In most organizations, the leaders and stars are fired up and playing at the top of their game. The problem is that the remaining 75-80 percent of employees report they are not engaged in their work. Their performance is mediocre at best.
Engaging employees is how leaders propel an organization’s culture from one of mediocrity to a culture of outperformance that attracts and retains talent. There are three areas you can focus on to engage employees.
The first area is what I describe as an inspiring identity. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he told employees they were not technologists but artists and innovators who were going to make computers with inspiring designs and easy-to-use functionality, and by doing so they would empower artists, educators and others like them to change the world. Jobs was so moved when the “Think Different” advertising ads expressing Apple’s new inspiring identity were unveiled to Apple employees that tears were streaming down his face while watching the ads. His passion to change the world set off a contagion of inspiration, energy and creativity that spread through the ranks of Apple’s employees. Not since King Henry V of England inspired his men at Agincourt had a leader had such a profound effect on a group of people he led. It was the beginning of Apple’s ascent to its current heights. Today, Apple is the most respected company in the world.
The key here is inspiration. How can an organization’s identity inspire? Mission is one way. If you can inspire employees by expressing your mission in a succinct way and keeping it in front of them, do it. The biotech firm Genentech inspires with a mission that is succinctly expressed in the phrase “In Business for Life.” Genentech keeps the mission in front of employees by having patients and their families in to visit on a regular basis and by throwing big company-wide celebrations when new drug breakthroughs occur.
For some companies, the mission that inspires is not as obvious (say, for example, a waste management company.) In such cases, it’s best to inspire employees with the organization’s values such as honesty, caring for people, environmental sustainability, helping employees learn and grow, etc. There are a whole host of values that inspire employees (and potential employees too). Be aware that trumpeting a set of inspiring values means you have to deliver on them (something I’ll come back to in a later post.)
If you are having trouble finding inspiration, establish an Inspiring Identity team and staff it with the most fired up employees you know, regardless of their rank in your organization. Get members of the team to describe what fires them up at work. Get them talking about where you want to go as a company, why it’s important and how you plan to get there. These discussions will help identify ways to inspire employees.
In an upcoming blog post, I’ll describe the second area leaders can focus on to re-engage and reenergize employees.
Michael Lee Stallard (www.michaelleestallard.com) speaks and teaches about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. He is the primary author of Fired Up or Burned Out and has spoken at leading organizations including Google, NASA, and GE. This is his second career. In his first he was chief marketing officer for the private wealth management businesses at Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab.
Michael Lee Stallard will be featured on HCI's first live webcast of 2011: Managing Employee Fatigue without Losing Sleep, Wednesday, January 12, at Noon EST.
Image: Flickr:Dawn Endico
