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

Probably the most common mistake I watch managers make daily in the workplace is addressing their reports as if they are in the same frame of mind. When people are nodding their heads, it means they are nodding their heads; that's it!

(* This post applies anytime you are counting on the collaboration of others., manager or not.)

Take a look at this group in the picture above. (Never mind the boats and water in the background, get back to business here!) Are they ready to contribute or have they assumed some pretense? Look, they have their paperwork out and turned to the first page and they seem attentive! (So do you when you assume this posture so now you know how much stock to put in their appearances.)

 You may have never thought about it but as a manager you need to be aware that engagement has at least three voices, Contribution,Compliance and Resistance, which are frames of mind your reports can be in at any time...

·         depending on the day

·         the conversation topic

·         what happened to them last night at home or this morning

·         what they were doing or

·         who they were talking to just before they came to your meeting

·         and, and, and …or, or, or…life will not leave us alone.

So now, what do I mean when I reference “frames of mind?”  Frame, like window frame, the place we are looking at the world from at any moment is more kaleidoscopic than fixed. (What you said to me yesterday was fine and welcome, say the same thing today after I have just had a tough conversation with a peer in another department and I may ‘jump down your throat, much to your surprise and dismay.) We are always giving voice to our frame of mind if others would just listen and watch

Engaged, associated by choice, is a condition of being, and there are both ultimate and interim conditions of being to consider. Ultimate engagement arises from commitments to choices made. Interim engagement is subject to the slings and arrows of everyday/every moment life and constantly in flux. Ultimately, I am completely committed to the success of my marriage; in the interim, my wife has asked me to check under the house for a water leak! Given my aversion to both maintenance and the underside of the house about the best I can muster up for this one is an “Okey Doke honey!” and grudgingly crawl under after just about anything else I can think of that just “has to be done” before checking for the leak. As it turns out my wife knows that my ultimate commitment to the marriage always wins out over my weasel mind and she will get her report on the alleged leak sooner rather than later, so she doesn’t try to handle my dawdling.

 What is this interim Voice of engagement  thing, the one we usually hear from in the moment?

 Voice of Contribution- “I am on it honey thanks for letting me know there may be a problem”, followed by action.

 Voice of Compliance- As above, “Okey Doke honey”, followed by going to the refrigerator ,making a sandwich, watching some of the ballgame and then crawling under the house.

 Voice of Resistance- “It rained last week and I don’t want to get muddy so I’ll get to it next week, its probably nothing.”, followed by no action until asked again.

 I hope that you can translate these personal examples into your own when addressing your team or another co-worker while engaged in getting something done.

Message for today: If you don’t check in with people (ask) you run the risk of talking to yourself and assuming that head nods, Okey Dokes and even “You got it boss” means that something is going to happen and you can count on it.

So, do you know your reports as well as my wife knows me; I didn’t think so.

• How many times have you been burned by talking with your folks as though they are right there with you?
• How many times have you known they were not right there with you and you went right on talking as though you could talk them into it?
• How many times have you taken their silence to mean assent and walked away hoping you were going to get what you asked for. 

Is this too basic? I wish it were and I don’t by any means want to insult anyone, unless it will help get this clear, when you are not winning as a manager start with where people are at. Address them where they are, not where you wish they were. Be curious, find out why they may not be engaged, ask what you can offer to address misunderstandings or fears directly. In the interim getting in communication is the result to be produced, ultimately it will get you where you want to go.

Where are you assuming engagement and getting egg on your face?

For an alternative to the manager's perspective, to see how "life at work" can impact the individual, take a look at All Things Workplace by Steve Roesler especially the post of February 25th, What Happened to the Talent? 

I recommend a regular visit to Steve's site, you'll get hooked.

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If a hip reference to a well known rock band (Rage Against the Machine) from the 1990’s, known for their highly political lyrics, made by a 63 year old white guy, has a tendency to tweak your beak then we are probably already off to a bad start this week. If not then hang in there, I promise this gets better.

Now wait a minute, if you are reading this you are probably quite a few years away from 63 and the only one who really needs an explanation for the title of this post is me! My bad.

'Rage against the Machine', I do like the sound of the phrase and it really is an example of a term that is self-explanatory. As an obstacle, anything that interrupts the ability to engage freely with our work is worthy of a conversation, especially when it involves something that is completely within our control, the rage that is. Rage against whatever or whoever, whether it is…

• A co-worker
• A manager
• A policy
• Them
• They
• Those guys in the ivory tower

(…you know who and what I mean, that which we grind our gears about), is unequivocally a waste of time, precious lifetime, the one resource you have that is truly yours and is non-renewable. Whenever I hear someone raging, ranting about their situation all I can ever think to ask is whether they understand the game they are playing. Business, it is a high contact pastime. Even in real high contact sports, when it is a matter of business, there is more than one way to get your bell rung. Here’s a really current example of what I am referring to...

February 22,2010, ‘CBS Sports Wire Reports’ earlier today reported that the San Diego Chargers of National Football League fame announced they have dismissed long time star running back LaDainian Tomlinson after a nine year career with the team. To quote the story, "The yards didn't pile up as easily as in previous seasons. LaDainian Tomlinson was slowing down because of injuries and age, becoming less and less the face of the franchise as his role was reduced in a pass-happy offense. On Monday, he was released by the San Diego Chargers, a franchise he helped revive with a brilliant nine-year run in which he became one of the NFL's greatest running backs.”

Oh by the way, Mr. Tomlinson had a $2M roster bonus due in March. Aaaaaahh! That’s not fair, after all he did for the team. Read the story. Back during Super Bowl week LaDanian spoke with his agent Tom Condon and let him know that he thought it was time to move on. This is a sign of someone who understands the game they are playing, he looked at the wall, he saw what was written there and he chose, to engage with the reality in which he found himself. Did he like it? I can’t imagine that he did. Could he change what was going to happen? Not very likely. Rather than rage against the team or wait for decision that was probably inevitable LaDanian chose to initiate action on behalf of his future. So am I saying you should always walk away from a fight? No, I am saying walk away from a whine!

Kris Dunn recently took a whack at this topic from where he sees things in his own post titled in part “…Rage Against the Machine.” His takes come from a different perspective as he poses the challenge to us where there is at least the possibility we can do something to preserve self-respect, rather than curl up in a ball and going catatonic.

Either way, Kris’s or LaDanian’s, it’s about being a player in the game going on right in front of you, that’s a choice for staying alive, for acting like you are on the playing field and not someone who got their popcorn spilled by some other rowdy fan.

Back in 19 and 79 I found myself getting all whiney about my situation in the big oil company. I was a rising star, by my own admission. Maybe my trajectory was a bit shallow but I knew I was meant for better things than waiting in line for the next available management opening blah, blah, blah. Truth be told I had educated myself as an HR professional to insure that I would be able to make a good living (reasonable but not inspirational) and while that was proving to be the case I was increasingly interested in things that I would later learn were part of the study of Organizational Development. "How could this Fortune 50 company not be doing more of what I was interested in doing?" Well they weren’t and for the most part they would not begin to for nearly another 10 years, at least on any scale.

One day late in that year I woke up and realized that there was nothing wrong, especially nothing wrong with the company where I was working. What had happened through no one’s fault was that I had discovered that something mattered more to me than simply making a living, its called a passion. Most importantly it dawned on me that I was the one who needed to take action. Within a very short period of time I had tendered my resignation and began plans to become my own employer in a company offering the services I wanted to provide. Along the way over the past 30 years there have been plenty of ups and downs and I have been on the field for everyone of them. What a great game I created for myself!

Can you say for true that you love the game you are playing today?

*There is no real order or rank to the Obstacles, I am just making a list as I go along.

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In the “world according to me”, engagement is defined as “association by choice.”  To choose is often defined as, ‘to select freely, after consideration.’ Anything that stands in the way of associating freely is then an obstacle. When trust is construed in such a way as to place the burden of responsibility outside oneself then by definition we have made trust an obstacle to engagement.

Can you imagine being at work, in any workplace, and not trusting people? I don’t necessarily mean specific people, I mean people in general. Unfortunately, I think many of us are unconscious of our biases in this regard, having “handy stories” justifying behavior that might otherwise be considered paranoid. I think you know the stories I mean, they usually include some element of “well you can never be too careful,” or “if you want something done right do it yourself.” Both of these are versions of how to avoid depending on or trusting others. These “stories” do a major job of invisibly undermining accountability in any organization. Put in the simplest terms, no trust = no accountability. So let’s take a closer look at trust in a way that opens space for accountability.

“Trust is more an attitude about myself, an estimate of my own capacities, my own ability to handle whatever comes up. If I do not trust someone, … , a more accurate statement might be that I am not happy with the way I act or feel when I am around this person.  It is my sense of being out of control that bothers me…”                                            Peter Block

 Preparing for this post, it occurred to me that for many thoughtful people there are three truths about trust and no common definition. The three truths are:

1.       If I trust, I can count on being disappointed.

2.       If I do not trust, my life will likely be safe but it will feel more like surviving than thriving.

3.       If I am up to anything of consequence—anything that will really make any difference—then I will need the involvement of others. Therefore, trusting is a foregone conclusion: I will trust or I will accomplish very little in this lifetime.

With the above three truths in mind, I would do well to establish a tolerance for disappointment. If this sounds paradoxical to you I empathize. It appears that there is always a paradox to be dealt with where trust is involved, if I insist on defining trust as having anything to do with someone other than myself!

In my experience, most people I encounter do offer their definition of trust in terms of the behaviors of others. While there is considerable power in defining trust in reference to oneself, this "conventional reality" is neglected at great personal peril. The subjective reality concerning trust is dealt with masterfully in TRUST AGENTS: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust.*

*(Kevin Eikenberry provides a timely review of this book in his post of February 15 and his blog, Leadership and Learning, merits a regular visit from readers who subscribe to this site.)

In contrast to the conventional practice, as I read hundreds of quotes from "fairly famous/successful" people to prepare for this article, a single insight became clear: there is no power in any definition of trust that depends on the behavior of others. None of these “famous/successful people” defined trust as having anything to do with anyone other than himself or herself.

 Consider this:

 A definition of trust that generates power is a function of my relationship with myself.

•  Do I have the confidence in myself to deal with whatever comes my way?
• Can I interact successfully with various personalities?
• Can I have direct reports who clearly have superior subject knowledge to my own?
• Can I work for a manager who can see clearly my limitations and openly accept coaching?
• Can I willingly depend on colleagues who's knowledge and skill I need?
• Can I honor my intentions when interacting with people of differing agendas?
• And most importantly, can I count on myself to respond and deliver without excuses even when someone has let me down?

This self-referential perspective on trust gives me reason to think that I can be effective no matter what and no matter who is involved. I say perspective because after reading all those quotes I concluded that trust, like we often say about beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. By adopting this perspective I place the responsibility for trust in my own lap. My power comes from the fact that there never was anything I could do about the behavior of others except to ask for what I wanted and hold them to account for what they said they would do.

I was blessed to have a manager who operated in this fashion early in my career. I made mistakes and each time he dealt with the situation gracefully and responsibly. If he had delegated something to me and it did not get done well he always held himself to account for having allowed me the opportunity to either meet his expectations, or let him down. This is not to say that he did not hold me to account; he did, and from our discussions around my accountabilities I learned from my mistakes. With him there was never any concern for being "thrown under the bus." We sank or swam together and as an outcome I was able to gain the confidence of other senior managers at a very young age. His trusting that he could deal with whatever mistake I might make allowed me the freedom to bring the best I had to offer and rapidly learn what worked and what did not. Of course, like any truly great manager his trust in me cost him in the end; I was promoted and moved on. And of course, he trusted that whoever took my place would eventually be exactly what he needed, until they moved on as well.

Where have you abdicated your responsibility for trust? When will you take it back?

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Don’t try to reach my Dad at home during the day, at least not during the week before 4:00PM, he’s at work. Monday through Friday 9-4PM, that’s his schedule. Now you might say that doesn’t sound very demanding, he’d say that it is just about right. My Mom can drop him off in the morning without getting up too early, she usually doesn’t go to bed until around 1:00AM, and he can take the bus home in the afternoon and still have time for about a 30 minute nap before dinner. He is 86, she is 85, they are fully engaged with their lives and have schedules that they keep and don’t you interfere with the timing either, it throws them off!

This may seem like a funny place to start a conversation on your responsibility for your own engagement but read on and see if you continue to feel that way.

My Dad was one of those people who found out the hard way that loyalty to an employer is not always rewarded; he worked for one company for 30+ years and then was replaced without notice by the boss’s son. I guess you could say that he was as old school as you can get when it came time for putting his company’s interest before his own. He had actually had several offers over the years to move on but he always came down on the side of his employer having been good to him.

The events surrounding his dismissal are still somewhat foggy for me but the good news was that it took him about a half a day of feeling sorry for himself to realize that he was now released from his self imposed bondage and could go on to do anything he wanted to. That was almost thirty years ago now and he has not missed a day of work since. After coming to his personal epiphany, he set out to work as an independent electrician for several years, staying as busy as he wanted to be but eventually went back to an employed situation, not so much for the security as for the camaraderie. He had come to realize that as much as anything there was a great deal of social reward for him in the employment situation.

Pretty ordinary story, I agree, except for the part that I haven’t mentioned which was that other than the personal ego discomfort and maybe some embarrassment about not seeing it coming my Dad really got over the shock very quickly, my mother as well. They didn’t like what had happened but neither were they devastated, they didn’t go into the tailspin I have seen take over so many families when there is a loss of income or position.

My parents are both children of the Great Depression and that fact of life had so significantly shaped their lives that they had always lived as if those events could occur again. I don’t mean like living in fear, they took a pragmatic approach, "If something happened once it could happen again." So when what they were prepared for actually occurred they rolled through it and on into the rest of their lives and have not looked back.

Simple story, profound lesson, one worth considering; so are these questions…

• Are you living like there is a tomorrow you can count on and income that is predictable into the foreseeable future?
• Are you playing your cards close to the vest so as not to draw too much attention to yourself at work in hopes that being adequate will be sufficient?
• Are you committed beyond your financial means?
• Do you have an identity that is based on that you are what you do, who you work for, where you live, where your kids go to school?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you are severely compromised, you cannot possibly be fully engaged, and essentially a detriment to yourself and your employer; not only that you are extremely vulnerable whether you realize it or not.

These days doing good work is not necessarily enough to keep you secure, even if your company is doing well. A “tip of the hat” goes to Kris Dunn who suggested that we take a look at Henry Blodget’s piece in the Business Insider War Room from January 6^th and ponder the questions he poses there about whether we should make a practice of dismissing our merely adequate employees. Yikes!

Speaking of engaged I recommend a regular visit to Kris’s blog, The HR Capitalist, even if you are not involved with HR. Kris is an example of what a fully expressed, passionate fully engaged HR executive looks and sounds like and his posts will make you want to apply for work at his company. It is just good for you, like taking strong medicine.

So back to my Dad and Mom now. Do you still think they were a strange example of being responsible for your own engagement? If you do I should send you over to their house some evening where you will most likely find them sitting quietly together in the living room, my Dad working crossword puzzles, my Mom fussing with a sudoku. They both love being alive and have read that keeping your mind active is one of the best way to stave off the mental effects of aging. Be prepared to talk loud though, as engaged and curious as they still are they are both deaf as a door jam and not willing to do anything about it!

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"Creating a great place to work is one of the best things a company can do for its bottom line. It’s no accident that the organizations consistently identified as winners also happen to be some of the best places on earth to work.  This occurs not as an afterthought, but as a vital, premeditated element of business strategy."

        Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden, The Contented Cows Partners

I have been associated with Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden since early 2000, just about the time they self-published their first book 'Contented Cows Give Better Milk.' Since that time Bill and Richard have remained among the vanguard of voices providing fact based reasoning for why it is a sound business practice to take good care to see that employees have an environment to work in that fosters productivity.; appreciation, training, tools and technology etc. For them and for me it isn't simply a matter of values,it isn't just "nice to be nice to the nice", this is dog doo practical stuff and the facts back it up.

As practical but perhaps not as easy to swallow is the notion that leaders/managers must be willing to consider themselves among the environmental factors that affect overall levels of engagement. Much is made of the idea that customers will vote with their feet, highly mobile employees, usually the most highly prized, will do the same thing but maybe faster when faced with disengaged managers.

When it comes to answering the question of whether I am pro-management or pro-employee my answer is always "Yes!" If I am anti anything, I am anti-stupid where by stupid I mean to distinguish thoughtless action, driven by force of habit and justified in some fashion by past success or privilege of position. So no, in case you are wondering, I do not mean to imply or assert that employee engagement is the sole responsibility of leadership or management, as you prefer. Engagement, what it takes to be sufficiently involved to be highly productive is everyone's responsibility. However, it falls to leaders to recognize, i.e., not be stupid about the fundamental condition in the workplace. There is at worst an imbalance of power in the workplace and at best a perceived imbalance of power. While I would be quick to say to an employee that their engagement is first and foremost their responsibility I would also hurriedly add that perception is fundamentally, in the absence of trans-formative thinking, reality, and leaders who ignore this truth are, for lack of a better phrase, acting stupidly. Oh yes, and as a manager, since your value is added through the actions of those reporting to you...

Is there evidence for this assertion, for I am certainly making one here? Of course there is, you do not ask a question like this unless you already know the answer! Gary Hamel, in a recent posting to his blog in the Wall Street Journal blog “Management’s Dirty Little Secret” cites the recently published Global Workforce Survey from Towers Perrin showing that of the 90,000 people surveyed 21% reported that they are truly engaged with their work! If I am not mistaken this number is lower than that initially reported in the early Gallup surveys similar in nature some years back.

Hamel chides managers in a more polite way than I do. He suggests that managers are heedless of the issue of engagement where I say stupid about. OK, potato/pototo, tomato/tomoto, he has better  street cred than I do, let’s go with heedless for now. Net, net, after Hamel dismisses the possibility that the heedlessness might result from 1) Ignorance-not realizing that employees are emotionally disconnected. (He uses the Dilbert strip as essentially exhibit “A” for the Prosecution in this instance.) He then goes on to check off 2) Impotence- meaning mindless, uninspiring work as a possible source of the disengagement (surprisingly 86% of those participating in the Towers Perrin survey indicated that they loved or liked their work) and finally he arrives at 3) Indifference – managers see engagement as a nice-to-have but not financially important. In his words,

“…if we’re going to improve engagement, we have to start by admitting that the real problem isn’t irksome, monotonous work, but stony-hearted, spirit-deflating managers.”

While he does not say this, I will; by stony hearted, spirit-deflating managers he means at all levels and most importantly, the top where the privileges provide the greatest disconnect between head and heart.

Hamel, like Drucker in his later years, has clearly made a connection that makes him dangerous to the management establishment. He is “the man” when it comes to the “X’s and O’s” of business so he cannot be waved off. In addition, he has come to understand that while the applications in business may be economic, the operating system is social.

As we roll along here, in future postings we will tackle just what an individual manager can do about this sad state we all find ourselves in, among other things.

Thank you for your attention.

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It must be very complex, leadership that is. It must be or why would Amazon currently carry nearly 382,000 titles containing the word leadership? A quick Google query on the word "leadership" gives a response of over 143,000,000 entries. I smell a rat and I have been smelling a rat for several years now. Maybe there is something else afoot here and it is time to tell the truth about it.

In practice I have had occasion to have more than one senior leader say he or she was interested in seeing  more leadership from the people in their organization. A typical response from me might be to suggest my sincere doubt in this expressed interest! A provocative remark like this better have a good follow up and there is one available, if you can get that first line out of your mouth. Played properly this exchange can have the desired effect of creating a "teachable moment" or at least one where you have an opportunity at offering something I think is infinitely wise. When challenged in these cases, as I always have been my response is similar to that offered by Doug Sundheim, Executive Coach from New York City. I'll paraphrase Doug here; "I bet you have been taking responsibility for all of the critical decisions - and thus the critical thinking behind them. Your people feel alienated, with no sense of ownership, and you wonder why you can't get them more engaged.There is a direct correlation between employee's stepping up and whether there is any room to step up." This exchange often has led to a visible shrug of recognition and a sheepish question from the potential client, "It sounds like you are saying I am the problem?" So here the "teachable moment" presents itself. My response to the potential client will be to say "First, you are not the problem but you are certainly part of the problem and if you are willing to at least be part of the solution we can make some progress. And is there a connection between what you have been doing and the level of engagement you see, oh yeah!"

It is occasions like these that are also moments of truth for those of us who fancy ourselves organizational catalysts, the conversations that now follow are not only going to determine whether this potential client becomes a client, they are also going to determine whether you are going to go back out on that wire without a net yet one more time, make that promise that things can be different. From here the exchange might go something like this, " To begin with when you have been saying you wanted more leadership I suspect that what you meant was more do as I want you to-ship." This is always hard because invariably this assertion produces a flash of recognition coupled with awkward silence and the tension of embarrassment. But it passes fairly quickly!

I then ask the by now fully engaged executive or manager another question, "What are you willing to give up?" This question almost always requires further explanation so I just go right on. "There is a difference between 1) a 'desire to be in charge' and  2) a willingness to lead. The first is a matter of personal interest or motivation and not necessarily even a qualification for the second, where I imagine almost anyone asked about the topic would say that leadership and accountability are inseparable and many who wish to be in charge just want that, not that accountability stuff!  You very likely have no shortage of people in your organization who like the idea of being in charge, because of a number of incentives that go with that territory but they do not necessarily aspire to accountability because it doesn't work that way.Accountability isn't yours to give or expect anyway. It is, however, something you can request or offer and as in any deal there needs to be an exchange of value, something that provides for mutual, not necessarily equal, benefit . If what you truly want is leadership then you need to be prepared to give up something and generally the give up you are least likely to want to give is the final say."

This statement usually brings up the first " I am not really comfortable with that!"  My rejoinder to that might echo the words of Sue Tupling, "Feeling uncomfortable? So you should!" in the piece she authored recently describing the emotional hurdles many senior leaders face when they first begin to confront the need to let go in order to get what they want. Personally, I have seen leaders knowingly choose control over business results or staff development on more than one occasion, especially when they knew they could make their numbers without letting go.

When we reach this point the conversation turns solemn, like something ominous is about to happen. Thankfully, at least on some occasions something really productive emerges from the somber mood and the executive or manager sees that not letting go is going to constrain them to results similar to those they have already achieved and if they are up to anything more the give up is the price of admission into a new realm of possibility. But the positive thing does not always occur and on those occasions my mood may become a bit sarcastic , "If you can make your numbers without letting go what are you complaining about? Unless of course your intuition is telling you there is something more to be had than just making the numbers. Or maybe you simply want someone to blame if things don't work out?" Shortly after this I usually leave their office.

By the way, it was probably initiative they wanted anyway, much less expensive than leadership but to the control oriented, knowing what they would want, that distinction does not readily appear.

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This past weekend my wife and I had an opportunity to visit with our granddaughters, my son and his wife. Besides seeing my granddaughters, I also had another agenda this trip, doing a little recon on my son’s employment situation. In January, this son, the oldest of my three, was laid off from his position as a project architect at a very large firm in the town where he lives. My own response when I first heard this news was, “Yikes!”

Honestly, I had previously wondered for some time about behaviors my son described relative to his employment situation; among other things, he always left his office at 5:00PM regardless of the workload and he did not take work home on either weeknights or weekends. Being somewhat old-school  myself I was concerned that if push came to shove as it sometimes does he would end up on whatever short list was created for staff reduction if there was an economic crunch that affected his firm. Of course then there was an economic crunch and he was out the proverbial door.

So, Friday afternoon as we sat in his living room, just over eleven months after his last day of work. I was curious about his experience of the process he has been engaged with. Economically he and his wife had made the adjustments necessary quite successfully but I was more concerned about his emotional and psychological state.

My initial questions to my son on Friday had the effect of uncorking a bottle of champagne! He talked virtually non-stop for the next 45 minutes about what a great time he had been having. I was thinking to myself, “Oh dear, this has finally gotten to him.” A few months earlier, back in July to be exact, he had expressed similar enthusiasm but I thought that would have worn off by now as reality set in and anxiety displaced his early bravado. Actually, he is now more excited than ever and while he did admit that there is a certain amount of anxiety he contends with each day it seems to him to be a natural part of the process that he has accepted and appreciates.

Each morning he gets breakfast for both girls while his wife sets off to work. He takes his now five-year-old first daughter to kindergarten each morning and then spends the rest of the time until noon with his one year old who gets dropped off at day care for the afternoon, when he begins “his work.” Right around 5:30PM, everyone comes home and he gets dinner in one form or other.  Since this process began he has applied for and been granted a general contractors license , taken and passed four of the seven exams to be certified as a licensed architect, visited nearly a hundred potential properties for sale, interviewed and made tentative plans with several specialty contractors,  purchased and learned how to use a bidding and planning software package and is nearly complete with a set of prototype plans for a residential multi-family building that he can use to develop bank financing, something he works on at times until 3:00AM, on his own time.

As time has passed since his layoff he has become clearer and clearer that he had wanted to leave his employed situation for quite some time but the pragmatic “I am a father now with responsibilities!”, part of him held him in tow like a “tractor beam” to an employment situation that increasingly offered him little other than financial reward. To be certain he felt as though the experience he had gained in his first few years with this employer had been a valuable apprenticeship. However, for at least the past three years he was increasingly distracted and I noticed him often finding fault with his employer’s decisions and practices. This was something I found strange since the employer had always seemed willing to accommodate his limited work schedule and habit of extending lunch hours so he could visit his daughter in day care. What is the phrase, “Be careful not to bite the hand that feeds you?”

Aaaanyway, this post has gone on a bit too long. Somewhere near the center of this large question we are addressing together is a lesson to be both learned and shared. If we are serious about optimizing the experience of the time of our life, it is insufficient to find something to be involved with where all that is required is our competence. This is not how our self would want to invest if we truly gave it voice. Competence does not necessarily equal engagement. Unfortunately, I fear that this is among the most common of stories we might hear about how many of our children, or perhaps even ourselves, have chosen to spend the productive years we have been given. The net effect is unfortunate to a degree that is almost unimaginable. While it satisfies the basics that Maslow so brilliantly described in his work it inevitably leads us to adopt a certain bitter perspective towards life in general and resentfulness towards others who have made the choice to satisfy their soul as well as their pocketbook. In the end, it also robs our employers of the opportunity to have the most engaged workforce possible, but that is another discussion for another day.

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Employees, and their managers will be unable to engage with their work at the levels needed today for sustained periods until the issue of emotional intelligence is addressed as a key strategic issue in the "C" level suites around the country.

In virtually every management development program I have created or delivered in the past 20 years the point has been made that the greatest challenge facing managers today is their own limited interest in developing their own understanding of this psychological breakthrough , (probably now more appropriately defined in a workplace context as social intelligence ) or these needs among the people who report to them. The fact of emotional intelligence born out now by years of research and anecdotal references continues to bedevil  managers today and the problems created as well as their consequences continue to grow. (In many instances we simply have the wrong people managing but that is a topic for another day)

It usually goes without saying but bears repeating here that business in general and certainly the experience of being at work must be considered a contact sport.  As our economy has evolved over the last 25 years, the amount of contact has by design, certainly not intent,  increased dramatically and my experience strongly suggests that the majority of people in our American workforce are not adequately prepared to participate in a game that requires significant personal initiative and interpersonal skill. For that matter it is probably safe to say that just as many employers are not ready to participate with a workforce possessed of an high social intelligence quotient if this had occurred as part of the evolutionary process.

Evolution may be a catch-all phrase when talking about how the economy has "morphed" over the years but one feature is worth considering; the process generally happens outside of our standard measurements of time and so changes often go unnoticed for extended periods. Management in the American workplace is now standing in front of the outcome of just such an evolutionary outcome, what Peter Senge undoubtedly meant us all to notice when he popularized the term "unintended consequences" in his landmark work, The Fifth Discipline.  Educationally and emotionally, many, many people in the workplace today are not prepared to deal successfully with the level of interpersonal complexity they face daily.

A quick look back may serve a purpose here. The industrial economy offered the majority of people in the workforce

• narrowly defined sets of tasks
• high degrees of supervision and
• limited individual discretionary action

Never mind whether this was good or bad; it was what it was and created the foundation for the standard of living we enjoy today. As the economy has proceeded along its path and  we have been brought to where we are today certain aspects of that industrial economy were carried over, including some unfortunate ways of thinking about management, meanwhile what we need from employees has changed dramatically. Many managers say they want more initiative, creativity and passion from those reporting to them but are not able to recognize that these additives to the compliance that was the hallmark of a prior time in the workplace are not simple snap-on modules. This outcome begs for transformational education and skill building is also required.

Before patting yourself on the back because you don't fall into the category of the emotionally underdeveloped or see what I am talking about in your immediate reports, ask yourself and honestly answer these questions:

• Am I able to participate successfully in every conversational exchange without hesitation or caution?
• Am I able to have the conversations I really need to have with my reports so I am optimizing their development as well as their productivity?
• Do I ever see instances where my reports "hold back" with me even though I have repeatedly encouraged them to talk to me about everything?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you were being authentic and the question that remains is, "What is the price you are paying in terms of

1. Your own full engagement at work
2. Your own productivity
3. The level of engagement and productivity of those you are charged with developing

This is not so much an issue of answering a question as it is one of making a commitment. As managers, as executives, are we prepared to work as hard as needed and invest accordingly to bring the social intelligence of our workforces to the levels required by the level of contact and complexity our organizations require to perform as expected? I can tell you from experience that our educational system has yet to even recognize the enormity of the problem.

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Welcome, both to you and to me. Today marks the beginning of a new phase of my life. This is the first entry into this dialogue that I plan to host, and I am more than excited. I am by trade and experience what would traditionally be called a consultant. Personally, I have never felt that name suited, I see myself as more of a catalyst. But that gets funny looks when you put it on a business card.

Engagement is my game. More accurately, "THE HEART of ENGAGEMENT", which for me is less about knowing something for certain and more about establishing a dialogue. The point is to be continually searching for, and then asking the questions that concern what it takes to create and sustain a working environment that fosters engagement. I believe the the power to get things done organizationally, and to produce results, is a function of engagement and engagement alone. A claim like this deserves some further dialogue and maybe even some evidence along the way. My intention with these posts is to provide just that; and I sincerely hope that you will add to the conversation as we go along.

First perhaps a little definition. These days the word engagement gets tossed around so much you'd think we were talking about empowerment!  In a short time, the word has almost become meaningless or so broadly defined, as to have no power when used. I prefer a definition I found in my Webster's several years back; association by choice.  So whatever factors you choose to use to define engagement, you are welcome to. My frame of reference will always be seeking the factors that contribute to working environments and working relationships that are characterized as associations by choice.  There are many questions such as:

• What has an employee make the initial choice to join a particular workplace?
• How does a company's leadership demonstrate continuously that it has chosen an employee?
• How does an employee know that their employer has really chosen them for the long haul?
• How does a company behave that has an authentic belief that its' employees are really its' capabilities?

You are certainly welcome to use your own criteria for defining engagement, and to share that with me as well. I'd welcome that opportunity, but be mindful this is not a debate. So, don't send me a "better definition" as I plan to continue using mine. 

My attention is on distinguishing and managing the factors, aspects, dimensions, whatever, that end up with people being and working somewhere as a matter of choice - and staying in that place for only so long as that is true.

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