How to Cultivate Engaged Employees – 4th in a series of 6 related Posts

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Guideline #4 – Focus the Agenda

Notes HBR author Charalambos Vlachoutsicos, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I’ve often seen managers who willingly invite disagreement do it in an undisciplined way, especially in meetings where all ideas are on the table. The trouble is that the more you put on the agenda, the less time each person has to talk, unless your meeting runs for a long time. If you set a time limit, you end up racing through parts of the agenda, which causes consternation.”

Well, I agree and I disagree.

Some meetings should be short and to the point. Others should be more open ended to allow for fuller discussion, disagreement and clarification. The key is know in advance what kind of meeting you’re having and to make sure everyone else does too!

For example, we do limit our weekly huddle meetings to 15 minutes (see chapter 46, Communicate Early and Often in my book, Building a Winning Business) and we only include three items on the agenda: big updates, stuck items and our financial numbers. Because the purpose of these meetings is to share big news and quickly solve small problems before they become big ones, I often set the tone by acknowledging that “I don’t have any group-worthy updates. Who’s next?”

Bigger issues get tabled to our monthly “workout” meeting. I’m not shy about letting someone know in a huddle if the issue they’re raising needs to wait for the next workout.

In addition, every quarter we take time at a workout meeting to recap how we’re doing with our strategic objectives (which are decided at the annual two-day offsite—see previous post) and to decide on any necessary mid-year adjustments.

This cascade approach allows us to keep in sync on the day-to-day major updates and financial performance indicators, while making sure bigger issues don’t get lost or glossed over in the daily hub-bub. Just as important, we are careful to keep our eye on the big picture to ensure that the overall objectives are on track too.

How to Cultivate Engaged Employees – 3rd in a series of 6 related Posts

Disagreement is good!

Guideline #3 – Invite Disagreement

In the recent HBR article, “How to Cultivate Engaged Employees” author Charalambos Vlachoutsicos encourages inviting disagreement to get employees engaged. He cites an example of the difficulties of managers at a company in Belarus, which has survived three generations under authoritarian communism, to get employees to speak up, disagree and offer opinion – even when they have constructive ideas to contribute. He writes, “Bosses in more open cultures might see this problem as alien,” but I don’t think that’s true. Even in the United States it can be challenging to create a culture where employees feel free to disagree.

At Intertech, we have institutionalized the process of open discussion in a couple of ways. For example, at our annual executive team offsite two-day planning meeting we engage a facilitator (someone not on our staff) to encourage open dialogue. I also remind everyone that either we can be hard on ourselves, or our competition can do so. Disagreement and healthy debate is good! However, no matter how lively the debate may be, we all adhere to one rule: once we make a decision, no one “backtracks or backstabs.” In other words, we move forward in unison.

We also seek the unvarnished feedback of all our employees. I describe in chapter 28 of my book Building A Winning Business the importance of letting everyone weigh in. We do this through an annual half-day all-company “Town Hall” style meeting in which the executive management team is not present. A senior, trusted team member leads the discussion, giving all employees a “safe” way to disagree and bring up ideas without worrying about upsetting senior leaders. Every year this process has led to new good ideas and impacted the direction of our company.

How to Cultivate Engaged Employees – 2nd in a series of 6 related Posts

If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Guideline #2 – Listen Seriously – And Show It

Author Vlachoutsicos believes managers are getting better at listening to employees but “their teams don’t always see it, or even recognize that it matters.” And like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, if it no one hears does it make a sound?

I believe we need to be intentional about letting others know we’re listening and sincerely considering what they have to say. (Chaper 63 of my book Building a Winning Business is called “Leaders Listen.”) One simple way I do this is to make a point of hitting the Do Not Disturb button when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone in my office. About half the time, the “live” person will tell me to go ahead and take the call. Unless I’m expecting a life or death call, I still send the caller to voice mail. I want the person who took the time to come to my office to talk with me to know he or she has my undivided attention.

It’s also helpful to write down things people tell you as they are speaking. This communicates to them that you are, indeed, listening and that you consider what they’re saying to be important enough to write down and remember!

I’ve also learned a little tip from talking with a counselor when communicating with my wife: paraphrase what you think you’re hearing the other person say. You might discover something amazing, such as you didn’t really understand what the other person was trying to communicate at all! This simple little technique can save everyone a lot of confusion, hurt feelings or anger. . . plus it greatly improves your odds of actually understanding what another is saying.

One of my mentors, Performark founder and retired chief executive officer Joe Lethert shared the best advice he ever received with me. It was, “Seek first to understand and then to be understood.” That advice has served me well over the years, keeping me from jumping to hasty conclusions or rushing to solve a problem for which someone else already has found a creative solution.