chapter 4

How do you create engagement?

• Increasing team engagement
• Increasing team self-esteem

‘Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.’

Chinese proverb

Self-assessment

Before reading the chapter, do the following quick self-assessment.

How would you rate the following in your team?

The same old story

Exploring the problem

Global studies repeatedly indicate that less than a fifth of employees are fully engaged at work and this is a massive waste of human capital on behalf of the company and just as importantly a waste of people’s time. According to Gallup, there are three types of employees: Engaged, Not Engaged and Actively Disengaged.⁵

Team members who are not engaged, are not particularly interested, they can even be apathetic. They are there in body, but not mentally or emotionally.

Those that are actively disengaged are openly showing how unhappy and disenchanted they are.

In the story, both Roger and Felicity are showing signs of not being engaged, for different reasons. Roger is bored with having to explain what to him is very obvious. Felicity feels like an order taker rather than someone who is invited to participate. She considers the requests to be very disjointed as she’s not been included in the ongoing discussions. As a result, they both withdraw their engagement from the team and the project.

When people are not fully engaged, they are, whether they know it or not, not valuing their own time enough to stay engaged and make the most of any situation they are in.

The reasons for lack of engagement, or even apathy

Boredom

If a person is bored, they switch off, they slow down and they lack energy. Boredom has different drivers, such as not seeing the point in something or the reason for it. It can also be because they don’t understand the bigger reason for doing it, the bigger picture. Another reason for boredom is when a person perceives their job to be boring, either in content, context or environment. That kind of tedium can also specifically relate to a job where the person feels unable to innovate or think differently about their job and how it is performed. Overly repetitive work can cause disinterest and apathy.

Not feeling important

If it’s not obvious to people how they add value to the organisation, they won’t think they are important. They may not feel either seen or heard. For whatever reason, their contribution is not getting enough attention from their leader or other relevant people around them. They are not getting enough feedback on their work or the value they bring. By not being noticed, they are not receiving recognition and there can be no celebration when results are achieved. In the story, Felicity is interpreting her not being invited to play an active part in the project, as an indication that she is only being an order taker and not as important as her peer. Also in the story, Roger is annoyed that he should have to think about the impact on his peers and keep them informed. His boss is always talking about it but Roger is not realising the effect this could have.

Holding a grudge

Whenever team members hold a serious grudge against their boss or another person, or the organisation as a whole, they are engaging more with the grudge than their work. This could be a conscious choice, but it could also be completely subconscious/automatic. The grudge gets most of their focus – it’s hard to hold a grudge AND be focused on your work. When there’s a grudge against the organisation, the person will usually come to work anyway but they’ve effectively checked out and are probably doing the minimum they can get away with, which affects team members and team results.

Disillusionment

In the story Felicity is checking out, she is jaded by this conversation having happened so many times before. She is losing the will to continue to invest in the same dialogue again. This jaded feeling can lead to team members being disillusioned and disengaged.

Career stagnation

Career stagnation can be another reason for people to disengage. They have been in the role for too long, or they don’t see any progression opportunities. Some team members can feel this way if they didn’t get promoted and were not given effective feedback along with the reasons why they were not promoted.

Lack of control

If people don’t feel in control of their own situation or don’t feel consulted, it can impact their level of team engagement. If they think they can’t impact their own situation it encourages them to withdraw and disconnect. They have a sense of not being in control. If this happens, they may get into a downward spiral of believing they can’t do a good job so they stop trying. In the example Roger wants to be in control and Felicity feels she is not in control, which forces her to withdraw, particularly as this has happened many times before.

Uncelebrated success

This is something that is very common in teams where there is a lack of engagement, that there are leaders who don’t take time to celebrate because they are too busy, or just busy getting on to the next thing. They don’t stop to celebrate as they don’t think it’s a big deal. Also, they may not celebrate success because they don’t feel what they have done is good enough or that it is just as expected. This feeling of ‘not being good enough’ or just having done what was expected leads to not being proud of achievements.

The impact of lack of engagement in teams

Lack of engagement is very apparent to other people, people don’t have to SAY anything. The lack of engagement is obvious so negative impact is inevitable:

• It’s contagious, it can spread like a virus. It’s hard to stay engaged in a team if you are sitting next to someone who isn’t. Imagine the impact of several disengaged colleagues.
• It creates resentment. Team members may get annoyed with those who aren’t engaged and carrying their part of the workload. This results in uneven workload.
• Low engagement in a team doesn’t feel good. The team will find it hard to feel good about itself – there will be lower team self-esteem.
• When team members are low in engagement, it’s not enjoyable to work there – and employee turnover is therefore a great risk. Sadly, you are at more risk of losing those who have potential to be engaged, as they will not accept working in a non-engaging environment. And turnover is costly; hiring new people and bringing them to a high-performing level takes time and money – and can impact the customers’ experience.
• Negative retention – when people who are not engaged stay, this is costly too, as it affects several business success factors: team morale, customer experience, productivity and profitability.

The impact on the business, customers, employees and stakeholders

Employee engagement drives customer engagement, which in turn drives revenue. This is not something to take lightly.

Let’s look at an example of the impact on customers.

This example shows how dangerous lack of employee engagement can be on many levels, affecting productivity, customer experience and profitability.

An organisation pays for 100 per cent of employees’ agreed working time. If employees are not fully engaged, the organisation is only getting a limited amount of their time and therefore their capability. Let’s get specific. According to Gallup, 87 per cent of employees worldwide are not fully engaged at work. This means organisations are only getting full payback on 13 per cent of their investment in employee time and capability.⁵

The link to the bottom line is dramatic. If an employee is disengaged in a team, the viral effect means it is harder for others to be engaged too. Disengagement means that team members don’t operate at the level of efficiency that they are capable of and, therefore, only perform a limited amount of work. An example is during times of change when as much as two hours per day can be made up by people simply talking about the change rather than doing their work. Imagine a team of ten people talking, not doing their job for two hours per day – that’s a total of 20 hours per day. This has an impact on productivity as well as the customer experience (longer response times, etc.) and therefore profitability.

Solutions

To be engaged in a team environment means to feel committed to the team mission, to want to get involved and do your very best. It also means to feel motivated to ‘go the extra mile’. You behave as if you are the owner of the mission, the team task, rather than a passive observer. You express enthusiasm in your behaviour as well as your word.

You feel connected and driven to do a good job. This positive effect is communicated to team members and becomes infectious in a positive way.

The team leader needs to have their ‘engagement radar’ on and assess how engaged the members are at any given time. This is not to say that team engagement is only the leader’s responsibility of course. Everyone is ultimately responsible for how they spend and value their own time.

Let’s get specific on how to do it.

Solution 1: Role-model personal response-ability

If you want others to be engaged, you need to start with yourself and find your motivation to give it your all. Anything can happen at work, sometimes good, sometimes bad. And whatever happens you have the ability to choose your response to that – you are response-able. By role-modelling that engagement is indeed in your own hands and not subject to external factors, you demonstrate to others that it’s possible to stay engaged even when faced with challenges. It may not always feel like you have a choice at that particular point, but you do. Take a moment and ask yourself how you could respond to what has happened and remind yourself that you value your own time enough to make sure your choice is productive – and engagement is more productive than disengagement.

Solution 2: Clearly communicate the team’s purpose and everyone’s role in it

Talk with the team as a whole about what they, as a group, are here to do. Have an in-depth conversation about it so that each person can clearly see what it means to him/her personally, so they can connect to their job purpose not just in their head but in their heart too. Make sure there are opportunities to ask questions, discuss and get clarification.

Solution 3: Tell people how they are doing

Without feedback, people are flying blind. They need to know how they are doing. They need to know what they’re doing well and what they can do better. Some people can figure this out themselves, but most people have blindspots and feedback can help with these. It’s often easier to assess if you have completed a task but harder to assess how you did and what the impact was on the team, the organisation and maybe even the customer.

As a leader, you need to give regular feedback to each person as well as to the team. If it’s good, tell them. If it’s not good, help them work on how to develop in order to make it better. Make it part of the team’s DNA as well, by including the following feedback points in each team meeting:

• What have we done since we last met that has worked well? Why has it worked well? What’s been the impact?
• What have we done since we last met that has NOT worked well? Why has it NOT worked well? What’s been the impact?

Solution 4: Get members working on innovative new ways of doing the job

Have a brainstorming session on how to invigorate the job. This could and should include questioning processes that don’t add value, responsibility overlaps, process handovers and particularly time-consuming tasks. Use these questions to help drive innovation forward:

• What could we change to make the job more interesting/fun?
• Are we doing things that are repetitive and boring and bring very little value? If so, could they be stopped/changed/improved?
• If possible, what could we stop doing? What could we start doing? What should we continue doing?
• Could any tasks be swapped between team members (a new task owner can bring new perspective/ideas)?

In order to make the session productive for everyone, send out the questions in advance to allow reflection time ahead of the meeting for those who want it.

Solution 5: Be genuinely interested in your team members

Take an interest in each team member and the work they do by really listening to their ideas, concerns and interest. Find something in each person that you can be genuinely interested in. Make it authentic. When interest is truly authentic it sends a different message; the other person feels valued and important; they feel seen and heard as a person, not just a work contributor. They are seen as a whole person.

Solution 6: Have ongoing development discussions

Don’t wait until the yearly appraisal. Have regular one-to-ones and make them truly two-way. Together, discuss how further development could happen. Don’t feel like you have to have all the answers here. Be creative about development, it doesn’t have to be a promotion or even a new same-level job, it could just be a new challenge that gives the added injection of engagement.

Encourage one-to-ones between team members too, as peer coaching can be a very powerful addition to someone’s development.

Solution 7: Celebrate success

When things go well, you absolutely need to recognise and celebrate that. Stop and reflect on a regular basis, to recognise what’s been done, what learning has happened and what has been achieved. You could do this individually and as a team. To make it into a habit, put reflection time into your calendar weekly. It doesn’t have to be more than five or ten minutes, which is time everyone should be able to afford to invest. Take the time to celebrate too. Engage your team in how to celebrate (ask them!): coffee huddle, drinks, dinner, event, trip etc. It can be as small or as big as you want, but it must happen. And let’s be honest, celebrating is fun, so let’s just enjoy it.

Solution 8: Make it contagious

Attitudes and moods are contagious. Keep this in mind when you interact with your team. If you are disengaged, chances are you will find yourself in the company of others who are too. It’s even more contagious than that. Just thinking about or discussing disengagement is disengaging! You are much better off focusing on how to engage, making engagement infectious.

Solution 9: Build team self-esteem

Just like an individual, a team can have varying levels of self-esteem.

When a team enjoy working together, is able to do a good job and its members are seen as important, the team will feel good about itself – it will have high team self-esteem.

Building team self-esteem is a way of increasing engagement in a team, and it’s done through role modelling of personal response-ability, clarity of purpose, performance feedback, development discussions, innovative ways of doing the job, genuine interest, celebrating success and making it contagious.

Let’s have a look at what Roger and Felicity could have done instead, had they deployed these solutions.

Behaviours of team and leader

Under ‘Solutions’ above, we have listed a number of ‘how to’ actions. These solutions work best when carried out with these supporting ‘how to’ behaviours. The actions on their own, will get you only so far. With the right behaviours you can more effectively create employee engagement.

Thoughts and feelings of team and leader

On average, a person experiences around 70.000 thoughts per day.¹

Many of those thoughts are habits that affect a person’s mindset or outlook.

When wanting to increase engagement within a team, actively replace thoughts and feelings that are counterproductive to that. Here are some thoughts from the story, their impact on feelings and how they can be changed.

Summary

Team engagement is not just a ‘nice to have’, it’s a driver of success.

Feeling connected

Team members who are engaged are interested in what they do. They are committed to the team mission, to ‘going the extra mile’. They behave as if they are the owner of the mission, the team task, rather than a passive observer. They express enthusiasm in behaviour as well as words. They feel connected and driven to do a good job.

They are there in body, as well as mentally and emotionally. And this kind of behaviour is contagious.

Involvement

The key to engagement is involvement. By involving others, you make it impossible for them to stay detached. You are also demonstrating that they are paramount to the work the team does, which is also hard for them not to connect with.

Everyone’s responsibility

Team engagement is everyone’s responsibility. Each team member needs to have their ‘engagement radar’ on and assess how engaged they are themselves at any given time. Everyone is ultimately responsible for how they spend and value their own time, and being engaged is a way of valuing your time.

Reflection questions for the reader

• Does my team believe in the team’s ability to achieve its purpose? Does my team have high team self-esteem?
• How often do I, as a team member or leader, change or cancel development discussions? And what’s the impact of that, on me and others?
• What impact am I having on my team members through my actions and behaviours?
• How often do I innovate at work? How and when do I discuss new ways of doing things?

Self-assessment

After you have implemented the solutions in this chapter, answer these questions again to see the progress you have made.

How would you rate the following in your team?