that allow you and your employee to move toward mutual goals that benefit her, you, your team, and the organization. I’d love to hear back from you after six months to hear if this approach made an appreciable difference.
 
*David Maister reminds me in more than one of his books and articles that good managers always go first.
**This word is not in the dictionary. He invented the word for use in his book.

 
We celebrate love in February, but we hardly ever associate love with business. Maybe we need to rethink the role that love plays in the life of a leader. According to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner of The Leadership Challenge, “Of all the things that sustain a leader over time, love is the most lasting.”
 
In order to bring more love into our work, we first need to understand: “What is love?”
 
We use the word in a variety of ways including describing our affection for someone, detailing our preference for particular foods, and even pledging our loyalty to a certain sports team.
 
The Merriam-Webster dictionary has many definitions that allow for all these scenarios. For the purpose of this post, I want to focus on one aspect of the definition: an unselfish loyalty, benevolence, and concern for the good of another.
 
In a world filled with headlines about aggressive and combative leaders, it’s hard for us to see the role of love. Love feels soft and ambiguous, and our western culture favors strong and stoic characteristics.
 
However, Kouzes and Posner describe effective leaders who are just the opposite. When you stop and truly think about what a leader does, “it’s hard to imagine leaders getting up day after day, putting in the long hours and hard work it takes to get extraordinary things done, without having their hearts in it. The best-kept secret of successful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people who do the work, with what their organizations produce, and with those who honor the organization by using its work. Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.”
 
We now understand what love is and where it fits in the business world. But how can we demonstrate love to be a better leader?
 

SHOW EMPLOYEES THAT YOU CARE ABOUT THEM

 
Take time to get to know your fellow employees, and let them get to know you personally. Learn about their lives outside of work. Understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as along with their preferences and dislikes for certain aspects of the job. Invite your colleagues out to lunch, to after-work drinks, or suggest an outing to a sporting activity. Getting outside of the office enables you to have different types of conversations you may normally have, and get to know another side of someone.
 
Seek to understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as their preferences and dislikes for certain aspects of the job. Learn enough about the person’s role that you can help them understand how much they matter in your business. When you understand and are grateful for their contribution, your colleagues can tell.
 
Find ways to help them navigate their careers and roles in the company. Remove obstacles and help them be successful.
Theodore Roosevelt is famously quoted: “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Show them how much you care with action.
 

GIVE AND RECEIVE FEEDBACK

 
In 5 Behaviors of a Cohesive Team, Patrick Lencioni says that giving feedback is an act of sincere love.
Think about it.
 
Only a friend would tell you that something about your attire is askew. An enemy will let you walk around all day with some embarrassing, unknown mistake for everyone to see.
 
It is an act of love to give accurate, genuine, heartfelt feedback.
 
I’m not writing about the formal annual evaluation. While those are important, giving regular feedback, both positive and negative, on a regular basis helps build trust. The annual evaluation is only bad if it’s filled with surprises that the employee hasn’t heard throughout the year. Informal feedback that shows you care about the employee’s growth and success is the key to demonstrating love.
 
Also, you must receive feedback with the same openness and vulnerability that you share it with others.
We all have blind spots.
 
We will never grow and challenge these areas of our lives without an objective look in the mirror. You demonstrate how much you care when you receive feedback graciously and give effort to improve.
 

EXPRESS YOUR PASSION

 
Like I mentioned, our western culture teaches us to be to be stoic and objective. These are great qualities that show steadiness, patience, and personal resolve. The people around leaders need to see this kind of purpose and willfulness.
 
At the same time, they need to see our passion for the work we do together. Professional passion is the flame inside of you that helps form strong ideas, ignite gifts, and engender the resolve to move forward. This passion moves you toward success and excellence.
 
What do you love about your work? How are you making a difference for the organization, your co-workers, and constituents? What sustains you when things are not going as you hoped and planned? What pushes you to grow and develop to be an effective leader?
 
The answers to the questions should be apparent in how you conduct your work. If your passion and purpose show through in everything you do, it will inspire others to be more transparent with their passion as well.
 

SHOW SOME LOVE

 
Love has everything to do with success in business. We may hesitate to use the word “love” in the business context, but we should never extinguish the flame or hesitate to show our genuine concern for our co-workers.