All Posts by Ann Tardy

0 Ignore Engagement. Obsess Over Employee Involvement

Employee engagement is like the war on terror. We’re not sure exactly what it means; we can’t exactly describe it; we don’t know what to do about it; we never really know if we are making any progress; and we will never know if we have won.

According to the Gallop Organization, only 29% of employees are engaged and 71% are disengaged. As defined by Gallop, employees are engaged when they “work with passion and feel connected to the company.”

These stats and this definition confound me. As a leader, I’m already feeling responsible for the success of people above me, below me, and beside me. Now I’m supposed to be responsible for their passion and connection to the company? In the words of the investors on the reality show Shark Tank, “I’m out.”

Every day, my focus is to lead better, execute effectively, innovate constantly, and make a difference. So I ignore “employee engagement” and I obsess over “employee involvement.” And engagement takes care of itself.

When employees are involved, they are included in decisions, they participate in improving processes, they undertake planning and strategy, and they are immersed in execution. As a result, they are committed, engrossed, and concerned.

As a leader of my own team, I don’t have a clue whether my people are engaged – and frankly I don’t give a damn.

What I do care about is that they are involved constantly. And as a result, I promise you my people are committed to the company’s success and the success of our clients; they are included in decisions; they participate in improving processes; they are engrossed in projects and program launches; and they are relentlessly concerned about responding to each other, to clients, and to program participants.

Here’s the difference:

• With engagement, people are passionate and connected to the company.
• With involvement, people are committed to, engrossed in, and concerned about the success of the company and its clients.
• With engagement, managers are responsible for an employee’s feelings of passion and connection. (This is distracting and can ultimately breed entitlement and disrespect.)
• With involvement, managers are responsible for involving employees. And employees are responsible for their own feelings.

Our job as leaders is to involve people. Their job is to stay involved. After that they can assess their own passion and connection.

What are you doing to intentionally involve people?

0 Would your people protest for you?

Would your people protest for you?

 

Forget going to war for you. Would your people protest for you? Would they demand you be reinstated if you were fired, risking their jobs and pensions for you?

 

What kind of leader would you have to be to attract no less than 4 major rallies in 2 months drawing thousands of employees, vendors, and customers in protest to demand your reinstatement?

 

You would have to be Arthur T. Demoulas.

 

“Artie T.” is the grandson of the founder of Demoulas Market Basket, a 25,000 employee grocer serving Massachusetts and New Hampshire since 1916.

 

The founder’s two sons (Mike and George) purchased the grocer in 1954 from their father. Over the following 60 years, a family feud ensued forcing the families to battle in out in court in the 1990s. Along the way, Artie T became CEO while the power of the board swayed from one side of the family to the other. Then in 2013 Artie T’s arch rival, first cousin Arthur S Demoulas, attempted to oust Artie T as CEO but withdrew the effort due to threats from employees.

 

Arthur S eventually gained control of the board over the past year, and on June 23, 2014, Arthur S led the board in firing Artie T as the CEO. Since then all hell has broken loose in the Market Basket world.

 

Executives, Managers, Employees Aligned

On June 24, 2014, employees gathered in protest to demand the reinstatement of “their CEO” Artie T. The rally drew 300 people. Subsequent rallies have grown and the last one was estimated to have drawn 7,000 people.

 

When Artie T was fired, seven executives resigned. The managers have already threatened to resign if the board does not bring Artie T. back declaring their refusal to work for anyone other than Artie T.

 

In the meantime, workers are picketing and customers are boycotting. Deliveries are being refused, produce has disappeared, and shelves are bare in each of the 71 stores. It is estimated that the company is losing $10 million a day as a result of the revolt.

 

But why are employees and customers revolting?

 

They love Artie T. They are fiercely loyal to him. Here are some reasons:

 

• He is committed to paying above-the-competition compensation and benefits
• He is committed to the profit-sharing program that allows all employees to benefit
• He is steadfast in his promote-from-within culture
• He runs a financially successful company

 

Artie T’s commitment to promote-from-within has engrained this undying loyalty far more than the money. It is not uncommon at Market Basket for employees to work their way up from bagger to leader. As a result, many people have been with Market Basket for over 40 years. This inevitably leads to low turnover and allegiance to the leader at the top who maintains this world.

 

Executives, managers, and rank-and-file employees are aligned in their convictions, a sign of the culture that Artie T cultivates throughout Market Basket

 

Financial Success of Market Basket

In addition to being a man of the people, Artie T is a brilliant businessman. He has created efficiencies throughout the business. For example, the company carries no debt; it handles its own distribution; it stocks the stores with the same products allowing it to buy in bulk and maintain low prices for customers; and its insistence on hiring from within creates low turnover and training, and a workforce with engrained experience and knowledge, with little need for heavy leadership at the top. Employees at the store level are incredibly experienced in all aspects of running the store thus allowing the workforce at headquarters to need only 125 people.

 

All of this equates to a $4 billion dollar business producing enormous benefits to shareholders, employees, customers, and vendors alike.

 

Artie T has clearly aligned the priorities of the company with the potential of his people.

 

Are you doing that? Would people at every level of your organization protest for your reinstatement if you got fired? Or would they merely wish you well on Facebook?

 

 

0 Forget WIIFM. Shift the Focus to WSIC

Imagine my delight! I’ve been on a soapbox for years begging leaders to replace WIIFM with WSIC. Then I discovered that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published recently a paper that affirms my rant!

 

What’s WIIFM?

What’s In It For Me. With WIIFM people expect something in exchange for their efforts. I’ll do this if you give me that. But WIIFM is unsustainable, because it requires you to keep giving to me in order to keep getting from me. And after a while, I will want more for the same effort.

 

The following structures are fueled by WIIFM:

• Sales commissions
• Health benefits
• Union contracts
• Bonuses
• Pensions and other retirement benefits

 

What’s WSIC?

Why Should I Care. With WSIC, while people have to work for money, they show up because they know it matters. They’re passionate about the work or the impact of their work. They are self-motivated to contribute, take initiative, work hard, succeed, and progress. They know that their efforts make a difference.

 

WSIC drives many people to:

• Non-profits
• Start-ups
• The Peace Corps
• Teaching
• Performing arts (actors, musicians, dancers, artists)
• Social Work
• HR
• Practice medicine (doctors, nurses)
• Manage projects and lead teams

 

The Research Paper

Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management and Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College studied 11,320 cadets entering West Point over a 9-year period. They asked the cadets to rate the influence of various motives for attending the academy – some instrumental (ex: desire to get a good job later in life) and some internal (ex: desire to be a trained leader in the Army). They discovered that the stronger the internal motives (WSIC), the more likely the cadet would graduate and become a commissioned officer. Surprisingly, they also discovered that cadets with strong internal motives (WSIC) and strong instrumental motives (WIIFM) were less likely to graduate, less outstanding, and less committed. The presence of WIIFM actually thwarted success!

 

Why aren’t more leaders focused on WSIC?

We’ve been led to believe that people need commissions, bonuses, rewards, prizes, benefits, pensions, and retirement to show up to work, let alone stay motivated. But those instrumental motives (WIIFM) create merely fleeting motivation. They’re like bribes. When those motives are gone, so is the motivation. So, what will incentivize people to take action? A reason to care.

 

A Leader’s Job is to Influence WSIC

First, stop believing that you can motivate people. You can’t. They can only motivate themselves. You, however, can influence people to shift their focus from WIIFM to WSIC.

How?

• Ask people what they love about their job.
• Make it your responsibility to discover and know each person’s passion
• Find out why they chose their career and their job
• Ask: “What makes you show up to this particular job every day?”
• Share with people how their work matters to the team, to the company, and to the clients
• Give people opportunities to make a difference
• Regularly recognize their efforts and contributions
• Help people grow and progress so they are prepared to contribute and continue to make a difference

 

And don’t forget to intentionally shift your own focus from WIIFM to WSIC!

 

(Above is a picture of me and my good friend Alan at the border of Nevada and Utah. Alan joined me for part of my cross-country bike ride in 2011. I pedaled 4,240 miles to put my finger on WSIC and then produced a documentary showcasing what people love about their jobs.)

 

0 Even Congress Likes to Blame Middle Managers

“There is a culture of complacency among the agency’s middle management,” said Rep. Jeffrey Miller (R-Fla.), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC). “These mid-level managers are evidently willing to just wait out those of us who are trying to change things.”

Not only is that statement riddled with assumptions, it’s laden with its own complacency.

But there’s even more in this game of blame.

Many in Congress argue that the problems in the VA stem from slipshod, incompetent middle managers who are not held responsible for outcomes in their medical facilities.

And yet, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported a year ago that the VA routinely rewards these managers with bonuses in spite of enduring poor conditions. According to the performance pay policy, managers can earn bonuses and advancement by reducing veteran wait-times. Those who fail suffer downgrades. The GAO noted, however, that the policy neglects to specify an overarching purpose that the goals are to support.

Lazy Blaming

So now it feels merely convenient to place the blame on the shoulders of the VA middle managers. By doing so, we don’t have to answer any of these questions:

• Why would the managers need to manipulate wait-time data at all?
• Why did leaders award managers bonuses in spite of festering poor conditions?
• What was the point of the performance goals and the draconian consequences?
• Why didn’t the leaders take any action in light of the GAO 2013 report and countless veteran complaints and VA whistleblowers over the years?
• And what could possibly be written in the government employee contract that is preventing everyone from taking different actions to fix the enduring problems?

 

Imagine Being a Manager at the VA

You get offered a new job. You’re excited. You’re filled with enthusiasm, hope and possibility to progress your career, make a decent salary with nice benefits, and make a difference serving the people who served our country. (I highly doubt you’re excited about taking this new job because of the opportunity to manipulate wait-time data…)

But then, instead of helping veterans, you are hit with an onslaught of red tape, office politics and inane policies, union contracts, arbitrary performance goals that threaten your salary and benefits, a lack of resources to meet those goals, deaf-eared leaders, and ignorant politicians. All of which suddenly makes it impossible for you to make a difference.

And now you’re not only feeling helpless, you’re feeling resentment. That resentment shifts you from ‘I care!’ to ‘Why should I care if you don’t?’ And now you’re so busy trying to save yourself, you have no time to save a veteran.

The policies and politics are driving your behavior. You have long forgotten your initial enthusiasm, hope, and possibility of making a difference for veterans.

 

WYGIWYT (what you get is what you tolerate)

As leaders, it’s easy to blame managers for being incompetent and lazy.  Just like it’s easy to blame your kids for being rude and disrespectful or your dog for not listening.

But it’s hard for leaders to accept the responsibility that you created it and you tolerate it month after month, year after year.

The bureaucracy, the manipulated wait-time data, the fraud, the waste, and the abuse… these are just manifestations of underlying, unaddressed issues. But those issues require the commitment of leaders to help their managers make a difference, not throw them under the bus in the midst of an election year.

United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki resigned under pressure last week. As a former United States Army general, he knows that failure flows up the chain of command. Too bad it skipped a few chain links on the way up.

0 Lulu hated my gift

I have trained Lulu to expect a gift every time I visit. And she never forgets, regardless of how many months pass between my visits. My niece is a precocious 5-year-old.

When I visited in January, two weeks after my Christmas gifts arrived, I negligently handed her a gift to share with her brother. And not a good one. It was a deck of cards with puzzles, challenges, and word games to prepare them for 1st grade.

She did not find this amusing one bit.

She said incredulously, “That’s all you brought?”
I nodded sheepishly, knowing immediately I had failed.
She said, “I don’t like that gift. What else you got?”
I said, “That’s all I have, sweetie.”
She said, articulating every word, “No really, I don’t like that gift.”
I was speechless.
She wasn’t. “I want a Barbie. Do you have a Barbie in your suitcase?”
I said, “Nope. No Barbie. Sorry.”
She ended the conversation emphatically, “No. Really. I hate that gift.”

It took all I had not to laugh out loud. My feelings weren’t hurt. I knew I had blown it. But I wasn’t going to next time. Lulu told me exactly what I needed to do to secure my role as “Best Aunt on the Planet.”

Now when I visit Lulu, I make sure to bring a back-up gift. Rather than consider her to be rude, I find her incredibly refreshing. (Perhaps I’m a bit biased.)

Why can’t we be so transparent at work?

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to know where you stand with your boss, your employees, and your peers?

Boss: “Here’s your project.”
Employee: “Is that all you’ve got?”
Boss: “Yep.”
Employee: “I don’t like it. What else do you have?”
Boss: “That’s it.”
Employee: “No really, I hate that project.“

Employee: “Here’s the report you asked me to complete.”
Manager: “Is that all you’ve got?”
Employee: “Yes”
Manager: “I don’t like it. What else do you have?”
Employee: “That’s it.”
Manager: “No really, I hate that report.”

While it was entertaining when my niece said it, it is rather rude in my work example. But wouldn’t such transparency eliminate the endless games in which we constantly engage where we’re left wondering what the other person thinks?

In situations where we aren’t guaranteed unconditional 5-year-old niece love, consider an alternative to help you lift the communications fog while maintaining the relationship:  permission.

Simply ask permission.

“Would you be open to some feedback?”
“Do you want my perspective?”
“Would it help to hear what my experience of the situation is?”

There’s obviously a lot more that goes into the art of giving feedback, making observations, and providing constructive criticism. But it would be an enormous step if we started offering feedback instead of avoiding it, and if we started preparing others before jolting them with a dose of Lulu-like honesty.

It’s not a concept Lulu will get right now. While she is endearing, she’s clearly not ready for corporate America. But that’s OK, because corporate America is not ready for Lulu.