The Five Rules Of Engagement
February 9, 2009 by Miki Saxon
Last week I wrote about both the need and approaches for management to communicate bad news openly and honestly. Wes Ball commented on the need to keep employees involved, which is what I was planning to talk about today.
The language of employee involvement keeps changing, so if you want to do more research, “engage,” in its many forms, seems to be the term of choice for now.
There are five basic rules that must be followed when your focus is to create, enhance or increase engagement.
Rule One: Engagement is based on trust. If employees don’t trust their management then management can forget about engaging its employees.
Rule Two: Engagement requires involvement. Asking for employee input after the decision(s) are already made is a con and breaks trust.
Rule Three: Engagement is based on fairness. Treating a select minority as royalty and the rest like replaceable dirt disengages everyone (including the royalty) and breaks trust.
Rule Four: Engagement requires management to make its decisions first for the sake of the company, second for the sake of the group and third for the sake of themselves. Done in any other order break trust.
Rule Five: Engagement requires courage, authenticity and genuineness (see Notes). Any form of lie/cheat/steal/trash breaks trust.
And while Rule One is the primary rule it is also the corollary of the other four.
Engaging your people, whatever your level of management, starts in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).
No matter how well taught, implementing the mechanics of engagement can proceed no further than your belief in, and adherence to, the five rules.
If your MAP acknowledges a need to break the rules don’t waste your time on engagement efforts, because they are doomed to fail. That energy would be better used on recruitment, since your attrition rate will be far higher than any layoff could account for.
NOTE: Two of the best sources on engagement mechanics are Steve Roseler and David Zinger.
Your comments—priceless
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Miki, great post! Especially in today’s economy, great companies and organizations have to engage their employees not only to help them be more productive and valuable, but also to keep them in a good mood! :)
Thanks for your continued posting. I always find them valuable!
Rhett
http://www.PersonalLeadershipInsight.com
Miki,
First, I enjoy your posts. They are easy to read and follow the K.I.S.S. principle. That’s a good thing.
With that said, a couple of points you mentioned speaks of a concept called “managerial courage.” Rules 1, 4, and 5 are all part of managerial courage – trust, making decisions on behalf of the company first, and of course, courage itself. I suppose engagement and managerial courage may have a certain overlap…Perhaps, this can be a future post of yours. I’ve attached an article I wrote on the subject.
Nice work!
Chris
Very useful post, thank you!
Hi Rhett, thanks for the kind words. I agree with you, but with most management running scared and investors (read Wall Street) still demanding decent quarterly reports or else, I’m not holding my breath.
Hi Chris, thanks; I’m a big proponent of KISS. I’m not so sure about them overlapping, and I don’t really see ‘managerial courage’ as being primary; it certainly doesn’t include or outrank ‘trust’ in my mind. I did read your article (thanks for the link) and we seem to have divergent views on leadership.
But divergent is good, since I’m a firm believer that divergent is what forces people to THINK, as opposed to homogenized, which allows them to sleepwalk through their experiences. Divergent also keeps things from getting boring.
Hi Rares, I’m glad that you’re finding the site useful. For a PR guy you are a man of few words. (I assume you are male, if not I apologize. I’m not familiar with Romanian names, although my mother’s family emigrated from there:)
You are right, Miki. Reading a lot of technical, professional, and creative blogs, I can merely leave some opinions, from time to time. On the other hand, I have a sort of knowing-all-guy-phobia, if you know what I mean, hahaha!, so I carefully and thoroughly read first, then comment. Thanks for letting me in!
PS: the world is really, really small, isn’t it?
And getting smaller, Rares, and totally interwoven as the current mess proves.
I hope you’ll share how-it’s-done there info as you’re moved. I believe my readers would find it interesting and it certainly won’t make you sound like a know-it-all.
Do you really think the sake of the company should be the first rule? If so, then why do so many companies lie and say they do things “for the good of employees” when they are really acting on behalf of the company?
If this is really true, then why do we believe anything our leaders tell us is “good for us” when really it is “good for the company?”
I like the list though. VERY simple and straightforward. Anyone can do it if they care enough to put forth the effort required.
Hi Phil, Yes, I really do. It’s the bias factor. Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld made many decisions and took risks with an eye to maximizing bonuses for his group, not the whole company and ended up killing the company. I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way, but any leader looking long term would, as did John Stumpf at Wells Fargo. Decisions that insure the long-term health of a company are best for all employees, although the chosen few made out better under Fuld.
The other thing to remember is that the employees are the company. Companies aren’t stand-alone entities, think about itl, if all the employees quit what would there be left?
I’m glad you like my Rules; that’s quite a compliment coming from you.