The Heart of Engagement : Leadership Development & Executive Coaching : Mike Cook of Vitalwork Inc. / The AMJ Group : Management Education, Retreat Facilitation

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

                                                  Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher, 600≈ BC

Alright sissies, listen up! You read and read about Ten Ways to Develop Yourself as a Leader, Eight Sure Fire Ways to Get People to Follow Your Lead, Five Things to Think About Before You Start Your leadership Career, etc. etc. There are any number of articles and books you have on your shelves telling you what a leader DOES and you think maybe if you buy just this one more, especially since it is by Tom Peters, and read it thoroughly, maybe you will finally BE a leader*. The critical factor most of us forget while trying to figure out what to DO, if we ever even realized it before, is that we are playing a game set up by someone else and the odds are stacked in favor of certain outcomes even before we accept the position.

*Alan Keith, as quoted by Kouzes and Posner in 'The Leadership Challenge' stated that, "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen."

With these words of Alan Keith’s in mind maybe it is legitimate to ask if you are a leader at all or perhaps someone holding a management position being referred to as a leader. There is nothing lacking in being a manager but leadership is a different game. To check this out answer yourself this question: When was the last time people caused something extraordinary to happen on your watch?

If you are working in any formalized organizational structure there are any number of natural leadership challenges that are handled by the system in which your position is embedded before you ever assume your role inside a management hierarchy. To learn about authentic leadership you might want to watch some of the experienced folks in your organization who operate effectively without title or authority.

Better yet, if you want to see an example of leadership that is caused rather than assumed, I’ll call it “Freestyle Leadership”, take a trip to Benton Harbor, Michigan** and visit the offices of the Harbor Shores Transformational Center at 88 West Main Street in the heart of downtown. (Watch some of the videos)

( **Policom Corporation unveiled its 2010 rankings of the economic strength of the top 366 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the US in late spring. Benton Harbor made the list at #347. Things could be worse!)

Before you arrive at the offices of The Consortium for Community Development which houses the Harbor Shores Transformation Center you may want to call ahead if you’d like to meet the President, Marcus Robinson. The day I visited, late on a Friday afternoon, Marcus had been expecting me and when I arrived he was on the phone. We are old friends so when he held up five fingers I knew he meant he’d be with me in about five minutes. An hour later I had walked across the street for coffee and given myself a brief walking tour of the downtown area and he was still hard at the conversation. When he finally did emerge from behind his phone he said that he’d been involved with matters related to the Benton Harbor school system. I asked how his role as a Community Developer called for his involvement with schools. His response really didn’t surprise me and it goes to the heart of what I mean when I coin the phrase “Freestyle Leadership.” He said that in a town like Benton Harbor, if you demonstrate that you are someone who can get things to happen you become a ‘go to’ guy.

Clearly the record of accomplishment that Marcus has become associated with since arriving in Benton Harbor in late 2004 has established him in the eyes of many in the local area as a 'go to' guy. Marcus will be the first to admit that many people have contributed to the achievements realized in Benton Harbor since he was hand picked for his role by the now retired CEO of Whirlpool Corporation, Dave Whitwam. These two first met when they were working together to develop Whirlpool as a much more inclusive culture as it continued to globalize in the early 2000's. In Marcus, Dave recognized someone who was already well developed for a role as catalyst for the reinvention of the Benton Harbor area. He is someone who instinctively works to influence, not convince, and his style is much like that described in the earlier opening words from Lao Tzu, he works in the background.

I asked him how he likes to be referred to in the role he plays in Benton Harbor. He said, " It works best for me if people refer to me as Marcus, anything else and I find myself getting painted into a corner and limited in terms of what I can engage with."

No authority, no rules, no limits and no guarantees. Operating from vision and responsibility with an understanding that unless people end up with a sense of what they have done for themselves the real job has not gotten done. I think at some point Lao Tzu, Alan Keith and Marcus Robinson would enjoy having a cup of tea together.

• Where can you free yourself of the shackles of the institution and unleash the human spirit around you?

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For most of his 50+ year film making career, Sean Connery has entertained audiences by repeatedly playing one type of character. Dashing, unpredictable, unmanageable to be sure, we are not quite sure he is a hero, but we are glad he works for our side. Great stuff for the silver screen but not much of a leadership model. Ironically, his greatest professional honor, an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, came while playing the consummate team player, Officer Jimmy Malone in the 1987 movie version of “The Untouchables.”

In this film Connery’s character assumed the role of “leadership coach” for the young, passionate but naïve Elliot Ness, played by Kevin Costner. In what may be Malone’s most memorable scene, he delivers a brief soliloquy on how Ness can best deal with his arch enemy, Al Capone…

“You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital; you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?”

                             Officer Jimmy Malone, The Untouchables, 1987

Throughout the film, Officer Malone offers the younger Ness an ongoing stream of this plain speak on how to deal effectively with his foes. In one instances he delivers his message with the aid of a classic rhetorical question when a gangster draws a knife and attempts to stab Ness and winds up shot dead in the process. “Isn’t that just like a #@&**#?,” he asks, “Brings a knife to a gun fight!”

Could any message be clearer? If indeed we do need a translation, the Urban Dictionary offers this… ‘Bringing a knife to a gun fight- The act of taking an amount of any substance to a gathering which is obviously insufficient.’ (This site also offers to sell you T-Shirts, coffee cups and fridge magnets emblazoned with this saying. I’ll leave decisions on such offers to your judgment!)

Last week I was reminded of this later bit of leadership counsel from Officer Malone in an exchange I was having with officials at my son’s college. It seems that a piece of equipment my son borrowed from the school last spring was noted as damaged upon its return. I was made aware of this situation when I went to pay his fall tuition and was barred from doing so by a flag in his record indicating that the damage needed to be paid for before he would be allowed to register.

I contacted my son who said he was aware of the damage and noticed it when he originally picked up the piece of equipment. Since it did not affect the functionality of the equipment, he didn’t pay any further attention. Unfortunately he should have brought the damage to the attention of the department personnel when he borrowed the equipment. They didn’t see the issue until the equipment was returned and the cost of repair was $120.

Based on my son’s explanation, I did not see that we should bear the full cost but also recognized that the department had nothing to go on either except the testimony of one of their employee’s. I proposed to the supervisor that we split the difference equally since we had on our hands what amounted to a “he said, he said” situation. The supervisor replied by saying he was not authorized to make such an arrangement. This is where Officer Jimmy Malone’s words came back to me in a flash of recognition, “Isn’t that just like a #@&**#? He brings a knife to a gun fight!”

At that moment the supervisor probably felt as though he was standing there naked as I blurted out, “You are kidding right, you cannot make a decision on what amounts to a $60 transaction?” Two levels of management later I was able to conclude the conversation with the department director agreeing to my proposal!

It really doesn’t matter the name of my son’s school and it doesn’t even matter that it was a school, it could just as easily have been a manufacturing company’s service department, and the lesson would have been the same.

We ask our managers to lead, to inspire, to direct others in producing results of all kinds and yet we limit their authority in ways that leave them humiliated in front of their charges or the customer. These very same people, who, in their private lives, can purchase automobiles worth thousands of dollars, enter into mortgage arrangements for hundreds of thousands of dollars; bring children into the world without asking our permission…need our approval for trivial transactions. Why?

Before you get all “Sarbanes Oxley” with me or “but, but, but you don’t understand,” just stop! Whatever you are going to say next…that…that right there that you were going to say…is craaaaaap!

Engagement and power are inseparable. If our managers are dis-empowered how can we expect their engagement at anything other than a compliance level? Why would we ever expect them to inspire or be inspired themselves?

• Where have we 'hog-tied' our managers and are wondering why they under perform?
• If you are a manager; where are you constrained by practices that do not seem to respect your abilities to make sound choices, and you are putting up with it?

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“Can it possibly get any worse?
If you thought Tiger Woods' career was at low ebb, then you were wrong. Last week, the tide not only receded, he got stuck in the primordial muck and produced the most head-turning display on the golf course in his career, finishing 30 strokes behind Hunter Mahan at a course where he had never before finished worse than fourth and had won a tour-record seven titles. Woods is lost.”

 Steve Elling, CBS Sports Senior Writer 8-09-10

“Tiger Woods currently has no coach."

                                  Mike Cook

                                  The Heart of Engagement August 10, 2010

With apologies to William Shakespeare and Richard III…. Is it just me or has it been raining coaches in the business world for about the past fifteen years…and they come with certifications in case you need one, from all sorts of sources:

• Coach U
• Coach Inc.
• Center for Executive Coaching
• International Coach Academy
• Etc.

Some of these programs are several months in duration, some offer ongoing support, some are available on-line and some even offer certification in as little as 16 hours! I guess the familiar saying, “Let the Buyer Beware” pertains no matter what the offering.

Coaches are now available on nearly every street corner and make up a large portion of the attendees at any local ASTD meeting or networking group. The ‘rise of the coaches’ seems to be coincident with the proliferation of large scale downsizings that swept through the country in the mid-1990’s following the first wave of reengineering initiatives, also known as “right sizing” our organizations. It does provide individuals a low cost avenue to get into their own business, provides a valuable service, can be tailored to support just about any lifestyle and it is a rewarding profession.

However, I am less concerned for the proliferation of coaches, though dubious of quality in many cases, than I am in the absence of demand for coaching in general, most dramatically absent among many who profess to be involved in employee development, namely mid-level managers.

I am guessing that when you read the opening scenario reporting on Tiger Woods performance over the weekend at the Firestone Classic (assuming you know who he is) your thoughts immediately jumped to his recently confessed marital transgressions and you may have said to yourself, “I am not surprised with all that going on in his personal life that he cannot concentrate on golf!” I’d agree with that assessment. However, I am more mystified that someone whose career was built in close association with well known coaches, his father Earl Woods, Butch Harman, and Hank Haney among others would now find himself in the midst of the greatest crisis of his life operating without a coach!

There are limits to everything in this world, why lessen the chances for accomplishment by trying to approach tough challenges without support? In America I am afraid it is an affliction of our heritage. We have actually bought hook-line-and-sinker into the mythology of the self-made person or the ‘rugged individual.’ Asking for help, especially in the highly competitive environments of many of our commercial organizations has been/is seen as a sign of weakness or insufficiency. These American myths persist despite the fact that any close examination of what might be interpreted as “individual success” can readily be understood as the talents or vision of any famous business figure being heavily complimented and supplemented by others around them far less visible but nonetheless critical to the success realized. As the English poet John Donne so rightly said several centuries ago “…no man is an island, entire of itself…”

So what does determine the upper limits of accomplishment? There are undoubtedly numerous factors but I’ll venture that among them the foremost is the willingness to be coached, an openness to outside perspective and a recognition that anything truly remarkable or worth attaining will likely result from embracing the principle of interdependency.

For those among you that are up to something and might be ready to take the plunge into a coaching relationship I recommend a baby step to get started. There are today many fine coaches writing and making their insights, experience and wisdom available free of charge in the form of their regular blogs.

Some I like are:

Dan McCarthy- expert on management and leadership development

Steve Roesler – covers a vast array of management concerns

Mary Jo Asmus- a true executive coach

Bret Simmons - research based practical management advice

Jon Ingham – Human Capital Management, it is about the people after all

Sharlyn Lauby – calls herself an HR Bartender, she is a lot more than that!

If you think you can handle more coaching or if you like variety in your messaging try the “buffet” that goes by the name Human Capital League. If you can’t find something worth taking in at this site you are probably beyond help.

• Can you identify your reluctance to asking for help or seeking a personal advocate to keep you at the top of your game? It will be something simple, look for it first as an emotion, then as a statement of fact, a rule you have adopted without reflection.

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Last Friday morning around 6:15AM as I was waiting to check in for my flight in Rochester, New York the lines for boarding passes were moving very slowly for what is normally the busiest time of each day. As I looked at the people standing in front of the self-service kiosks I noticed several who appeared to be frozen in front of the terminal screens.

If you’ve flown in the past couple of years you know that almost all check-in service at most airports is now done without the assistance of airline personnel.

There were at least ten kiosks and two airline attendants shuttling back and forth behind the machines grabbing baggage tags and calling out names. No doubt you’ve seen this show more than once. The airline attendants didn’t seem to notice the four people stuck in front of the terminals or the lines of folks backing up and starting to grumble at how slow things were moving. I stepped up to one of the “frozen” people and asked if I could help. My assistance was welcomed and within a couple of minutes I had helped three other people and the lines started moving again and those folks were on their way. (I am no urban hero, I was stuck behind these people myself so my actions were very self-serving.)

You can probably imagine that if you don’t travel very frequently the routine we now go through at the airports, while necessary, might also be confronting and almost overwhelming for some people. If you are a operating an airline why have a minimum number of people on hand at what is known to be the busiest time of the day and why have those that are there doing the same thing rather than attending to what is needed? No doubt you know the answer, attempts to reduce operating expense. If you’ve flown recently you have also no doubt heard the little speech each airline I fly gives at the end of each flight about how they know we have a choice of who we fly with and they appreciate our businesses, blah, blah, blah. This speech comes of course after having been short changed on the front end of the flying experience and now you are telling me how much you appreciate my business. How does the saying go, “Actions speak louder than words?”

For the infrequent traveler that front end experience can be more than confounding, it can be humiliating. I wonder if the recognition of what people might be going through crosses the minds of the cost cutters at airlines headquarters?

Have you had a frustrating IVR experience recently, you know, Interactive Voice Response limbo, one of those calls where you suddenly realize that if you hit two yet one more time you may arrive at the fifth level of Dante’s Inferno? The thought crosses your mind that maybe the website is a better idea, after all they mentioned the website at the beginning of your call, maybe this cul-de-sac approach is their way of encouraging you to use it?

How about entering a lobby on your first visit to a new or potential client and finding yourself in a locked enclosure? You are greeted by a written message next to a house phone indicating that you need to dial the party you are there to visit and they will come to the lobby to meet you.

I know why all of these things are done and I cannot excuse the absence of leadership behind each action of this type. Somewhere along the line someone I will never meet has decided I am not going to be made to feel welcome or maybe worse, even discouraged from participating with this company, all in the interest of some savings in operating expense. And no one with a customer facing responsibility has stepped up and said there could be a cost to this approach to saving money. Well congratulations, you have saved the money, now figure out how you are going to replace my business! Does this sound harsh? It should, this is the age of choices and I will exercise mine and so will those people who were humiliated while standing confused in front of your kiosk or feeling unwanted while they stumbled through your IVR maze or thumbed through your employee directory looking for the name of their “host.”

•  What expense reduction practices does your organizations employ that may well be driving customers away?

• What practices does your organization employ that might suggest to employees that they are expendable or taken for granted?

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When I look around my natural surroundings in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, or do organizational research as I frequently do by watching Animal Planet or Discovery Channel (more the older programming about bugs,snakes and Wildebeest, not the new stuff like ‘MythBusters’ or ‘Dirty Jobs’), I am constantly reminded of the principals of diversity, interdependency and inclusiveness that underlie the workings of the natural world.

On the other hand, when I consider many of the models employed when evaluating, developing and rewarding employees in our commercial enterprises I am confronted by the focus on internal competition as well as the heavy emphasis on rewarding individual performance, despite exhortations to pull together, be a team, think big picture etc. Does it ever occur to us that these practices may serve more to confuse than to encourage employees and thereby produce a negative impact on engagement?

I am referring here to regular practices of putting individual employees or groups of employees in artificially competitive situations or force ranking employees for compensation purposes, like that ever made any sense! How about the discussions that many of us have participated in where we cull out our “A” players or make lists of High Potential Employees, (Hipos? Hypos? more non-words from the HR/OD vocabulary)  all without much recognition for or questioning of the models that give rise both to the vocabulary we use and the practices we engage in.

To what degree might your own organization routinely and thoughtlessly engage in these and similar practices without questioning whether, 

• the fundamental assumptions on which they were originally based are or ever were valid, 
• the degree to which (validity aside) the practices we employ when evaluating or rewarding employees contribute to or impede the basic level of engagement of the major contingent of our employee base 
• key measurements used to establish the basis for rewards or developmental opportunities are true measures of performance or really “roll-ups”, reports of aggregate outcomes of other measures which if considered separately might be much more meaningful, if not for purposes of reward most certainly for developmental planning,
• there is the slightest recognition of the nature or fundamental motivations of the factions within organizations that insist on the preservation of traditional models , especially compensation models that favor the few over the many?

And all this is to say that possibly the compensation systems we so doggedly cling to are only satisfactory for a minority of employees but that minority is responsible for designing the systems.

In my real life corporate working career as an HR professional I was once “forced ranked” among a group of 97 other professionals, most of whom had highly technical backgrounds. According to my manager I was ranked #15 among the group. Not too bad you say! How about the fact that I could not have performed the work of any of the people ranked above or immediately below me on the list?

When they wrote ‘First Break All the Rules’ back in 1999 Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman gave managers everywhere a collective “big shove” between the shoulder blades and suggested it was time for us to wake up. They offered anecdotal references and data that suggested that there was significant evidence that many of who they considered to be the world’s best managers did not play by the traditional rules. They actually, of their own volition, did what they considered to be in the best interest of each employee, without regard to past practices of existing policies. How far have we come since then? Eleven years after its first publication, Amazon reports ‘First Break…’ among its top ten best selling titles in both Management and Leadership Categories. For me that is pretty compelling information.We're still a'studyin, maybe soon we'll get to more doin!

How do you feel about normal distribution curves, I mean as they relate to human characteristics like IQ, talent etc.? Personally, I am a big believer in the laws of natural distribution. That is one reason why I have never understood the arrogance of highly intelligent people. How do you become arrogant about an accident of nature? Given my beliefs in this regard 

• I do admit to a natural bias on my part towards models that support and reward collaborative performance. 
• I also admit to a bias towards systems of reward that honor individual accomplishment, especially performance that benefits the larger collective of employees and the organization as a whole.
• Finally, I admit to a bias towards developmental practices that originate with both a deep understanding of organizational needs and a deep and comprehensive understanding of individual talents and strengths. I favor having these practices grounded in a commitment to optimize the interests of all parties involved.

Do these biases and beliefs of mine sound contradictory or paradoxical?  They should if they are meant in any way to reflect the true complexity of dealing with human beings in increasingly complex commercial settings.

• Where do you shy away from the complexities of employees?
• Do you embrace simplistic thinking when it comes to employees because it saves time or is just so much easier to understand?
• Do you shoot for practices and policies that encourage collaboration and inclusiveness and build on the strength of diverse perspectives and talents?

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A short time ago while leading a workshop I was asked this question by someone who sounded like an experienced manager. “What do I do with an obviously talented report who just doesn’t seem committed to the work he has been assigned?” The manager and I engaged in a brief dialogue to establish the signs that the employee was not committed. What we rapidly determined was probably not surprising. The manager was not necessarily reporting on the results being produced, she was reporting on her observations of the mannerisms of the employee. She didn’t like his attitude! Though not exceptional, the results were fine, but the employee was often overheard discussing matters related to Fantasy Football with colleagues when time could be used for additional production or education on the finer points of the work.

At first glance this may seem silly to even talk about. However, I am in and around a lot of managers and supervisors, literally thousands over the period of any given year. It is not uncommon for me to hear similar concerns expressed by many who have management responsibility.

{I’ll be the first one to tell any employee that I believe employee engagement is the responsibility of the employee, when I am talking to employees…and in the blink of an eye I’ll be the first one to tell management that employee engagement is the responsibility of management, when I am talking to management. From my perspective the conversation depends on where you are in the relationship and make no mistake about it, engagement is a matter of relationship. Like any other relationship worth being involved with, there is no simply doing your part; you are either in for the whole thing or not at all.}

As the conversation continued with this particular manager I asked an intentionally provocative question. “Have you ever asked this employee what he finds so engaging about fantasy football?” The manager came back quickly with, “Why should I have to do that?” The point of the question was to establish where the manager stood regarding responsibility for this employee’s level of engagement. The question she asked in response to mine quickly established where she stood. She assumed none.

 I went on to ask whether she understood that fantasy football was a fairly complex topic requiring considerable research and attention to detail and nuance. Yes, it was a game that concerned a sport but the skills involved in gaining proficiency called for dedication ,study and analysis of statistics, and a commitment to keeping up to date with an ever changing landscape of information. What if she sat down with this employee and explored his interest in depth, strictly for the purpose of understanding what it was about this game that the employee was so passionate about? Might an exploration like this allow her to understand what it was about the game that captured this employee’s interest and warranted such freely given dedication? Perhaps then she might be able to consider structuring the employee’s work to take advantage of his natural interests and get more of the attitude she was looking for as well as more productivity.

She didn’t buy it! And so it goes.

By now you are probably thinking that this encounter I have described is an exception and managers who follow a compliance-based approach to managing productivity and overall performance are fewer and farther between. I beg to differ and I beg you to consider that to the degree you don’t recognize your own or know your manager’s basic attitudes about employee engagement your employee base, your organization’s working capital, is at risk.

Intuitively I have for a number of years suspected that engagement, productivity, retention and profitability are intertwined like the links of the DNA helix. Mainly I came to this belief this by observing myself in relationship to whatever work was required of me. But now we can all go beyond simple belief or intuition and I think we owe it to our profession as managers to do just that. Thanks to a timely tweet from my associate and colleague Paul Hebert today I received a “heads up” on a newly released posting from Bret Simmons titled appropriately enough, “Employee Engagement and Performance: Finally some Credible Evidence.” Take a look for yourself. Bret’s cites some very sound newly released research evidence on the critical relationship between job engagement and performance. Pay particular attention to the closing words to his post, “If you find yourself lamenting that your employees don’t appear engaged, you are going to have to do something different.”

• The corollary to Bret's closing words of course is that if you are not willing to do something different, you can reduce your suffering by not expecting anything to change!
  

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Working with a group of managers this week we opened what has now become to me a familiar and productive organizational conversation. “How can we learn to need, not just use each other?” The group I was working with was by any standards “high functioning” yet it was obvious upon introduction that they didn’t quite grasp the question they were being asked. So, I tried asking the question in a slightly different way, “OK, what’s the real reason everyone complains about IT?” This proved to be a bit more penetrating as the people in the group began to grasp that what I was pushing them on and what was making them uncomfortable was having to acknowledge something that we have all become familiar with in our organizational lives, avoiding vulnerability. We all do it and we don’t talk about it. But what if we did?

Back in 1959 Peter Drucker coined the term ‘knowledge worker’, he then spent a good portion of the next 45 years studying and revamping his theories about knowledge worker productivity and how best to adapt and adjust management practice to account for this new reality. He went so far as to say, “…better knowledge work productivity is our most important economic need.” He further warned that our long term prosperity and even our economic survival depend upon it.

Today more than ever our habitual treatments of Drucker’s ideas as quaint or optional are like “chickens coming home to roost.”

Through observation of this new reality of economic life, the worker as asset not merely resource, Drucker developed some perspectives that the majority of managers are, 5 years after his death, just beginning to grasp. What Drucker saw was the need for managers to simultaneously make their present Enterprise more effective, identify and realize its potential, and create a different Enterprise for a different future. In so doing he suggested that business leaders needed to continually shift resources from less productive to more productive areas through better knowledge work productivity and innovation.

“ …business leaders need to continually shift resources from less productive to more productive areas ...”

The implication of this statement is profound and redefines what it means to manage. It is no longer sufficient to think of the role of management in terms of knowing what needs to be done and seeing to it that it gets done. While this definition  remains a portion of what it means to be a manager we must expand the demand on the role to include “knowing” what talent is available at all times and seeing to it that it is put to use for the best advantage of the enterprise. It also means, and this is where the “why we are all afraid of IT” thing keeps coming up; as managers we must be able to recognize what knowledge and skill we need… that we do not have and cannot provide for ourselves… that we will be reliant on others to provide. This last requirement makes us veeerrry uncomfortable. Embracing the interdependency....eeeeeuuuuwwww!

In order to succeed in the manner Drucker is describing we are going to learn to consciously, strategically need the talents, knowledge and skills of not only those people working for us but also of those we will collaborate with. And look at us; we are still struggling with getting our performance reviews done on time, again, this year, for the umpteenth consecutive year. It is time to step up our game or step away from the role!

Tomorrow I’ll go back into my workshop and we will continue to explore this newly introduced distinction between needing people and using them. As the conversations unfolds predictably the managers in the group will begin to see that they

• Need to know a great deal more about themselves in terms of strengths and limitations.
• Need to know much more about the capabilities and interests of people reporting to them, continue to know what needs to be done and now who is best to do it and, what is going to need to get done that we must be preparing for now or we’ll never be ready and who should be doing that and
• Know where they currently have collaborators who are not being related to as assets, what do those assets need from them in order to be able to provide them service and what are they going to need from these collaborators in the future that they need to let them know about now so their expectations stand a chance of being met.

And at some point in the process of becoming fully aware of what is called for now they are going to become overwhelmed with the limitations they have placed on themselves and recognize that they will need to shed some of the protective behavior patterns they have used to avoid vulnerability until now. And they will get a bit panicky, and then they will be fine.

Puff, puff, puff! Whew! The level of complexity is daunting and yet if we (managers) continue as we have with our historical ways of working like we don’t really need as much as we do we are going to get run over by the sheer volume of what we are faced with. Like the man in the commercial said many years ago, “you can pay me now or pay me later.”

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Pretty basic stuff this week but it never hurts to go back to basics.

Assuming that we are all in agreement that engaged employees are preferable to ones who are not, let’s take a brief look at actions we take as managers that actually dis-incent the engagement we say we want.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

                                                                      Upton Sinclair

If I have heard it once I have heard it a hundred times from a potential client in an initial meeting, “Mike, what I am looking for is more leadership from my people!” Notwithstanding that this statement is often made thoughtlessly the first time around, my standard response when I hear it is “Then what we need to do is determine what you and your managers are doing to discourage leadership!” Silence follows.

Once everyone starts breathing again we can begin a fruitful dialogue.

The truth of my experience is that when senior managers strongly suggest they are interested in more leadership, they are muddling leadership with engagement and their real interest is more engaged employees. If it is really more leadership they want, we’ll have a further conversation about how much control they are willing to give up. That is always interesting!

In either case the task becomes one of working with both senior and mid-level managers to distinguish how they may be unwittingly discouraging the very engagement they profess to be seeking.

Much of what managers do to discourage or dis-incent engagement will have a reasonable explanation in the minds of the managers and will look like blatant chicanery in the eyes of employees. Some cases in point:

• “Our manager says she wants us to speak our minds and offer ideas and suggestions. When she holds a meeting she tells us to hold our questions and comments to the end of her presentation. Then as she gathers her things to leave she asks if we have any questions!”
• “Senior managers tell us we can contact them directly; when we do they ask our managers why we are bringing this matter to senior management attention rather than handling it more locally.”
• “The only way for me to make more money in my current position is to create opportunities for overtime. The easiest way to do that is to slow down so my work takes extra time and then I get labeled as a mediocre to poor performer.”
• “I can easily complete my assignments most weeks in 30-35 hours; I am good at what I do. There’s no real incentive to perform at a higher rate cuz every time I finish early my manager adds work from some of the poorer performers.”
• “I’ve offered five suggestions for improvement in the past year and not received a positive response on any of them. Managers promised they would get back in writing on all suggestions within 72 hours of receipt. I’d just be happy with that”

When confronted on this behavior, managers will often respond that it was a one time occurrence, they were pushed for time, it made sense when they took the action, etc. etc.

NOW HEAR THIS…all ye who would manage. The basic employment relationship is predicated on a mutually understood imbalance of power. You have more than the people reporting to you, at least in theory!.

Without question, at this point in time the majority of employees, no matter what the organization, are keenly attuned to this imbalance and on constant alert for any sign that their status in the “royal household” may be in jeopardy. This is to say that if you make a sudden move to scratch your head don’t be surprised when they duck. This underlying and unspoken unholy understanding is only made worse by our failure as managers to acknowledge the truth of it.

In my experience as a manager I have directly said to employees, “I seek your partnership. You are not worth much to me if our relationship is based in fear. Unless I can trust you to speak up when there is something to be said I will be essentially working alone. Whatever we need to do to work through whatever fear you have of me or managers in general, I am prepared to work through with you. I am not prepared to hear after the fact that you knew something and didn’t express it.” Not everyone who received this offer accepted but everyone who accepted has not been disappointed, nor have I.

• Take a look at the bulleted items above and examine yourself not just by reading the examples but by checking yourself against the spirit of the message.
• Can you come up with your own list of unconscious behaviors on your part that may be a dis-incentive to engagement?

In case you are wondering, I am not a "management hater." I do hold managers to a certain standard because of the power balance I speak to here. My highest loyalty is always to what at any point in time I see as the "best interest of the organization."

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Entry into a new realm of working expectations is a big deal; it needs to be related to like a big deal. The process whereby a new employee is taken into the working community ,a new manager is introduced into the clan of management or a manager is elevated to an executive or officer rank are all cultural rights of passage that hold the possibility of being seminal events in any career.

The complexity of the transitions commonly referred to as employment or promotion is far greater than often acknowledged or recognized and the preparations and monitoring processes should be developed accordingly. To describe the process of facilitating these transitions with the use of a “term of art”, ‘Onboarding’, not even a recognized word in our language, is to my way of thinking an insult to the spirit of the events themselves. I do not mean to imply that anyone means to insult or not take seriously these events. Rather, what I am pointing out is that in many ways people in the HR profession appear to be insensitive to the very fact that they are dealing with human beings. It does occur to me more frequently than I enjoy that the HR profession has often drawn not so much people who appreciate people as much as it draws people who appreciate rules and regulation.•

·         I cannot imagine the thought has not crossed many of the readers’ minds as well, whether you are inside or out of the HR function.

If, as I do, you subscribe to the type of thinking represented in this video of Steve Zaffron, author of ‘The Three Laws of Performance’  talking about the work he and co-author Dave Logan have been bringing to companies for the past 17 years. You’ll immediately recognize the counterproductive effect of the use of the term ‘Onboarding.’ The foundational principle of my work as a consultant over the years is this; relationship is the origin of all results in an organizational context. Further, relationship is function of how situations occur, i.e., are perceived. Steve Zaffron points out that performance will correlate to how people ‘see’ or how a situation ‘occurs.’ As importantly as this first postulate is the second; that situations ‘occur’ for people in language.

• …We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or as we are conditioned to see it.

                                                                      Stephen Covey

When we introduce employees, managers or executives to their new roles and relationships by using a mechanical term, ‘Onboarding’, we instantly communicate that an event is taking place. These occurrences are not events, they are transitions, they are in fact state changes, ones that require the reinvention of who one is in order to perform with full engagement inside a new field of relationships. Viewed from an organic perspective these transitions are much more akin to organ transplants than they are to changing the tire on a car.  Unfortunately, the later perspective often prevails in many of our workplaces.

In view of the persistence of the mechanical,event, transactional based perspective that seems to pervade much of the HR profession I'd like to share some recommendations:

Personally I am in favor of the dissolution of the HR function as it currently exists as an extension of the industrial age economy when employees were at best resources and at worst always expense, therefore expendable.

Specifically what would I like to see? Glad you asked!

I’d like to see all matters currently considered the responsibility of HR come under critical strategic review on the following basis:

• Consider. If, as employers need to be reminded, their employees are their most valuable asset these days their care should be in part the responsibility of the company’s asset managers. Compensation and benefits should become the purview of the treasurer’s group.
• Consider. If, as employers frequently need to be reminded, the actual real value of their company leaves the building each evening and then decides  whether to ever return whoever has accountability for Risk Management should be closely involved with matter related to the evaluation, development and retention of employees.
• Consider. There is an inseparable connection between recruitment, development and advancement of employees. The establishment of a function strictly devoted to this continuum would be strategic in nature and need executive level visibility at all times.
• Consider. All actions that involve shaping new performance expectations, employment or movement into management or executive roles are fraught with risk that should be shared equally by all parties involved. Trial periods, no harm no foul, where all parties to transitions of this type can mutually determine whether success has been achieved can save productive assets from being lost to an employer. (There is not sufficient room here to adequately discuss this suggestion)

At best ‘Onboarding’ suggests the movement of passengers up a gangway onto a ship, a mechanical function. At worst the term suggests the movement of a piece of cargo from a dock to the deck of a ship, another mechanical act.  If HR professionals are going to continue to employ language suggesting people as pieces to be moved around on a game board I suggest then consistency.  Henceforth all employee exits will be referred to as ‘Offboarding!’

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