Business…Fueled By People

On an annual basis, business spends BILLIONS of dollars trying to not only engage their employees, but to measure just how engaged they are in the workplace. Just writing that sentence makes me think of my father and what his reaction would have been; probably something like, “you get a paycheck don’t you, should that keep you engaged?”

Despite all of the media reports about low unemployment rates, the fact of the matter is it is pretty difficult to get and hang onto a job; so is that a contributing factor to the dismal workplace engagement numbers we see reported over and over again? People who have jobs are just happy to go along to get along and keep the paycheck coming?

Trying to delve into the numbers, make sense of them and improve them has become a thriving business for consultants and business leadership development types. Here is a look at a pair of new books that offer not only insight into the issue, but could offer solutions on how to improve your results and in the process contribute to the growth of your bottom line.  

The Workplace Engagement Solution: Find a Common Mission, Vision and Purpose with All of Today’s Employees – David Harder (Career Press)

David Harder, the founder of Inspired Work, an organizational a career development company pegs the global employee engagement number at roughly 13%. That is flat out, a dismal number. It has become gospel that an engaged employee, someone who comes to work every day and driven to perform will help contribute to growing the businesses bottom line. So how does a CEO or business owner light a fire under his people and get them to perform at the highest levels of their ability?

Harder makes the case in his book, The Workplace Engagement Solution: Find a Common Mission, Vision and Purpose with All of Today’s Employees, that leaders have to set the tone for helping to drive change and build a culture that engages employees. For me the title says it all! If you don’t build the cornerstone of your business on a common mission, vision and purpose, and communicate, communicate and communicate those values over and over, then how can you attract the right people to come to work for you, and without the right people who can you ever hope to succeed?

Harder makes the case that it’s more difficult to find great, engaged employees than it is to build them. While the process of mentoring and developing skillsets is hard work and heavy lifting, at the end of the day the increased buy in makes it worth the effort.

You cannot over-communicate the mission; if your people don’t know what the company stands for, how can ever expect them to be engaged in the businesses success? Real engagement doesn’t happen if you put a bunch of flowery words on nice, framed posters to hang in the lobby; real engagement means you have to live up to those values and lead by example every day.

The Power of People Skills: How to Eliminate 90% of Your HR Problems and Dramatically Increase Team and Company Morale and Performance – Trevor Throness – (Career Press)

Talk to most business owners and ask them what their number one problem is and more often than not they will tell you something like “It’s hard (impossible) to find (retain) good people!” People are the problem; they make up the greatest part of business expenses and they chew through the bulk of a business owner/leaders time.

Veteran business coach Trevor Throness has narrowed down the problem to one very simple equation; great cultures insist on having star players in every key position and poor cultures are the one who continue to tolerate under performers.

Think about it, how often have you heard the old saw about 20% of the people doing 80% of the work? If you are among the 20%, how does having a boss who makes that comment make you feel? Does it feel something like this; Why the heck am I working so hard and allowing this jackass to continue to allow people to slack off and not carry their share of the load?

Poll after poll points out that good people leave their bosses, not their jobs and much of that can likely be traced back to putting up with rather than confronting those underperformers. Taking action, that most leaders know deep down they need to take, could be the most difficult thing a leader does. Throness offers some great tools to help leaders through that process. While it still won’t be easy, when handed the very simple question; “If I could do it all over again, would I hire this person?” That simple question offers a level of clarity and a connection to purpose that will give you as a leader a clear course of action.

Think about the best and the worst leaders you ever worked for and determine what it was that put them at one end or the other of that spectrum. More often than not it is people skills or a lack of them that was the dividing point. Developing strong people skills is a must have for any leaders toolbox and both of these books will make fine additions to helping you forge that skillset.