As the effects of the Comprehensive Spending Review now filter into the real economy, and with most organisations facing the challenge of doing the same amount of work with less resource, there has probably never been a more important time to engage the workforce.

There is plenty of research that makes the connection between engagement and success. Gallup and Sirota (the eminent behavioural researcher), amongst others, demonstrate the correlation between engagement and superior performance.  Well-researched it might be but it seems that, despite the best efforts of leaders, few organisations are populated by fully engaged employees.

We assert that employers are finding engaging their employees tough-going as they often use flawed motivational models. As a consequence they are trying to pull the wrong levers to bring about change.

If what you have always done continues to give you the same outcome, it is time to start doing something different.

This article provides the basis to take a different approach as it:

• Identifies what an engaged employee looks like,
• Identifies the belief and values system that underpins engagement,
• Specifies the managerial prerequisites for gaining employee engagement.

In taking a new perspective employers will have to drop the vestiges of ‘Newtonian’, mechanistic thinking and embrace the fact that connection – engagement – happens through authentic interpersonal interaction.

The engaged employee
There are many means to ensure that work happens. Power (I am the boss – do as I say) and process (this is the flow of work – go do) are two of the more simple methods.

However, to ensure that the work undertaken meets the specific need of a situation, or is done to the highest quality that a person is capable, it needs both personal commitment and engagement.

Commitment and engagement are part of the psychological contract that people have with their employer.

Commitment is the emotional attachment that we have to the organisation that we work for. At best, it comes from a belief in the organisation and what it stands for and the pride that we feel in its achievement.  In a lesser form, it is an allegiance based on the principle, ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’.

Whilst building commitment is extremely valuable in any psychological contract, commitment itself does not primarily lead a person to go that extra-mile to achieve something.

Engagement is altogether a more active and local affair.

Engagement is the discretionary effort to that we all make to ensure that something happens a little better than what was planned. It is the choice to help a colleague or delight the customer. It is the choice to put a little of yourself into the work and risk making a mistake.

As the term ‘discretionary effort’ implies, the exercise of personal choice – not the job description or the processes that a person has to follow – is the key to success.

Without engagement, no organisation can hope to align the efforts of its people with the goals that it has set. Without alignment there is far less hope of successful execution of strategy.

Disengaged people are far less likely to make the right choices. Wrong choices impede progress and at worst damage reputations beyond the point of recovery.

Setting the conditions for engagement
All organisations have an underlying value and belief system. These shape the management processes that are introduced.

For many organisations it is as if Newton’s First Law is the foundation of their belief system. This is, in a modified form and with all due deference to Sir Isaac, ‘an object will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force’.

Many organisations essentially work on the basis that unless management effort is exerted, employees will naturally move towards stasis and status quo.

Given this, a great deal of HR process has been developed to make sure that ‘rest’ is not the default position. However, in many cases it appears that much of the management effort exerted on bodies in motion is, at best, not having the desired effect and, at worst, may be creating an undesired reaction. For instance, studies consistently show that performance management systems, far from actually motivating employees, often do more harm than good.

With all this management effort, it is as if Newton’s third law of motion also applies. In this case the Law that seems to apply could be rewritten as, ‘The mutual forces of management action and employee reaction are equal and opposite’.

Many other organisations have long since realised the limitations of applying mechanistic models to people management and instead have sought other ideas that help them appreciate people, capability and motivation.

Leaders have turned to the discipline of psychology to help them gain insight into the realm of people at work. Indeed, psychology has much to teach us. Unfortunately though, some of the models, especially those that emphasise unconscious processes, do not translate well to organisational life.

It is argued here that in order to really understand the subject of engagement it is necessary to dispense with quasi-scientific theories or mechanistic metaphors and simply treat people as people.

To identify the factors that lead to people making good choices through the application of discretionary effort, you have to understand the being in human being. To do this you have to go beyond concepts of the unconscious, personality or just focusing on behaviour. It is necessary to go up-stream to the source of behaviour – to the thinking process.

If ‘thinking’ is addressed by organisations it is often limited to assessing the classic aptitudes of logical reasoning and analysis. However, a person’s perspective on the world and the thinking that gives rise to this is highly relevant as our ability to think, especially our ability to think about thinking, defines us as human beings.

When the thinking process is addressed it is possible to embrace the essence of human experience and to recognise that people are ‘meaning-making’ and ‘meaning-seeking’ beings. Our choices to act are often limited by our ability to construct meaning and by our handling of the factors such as ambiguity and paradox.

An organisation that puts being human at the heart of its approach to managing people sets the conditions for engagement.

Making the rubber hit the road
It is our clear assertion that relationships are predominantly shaped by the specific actions of managers. In other words, the line-manager creates the working climate that influences and affects the people working for them.

Sometimes the working climate set by a manager reflects the general climate of the organisation and sometimes this climate is a direct result of their very specific style and behaviour.

The optimal climate addresses the fundamental wants and needs of people. These wants and needs are for:
 

• Clarity: People want to be clear about what they are expected to do
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• Trust: People want to feel that they can use their own judgement and be allowed to get on with work within their level of competence
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• Purpose: People want to know that the work undertaken is heading in the right direction and at the right pace and they want to know that the tasks undertaken link to a broader purpose.

 
When a manager provides the optimal climate, people give more of themselves as they are treated as human-beings that can make choices. They know that they have room to make the best possible decision and if it goes wrong they will not be punished unduly. When a person has room to make a difference, they will feel engaged and naturally will make good judgements.

In creating the climate, a manager must be able to balance sometimes contradictory behaviours. As this is a balancing act, there is no simple step-by-step competency formula.

So what has Newton got to do with engagement? The answer is, not a lot.

However, the Newtonian view of a mechanistic universe still pervades much in the way of management thinking and HR practice. If we don’t question our own assumptions it is easy to see people as complying with the same rules that apply to machinery.

Many leaders already realise that organisations are much more than their structure, technology and processes. They see organisations as organic with self-organising properties. They genuinely value people and seek ways of getting the best out of them. Yet, in many cases, they turn to theories that fail to embrace the whole person at work.

In moving away from a mechanistic world view it is not necessary to dismantle structures for fear of being too hierarchical and commandeering.  There is something much simpler to hand.

When managers are taught about the importance of creating the right climate, are measured on this and acknowledged for it, then the conditions for employee engagement are set. If this management effort is accompanied by a culture of really respecting all individuals as irreducible mysteries then people will unlock their own potential. Ordinary people will produce extra-ordinary results.

When an organisation possesses engaged employees, strategic change is not pushed through by executive willpower, it is brought into being by the day-to-day decisions taken at every level that align human effort with the strategic direction.

Russell Connor is the Managing Director of Dynamic Link (www.dynamic-link.com).

References/Acknowledgements

Gillian Stamp, Director, BIOSS.
Christopher Bones: Engagement is at the heart of successful M&A, Ivey Business Journal, February 2007