Imagine a ten person rowing shell racing on a river against tough competition. Imagine that three members of the crew are rowing their hearts out. But five are rowing listlessly, basically enjoying the scenery. And two are actively trying to sink the boat. That’s the picture of employee engagement in the United States painted by Gallup’s 2013 State of the Global Workplace – Employee Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide.
That’s likely to be the situation in your company. A third of your people are really aligned, meaning (among other things) that they identify their own success with the company’s success. Half don’t really care. They are going through the motions, mostly looking forward to the end of the day and going home. Twenty percent of the people in the company are actively trying to sabotage the company and would be happy to see it fail. Mark Crowley provides further analysis of employee engagement and the survey results in his article: “Gallup’s Workplace Jedi on How to Fix Our Employee Engagement Problem".
The Importance of Employee Engagement and Loyalty Values
Having run and advised many companies mostly in high tech and telecommunications, I look at the challenge of employee engagement that the survey raises from the perspective of my leadership experience. While there are many definitions of leadership, my favorite is “the conscious co-creation of a vision of the future of the organization with significant future value for each constituency of the organization.”
Let’s dissect that definition. Start with the word “conscious.” Creation of a compelling vision for a company that can inspire outstanding employee loyalty and performance does not happen by accident. It must be a deliberate, well planned activity. But it’s not a matter of dictating a “mission statement” from on high. “Co-creation” suggests that the creation of a vision unfolds as a highly collegial process involving all of the constituents of an organization.
Defining an Inspiring Company Objective
While led by the CEO and management team, the effort to define a mission and objectives should include employees, customers, suppliers and investors. The company objective must be one that can inspire peoples’ hearts and minds “significant future value.” It’s the value that everyone is striving to realize--each constituency and each person in each constituency.
“Significant future value” to one person may be job security. To another, it may be the opportunity to gain new skills and experience and advance in their career, whether with this company or another. To a supplier, it may be increased revenue and earnings as the company grows and becomes a larger customer. To an investor, it means an increase in the value of their investment in the company. To a Board Member, it may mean the opportunity to interact with other directors, enhancing their contacts and credentials.
The CEO's Role in Employee Engagement
Entrepreneurial founders have their own personal vision of the future of the company they’ve started. Their challenge is to achieve widespread consensus around and behind that vision to guide the growth of the company.
The process is analogous to raising our children. We want our company and our children to learn and become successful, productive, respected members of the community. Instilling good values like integrity, perseverance and teamwork are the foundation of both processes.
As CEOs of entrepreneurial companies we have two choices. We can proactively engage with our children, guiding them as they grow and learn. Or we can “hope for the best” and leave them to figure out values and culture on their own. The result of the latter choice may be that--while we still love our children (or company) in the future--we really don’t like who (or what) they’ve grown up to be.
There is a wealth of guidance and recommendations available on employee engagement, leadership, and building company cultures. For example, Michael Chayes weighs in with some practical ideas in “How Can We Solve the Employee Disengagement Problem?”
The challenge of the CEO and the management team is to build an understanding of the underlying principles that apply to each topic, and to apply those principles in guiding the growth of the company. The title of a book by David Campbell says it all: "If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else!".
Results are much better and every constituency is much happier if everyone agrees on where they and the company are going. When everyone is convinced that the path for them and the company points toward reaching “significant future value,” the boat you’re rowing together has its best chance to win the race.
About the Expert
Pete Savage has been CEO and Board Member of several innovative telecom firms. Pete’s deep background in technology has led him to entrepreneurial roles in many industries. He currently leads a company organized to commercialize technology developed at the University of South Florida to support video imaging systems for minimally invasive surgery. Contact or learn more about Pete here.
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