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

If you lived in northwest Washington as I do you'd know that the economy of the region is dominated by the fortunes of several large employers. Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon are only a few of these. Among this group and maybe the most volatile in recent years has been The Boeing Company. Headquartered in Everett, north of Seattle about 30 miles Boeing employs just over 70,000 people in Washington. So, how things are going at Boeing matters a great deal to everyone hereabouts and recent years have been challenging indeed.

How is Boeing doing? 

Boeing One

In October this year a new book on Boeing was published, 'Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers.'  The story told in the book covers a ten year period of Boeing’s experience, 1996-2006, a period of massive internal change.

As the authors state about this period in Boeing’s history “The very innovations and changes Boeing introduced to remain a leading producer of airplanes — altered management strategies, pervasive technological changes, extensive outsourcing, broad global partnerships, massive layoffs, and drastically altered ways of working ---- produced stress and turbulence in the lives of workers and managers alike.”

Well….DUH!

Harry Hurt III, the author of the review of this book in the New York Times points out the following:

“One of the book’s most notable findings has to do with outsourcing….Two aims of the outsourcing were to cut costs and to gain access to more foreign markets; both of those goals were largely achieved.

… Yet in practice, the authors say, the process proved much more complicated, something Boeing discovered to its considerable discomfort in 2008 and 2009... Production of the 787 would fall two years behind schedule.”

I am betting this was stressful too!

• The surprise to me is that we continue to insist that this type of news is surprising!

We are talking about cataclysmic change here…who is good at this, who would have ever seriously thought this would be anything but highly stressful and as for a determination of success, do the authors have all the right measures for offering any final assessment?

Boeing Two

Quite possibly as interesting a story to follow about Boeing lies in the short history of its current CEO, Jim McNerney. In his 2008 book 'You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing' author/consultant/venture capitalist Peter Cohan introduces us to the success and tale of a well known executive coming in from another system, GE, and bringing his unique talents and consensus driven style to bear on a company that by any standards would be tough to manage.

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OK, so now that’s settled, according to 'Turbulence' a lot of people were upset by going “hard to port” for ten years but according to Cohan’s book, ‘You Can’t Order Change…” it all turned out fine in the end…? Well, except for some morale issues.

Boeing Three

Not so fast my friends! As recently as September 30, 2010 Peter Cohan was calling for Jim McNerney’s head. It is just short of two years since he offered high praise for McNerney and he still thinks of him as a strong financial manager, “Boeing's financial performance under McNerney isn't that disappointing. Between 2005 and 2009, Boeing's sales have risen 27% to $68.3 billion…” And Boeing stock, selling for $66 a share in 2005 when McNerney took over was selling at $65 as recently as December 23^rd, 2010. However, Cohan is now critical of McNerney because he is not an operations guru as well. Says Cohan “The problem is McNerney lacks a key skill that Boeing needs: the ability to manage a portfolio of complex engineering projects…And this suggests that McNerney isn't in control of Boeing's operations.” (Author’s note: This is a gross understatement of the issues Boeing is faced with!)

So what is really going on at Boeing? How should those of us in the northwest feel about the future of this critical player in our economic puzzle?   

Honestly I think Cohan is to be credited for intellectual honesty. If he were to be anything less than honest about how he feels about McNerney now his credibility would plummet. As for the authors of Turbulence; they do come up short on solutions yet maybe wisely so. Possibly the best anyone can do for now is to admit that they alone do not have the answers, the new wisdom may well lie in suggesting a new model for management, a strength based model.

The big lessons here may be two fold:

1. Strap in folks, no matter how good we are we are all in for a rough ride into the future.
2. The days of clinging to the “one great man/woman” models of management are just as likely over.

The complexity and chaotic nature of today’s global business issues may well be bringing forth a new era in management, one that is strength based and truly more democratic than any we have ever seen. Jim McNerney needs an operations partner with the final say on those issues and hopefully the wisdom to bring in some highly talented logistics and supply chain experts and oh yes, a great vendor management system and someone to run it.  He also needs investment partners, people who can see beyond the current financial cycles and counsel investors to take the long view. Finally, McNerney will need to recognize that his management experience at GE, primarily a portfolio of companies may not neatly correlate to Boeing, a portfolio of projects. The two companies are different animals altogether.

What then is the truth about Boeing?

It depends on what you want Boeing to be. Here in the northwest we want Boeing to be around for as long as possible and offer employment to as many local citizens as possible.

• In your own organization can you see where a more collaborative management model may be called for?

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As the year draws to a close I find myself harboring deep concerns for the future of the employee engagement dialogue. Rather than continue to stew silently I've decided to come clean and reveal what I have been thinking about and my hopes for the future.

 In many cases I view the path being pursued by employee engagement professionals as the perpetuation of bankrupt paradigms of management by simply painting them with a new vocabulary.

• It is high time that professionals in the field of employee engagement accept that "engagement" ,like love and life, is an inside job and will only respond in a limited fashion to external manipulation.

If "engagement" is ever to have any power it needs to be understood as an ontological tool (Engagement = Association by Choice), a matter of declaration,  and not an emotional/psychological response to external factors that can be measured uniformly by some sort of survey instrument. I firmly believe that much of what has passed for the measurements of engagement in recent years are in part measures of interest (Q12etc.) and a perception of mutual benefit and as such perpetuate the carrot/stick management models of the past 100+ years. “Interest” is like sexual attraction, it waxes and wanes and is fundamentally a response to external stimuli. Employees are likely better served by being brought to consciousness about their talents and strengths (their gifts)  and provided information about where in the workplace those are likely to be welcomed and invited to be offered. They could then be encouraged to plan careers in those directions rather than being surveyed and scored according to some normative instrument.

• One of the fastest ways to poison any employee engagement initiatives is to tie managers’ compensation to survey scores. 

What could be more "stick-like" in terms of classic management science than to put someone's survey scores on anything squarely at the center of your own person's financial well being? I’ve seen customer service reps. “ask for the A” on client surveys; what do we think managers will do when placed under similar pressure? Stop it, just stop it!

• Can we all consider that the Work/Life Balance concern is and always has been a bogus issue and another indication of our archetypal fear that management is BAD and employees are GOOD.

Work/Life balance from the perspective of management = respect people's private lives and honor the commitments they make there as equal to any fear you have about not meeting your objectives. Dear Manager: Don’t justify your need by suggesting that anyone’s employment is in jeopardy.

Work/Life balance from the employee perspective = I don't care of you want to work 80 hours a week, don't expect me to do the same and just make sure you are keeping the other commitments in your life. Who am I to say that you should have a hobby or spend more time with your family? Oh yes, and if you have a commitment to your family and get asked to work on the weekend get a spine and tell your manager "No" or negotiate responsibly with your family and don't blame your boss.

It turns out that some recent research indicates that, as I have suspected, the issue may just be a bogey person anyway.  A Management Craft post on December 11, 2010 by Lisa Haneberg cites a new study published in the Journal of Management and Organization, "Work–life balance or work–life alignment? A test of the important of work-life balance for employee engagement and intention to stay in organizations."

• Finally, for now, and probably most importantly make peace with your fondest desire; that someday organizations may really be operated from an authentic concern for employee engagement.

While I wish he had written about it much earlier Peter Block did recently get around to addressing the flawed thinking that suggests that employers should be held to account in any way for employee engagement. In ‘The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods ’ published in 2010 and co-authored with John McKnight we find these words addressing the notion that the systematic development of for-profit organizations can in any way be expected to deliver anything other than an economic outcome;

• “Here is the rub: Systems that are constructed for order and predictability cannot provide satisfaction in domains that require a unique and personal human solution.”

 The simple fact of the diversity of humanity in terms of intelligences, talents, visions, desires and on and on would indicate, at least to me, that our measures of  engagement are here further suspect as reveled by this perspective. As with interest and perceived mutual benefit we may also have been measuring the level of tolerance employees have developed for the degree of “institutionalization” they are subjected to each day. The less “institutionalization” the higher the survey score.

'Just for fun, imagine operating from the premise that no one has ever made you angry, or afraid, or happy, or joyful--that you've done it all yourself by what you've decided is "real". What if life were entirely an inside job?'

~ SXR      Check out Steve Roberts and his full collections of pen and ink sketches at CoolMindWarmHeart.com 

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Most employees make a very limited impact in their work environment.

This statement is not meant to criticize but rather draw attention to something I believe is worth considering. In a world of workplaces that continue to struggle with the right balance of talent to task, with all our emphasis on “LEAN everything” most people still have a very limited impact; they color inside the lines! As a manager I think there is something you can do about that and you’ll need a challenge in order to make it happen. You need to break through the self-imposed limits you and your employees work within.

As we approach the completion of another calendar cycle I offer the following challenge to those of you who manage. Would you be willing to commit to tripling the impact you and each of the people reporting has on your business in 2011?

If you take this challenge authentically you and your reports are going to wind up productively and naturally needing and being needed by others in the organization in ways you never imagined possible. I am convinced that the truest definition of POWER is; the ability to accomplish. Organizationally, accomplishment runs in direct proportion to the degree of surrendering to the tutelage of interdependency.

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Back in 1994 a book appeared that for many readers rocked the foundations of modern management and indeed it was intended to do just that. ‘Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe’ by Margaret Wheatley was heralded by management experts as a breakthrough publication and has very likely been read by many of you reading this post.

You may be inclined at this point to comment that reference to this book is old news. Before you do that I’d ask you to consider this reference from a 2008 interview with Scott London in which Margaret makes the case for value of learned interdependency. (Remember, this book was published in 1994 and 14 years later the content is here being treated as current information; news!)

Here is what she said in response to Scott’s question about her learning from the study of quantum physics:

“I think there were several real breakthroughs. How do you understand a world in which the only material form is that of relationships, and where there is no sense of an individual that exists independent of its relationships? That was the gift of the quantum worldview. It said there are no independent entities anywhere at the quantum level. It's all relationships. That was something that made a lot of sense to how we were starting to think about organizations — as webs of relationships.”

▪ This entire interview is worth reading, especially if you haven’t read ‘Leadership and the New Science.’

• A point that may easily missed here, since we are so familiar with the word relationship that we are inclined to assume understanding, is that in nature there is no such thing as a casual relationship, all relationships are intentional and causal, anything but casual. Not so with us in the workplace and herein lies the opportunity.

And…and…in case you need some further encouragement to dig more deeply into the possibility resident in the study of quantum physics in the context of management I’ll mention that this interview with Margaret Wheatley came to my attention while doing a blog search on “interdependency.” I found the interview in its entirety posted December 8, 2010 by a guy named Jeff Miller who shares information he finds valuable as he comes across it. Like a “message in a bottle” eh? ( ← yes, this is what you think it is, a Sting!)

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Now, back to the notion of tripling impact and my challenge; the technique that will open this door is to be willing to be needed by others before you concern yourself with what you need.

Here is how to begin and it is as simple as it sounds. Have each of your reports approach someone outside your group at least once each week and ask that person what they can do for them, today, this week or this month to help them accomplish their objectives. The response may not be immediate because the invitation will probably be a surprise. The invitation must be authentic and a commitment must be made to deliver something specific by a defined time.

That’s it. Keep track of what your folks are promising to others and their delivery record. If my intuition is correct within a relatively short period of time you will find similar requests beginning to come in to your group.

I’d love to hear if you’ll plan to accept the challenge.

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If you are the owner of or manage in a small business you likely know that it’s not just the buck that stops with you it’s the whole “kit and caboodle.” ( ← Click here and learn something just for fun) One thing is for certain, if anyone is looking out for employee engagement it’s you. But who watches out for your engagement? I do.

Rule #1 for Managing Your Own Engagement (according to me) has been revised as follows:

• Whoever sees it first gets (to do it) to be accountable for it getting done

“Rules for Managing Your Own Engagement” is the label I have given to a list of guidelines published here previously. I realized today after working with this particular rule for several years that I may have unwittingly been encouraging some people who are more automatically responsible or control oriented to continue to “over own” the situation they see in front of themselves in their workplace. Maybe the title for today’s post should be ‘To Do or to Delegate.’

Whatever the title, the point of this post is that in announcing that you notice something that needs doing in the workplace you implicitly provide yourself with the opportunity to lead. It is not your place in the pecking order that puts you in this position, it’s that you see what needs to be done. Whether you act on the opportunity you have created is a complicated matter and one not to be taken lightly.

There are many forms in which you may announce your observation that something needs to be done, these ways range from total responsibility to complete irresponsibility:

• "I'll take care of it!"
• “I’d really like the opportunity to…”
•  “I wonder when someone is going to …”
•  “Why doesn’t somebody…”
•  “They should..."
• “Can you believe it…?”

Regardless of the posture taken (conscious/unconscious…responsible/irresponsible), when an observation of something needing to be done is made a “leadership choice point” has been established. From this point of leadership many avenues for action are open to select. 

One observation I made early in my business ownership experience that led to a flawed leadership choice went something like this; “Since I own the business I should be the one who manages it.” I say flawed choice but honestly I am sometimes so automatically responsible (I even clean up at Starbucks when people spill the cream and sugar!) that it was really like there was no choice, “I see therefore I do.” An exaggerated sense of responsibility has it limitations. Let’s just say that my talents did not match my observation.

 If you are the owner of a business or a manager in someone else’s business you may know exactly what I am referring to here. Have you ever found yourself staying late, doing something poorly and taking a loooong time to do it only to realize later that someone else could have done it much better in far less time? Yeah, you know what I am talking about, doing driven by an exaggerated sense of responsibility.

• But are there times when you as observer might want to be the doer? You doing what you see needs doing may be the best choice, when it makes a point or sets an example.

In his most recent newsletter titled “Authentic Leaders Roll Up Their Sleeves” my friend and author Richard Hadden makes the case for a leader doing what he/she sees needs to get done much better than I can. Richard had this to say on December 1…

"Good leaders know what they're good at, and leverage their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses by delegating. But sometimes, as the Biblical expression goes, when the ox is in the ditch, authentic leaders roll up their sleeves, pitch in, and, as in the case of the councilmen laborers, take care of business.

They don't stand on ceremony, or worry about whose job it is. They just get it done."

So how will you make your choices in the future, automatically or with an eye towards not just what needs to be done but who is best to do it. I promise that if you choose the latter you’ll benefit more than just yourself.

• What are you planning to do that someone else does better than you?

• What have you been waiting for someone to do and it is time to step up and get it done?

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