Managing for Engagement...the most important influencer on employee engagement is free...and you have everything to do with it.
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A tip of the hat to Gary M. Stern for his piece ‘Redefining the Middle Manager's Job’ which appeared in the September 19, 2011 issue of Fortune magazine. Stern cites a 2010 study completed by Towers Watson of 20,000 global employees of large firms telling us something we intuitively knew but probably haven’t been talking enough about: 48% of the respondents said their immediate manager didn't have enough time to handle their responsibilities as managers or possess the right skills to improve poor performers.
Tom Davenport and Stephen D. Harding, Towers Watson consultants who authored ‘Manager Redefined: The Competitive Advantage in the Middle of Your Organization’ (November, 2010), are strong proponents of an overhaul in the basic design of the middle manager role. The authors recommend that the manager in the middle develop a focus on “offstage management” as the preferred leadership style, managing the environment not managing the people. I, of course, like this because it corresponds with the basic message of my recent post, ‘The Essential Nature of a Middle Manager: Transparent, Transmutable and Permeable.’ When Davenport and Harding assert that right action for an “offstage manager” is one that “…creates an environment for everyone to succeed and then steps out of the way", I am running around looking for someone to “high five”, Hello! Thank you! Mmmmm hmmmm, what did I tell you? That’s what I am talking about!
I could have stopped reading the Stern piece at the point where he presented agreement for my point of view. But…I didn’t stop there, and I am better for having continued. Later in the article there is mention of a very new book, ‘The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work’ by Theresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. I bought the book and once I got started I found I could not put it down. The message is that profound in my view. Put as succinctly as possible, the authors contend that far and away the #1 factor that influences people’s work life experience is progress in meaningful work. Coming from Amabile, a Harvard business professor, and Kramer, her psychologist husband, you would expect this work to be well researched and you would not be disappointed. What the authors found in their exhaustive study of over 12.000 daily diary entries turns the thinking of most present day managers right on its head.
In Amabile and Kramer’s words,
“Ask leaders what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. In a recent survey we invited more than 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant:
- recognition
- incentives
- interpersonal support
- support towards making progress
- clear goals
Recognition for good work (either public or private) came out number one.
Unfortunately, those managers are wrong.
Having just completed a multi-year study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last.It’s progress. On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.”
If you are a manager or someone who develops managers you should regard this as very good news: the conclusion based on Amabile and Kramer’s research is that the key to motivation turns out to be largely within your control. What the book's authors do assert and strongly reinforce with tools they have developed is that managers have powerful influence over events that facilitate or undermine progress. They can provide meaningful goals, resources, and encouragement, and they can protect their people from irrelevant demands. Or they can fail to do so.
So here's what I have to say about all this. You know this, not like in your head know this, in your heart you know it. You've known this since you accepted a position as a manager. Mostly, it is why you took the manager's role.
- The question, the one you must answer for yourself, is how do I continue to justify not doing what I know needs to be done?
Get the book, read the article, do whatever you need to do. This is the time of people's lives you have in your hands. They are counting on you to help them make their time at work worth their life.
