As history marks time, it hasn’t been so long ago when people thought the best way to run an organization was with an iron fist.  Workers were told what to do, and control was based on unchallenged lines of authority. There was little uncertainty about performance expectations, no room for employee opinions, and any effort to ruffle the status quo was met with swift, punishing consequences. 

The limits of authority
But even way back when, authority as a source of control had its limits.  A valuable lesson for today’s workforce can be learned from a notable exception to the traditional rule of control and command that embodied that long-ago bastion of order and discipline – the U.S. Cavalry.

The “production system” in those days was pretty straightforward. The colonel was in charge, and through the chain of command, he made sure that regulations were followed and requirements were met.

For the most part, the daily work routine consisted of making the bunks, polishing the brass, cleaning the stables – and given the white man’s misguided bias at the time – getting rid of the Indians. Measuring performance and production was just as clear-cut. All the colonel had to do was inspect the barracks … look at the brass … smell the stables … and count the bodies on the battlefield.

Everything worked fine for the colonel until he was faced with a dilemma he couldn’t solve by simply exerting his authority – not knowing where the Indians were. That’s when he had to count on his trusty scout – that free-spirited guy who wore buckskins instead of uniforms, and did pretty much whatever he wanted. He just had to be ready to go when the colonel needed him to track down the Indians.

When that happened, the colonel was still in charge – no one questioned his authority – but the scout was in control. That’s because he was the only one with the information and knowledge for the production system to operate successfully.

Information as the main source of control
Fast forward about 150 years, and look at how that scenario equates to modern day management. Fact is, in today’s complex organizations, information has significantly diminished authority as the sole source of control. First of all, few folks believe in absolute management dictates anymore – certainly not the millennial workforce.

You could also make a case that most of today’s managers are more tuned in to the benefits of free-thinking employees who can make sound decisions and take appropriate initiative on their own to go beyond the boundaries of their job descriptions.

Still, you have to wonder just how far we’ve really come from the old days – and how much further we have to go to optimize employee potential. According to the annual Gallup surveys on employee engagement, only 30% of employees are actively engaged, about 20% are actively disengaged, and the other 50% are somewhere in between. Gallup attributes most of that shabby state-of-affairs to bad management.

Make scouting part of everyone’s job description
So managers need to listen up. If you want to take a big leap forward in boosting engagement and getting team members emotionally invested in the company’s success, here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Encourage and support everyone on your team to operate as “scouts,” always on the lookout for the trail to systematic continuous improvement.
   
   
2. Set up routine processes for listening sincerely and substantively to the “scouting reports” you get from everyone on your team.
   
   
3. Explain the decisions you make so your team knows you are taking their input seriously and not dismissing them without consideration.

We can’t turn back the clock and erase the tragedy of what was done to Native Americans, and we will never recover what’s been lost from the crushing effects of traditional command and control that diminished the value of workers in decades past.

We can, however, take a stand for a more promising and prosperous future – one that promotes human dignity, unleashes employee potential, and honors the extraordinary contributions that every individual is willing and able to make.

Watch this video to learn more about our approach to Systematic Continuous Improvement.

For more information or to request an appointment with Les Landes,  send us an e-mail or call us today at 314-664-6497. 

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Tina Turner’s hit song, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” could easily be an anthem for the way most people think about workplace relationships.  Love isn’t really the kind of thing that most people are comfortable discussing in the work world. In fact, the implications can be a bit unsettling for folks who want to keep their distance from things like harassment charges and dicey workplace romances.  I’m not that skittish about it, so I blurt out the word on occasion without much regard to whether or not someone might take it wrong.  Still I get where the hesitation comes from.

Earlier today, I received this wonderful “love infographic” in celebration of Valentine’s Day from my friends and colleagues at Gagen-MacDonald that reaffirmed the value of openly sharing genuine – and appropriate – expressions of love in the workplace.

With all the buzz around employee engagement these days, the “gift of love” from Gagen-MacDonald made me think of the phrase we use to talk about what we’re up to in life – and what we want to bring to the world of work at Landes & Associates.  We say we’re all about “Creating great organizations where employees love to work and customers love doing business.”  It’s right there in big, bold letters on the home page of our website.  Occasionally, when I look at it and when I say it out loud, I get a tad bit sheepish.  Then I get a message from the universe like the one I got today from Gagen-MacDonald, and I know we’re on the right track.

So what’s love got to do with it?  When it comes to people, it’s pretty much everything.  At least it’s where everything starts.

Here’s love to all of you!

T’was the night before Christmas. That timeless phrase tells true believers they are about to hear one of the most beloved holiday poems of all time.  It first appeared in a Troy, New York newspaper in 1823.  Recently, it took on fresh new meaning with a Christmas “miracle” that was performed by employees of the Canadian airline WestJet for passengers on two of their flights.

The story has been captured in a wonderful 5-minute video clip that is a must-see for everyone who’s grown a bit cynical about the capacity for any business to show it has a warm heart, a creative spirit and a sense of humor.  It’s also a refreshing reminder that truly compelling marketing requires effective “story-doing” and “story-listening” along with well-crafted “story-telling” if you want to foster greater employee engagement and customer loyalty over the long haul.  When it’s done right, the story tells itself – as the 27+ million YouTube views attest.

On the Landes & Associates website home page, we have a couple of personally meaningful phrases:

•  Aligning marketing communications with employee engagement
•  Creating great organizations where people love to work, and customers love doing business

• Cultural Assessment
• ImaginAction Continuous Improvement System
• Real-Life, Real-Time Communication System
• Marketing Inside Out Model
• ImaginAction Workshop

It’s a rare organization that hasn’t gone through the process of defining their vision, mission and values at one time or another.  It just makes good sense to have a clear picture of where you’re heading and a roadmap for how you’re going to get there.  What’s more, it seems natural to assume that the impact of that process on employee engagement would be highly positive.  So imagine my surprise when I saw the data from a 2011 study of 5,000 employees across the country that reports only 4% are “inspired by values and a commitment to a mission and purpose.”  That’s not a typo – yes, I said 4%.

How can that be?  Well, another part of the study offers a good hint.  It states that “only 3% of respondents report they work for organizations whose purpose and values inform decision-making and guide all employee and company behavior.”

So 96% of the respondents say they weren’t inspired by values – and 97% say the stated values don’t guide decisions or behaviors.  Hmmmm … funny how those two things go hand-in-hand.

Before you lose heart, the study also revealed that companies that do govern heavily through values significantly outperform those who don’t.  The study showed that values-driven companies “experience higher levels of innovation, employee loyalty, and customer satisfaction, and lower levels of misconduct, employee fear of speaking up and retaliation.”

Here’s the bottom line.  Companies shouldn’t be discouraged from developing and deploying meaningful values. They just need to do it differently.

The Typical Approach
Consider the typical value-setting process: a small group of senior leaders go away for a day or two with a facilitator to put together a plan that includes vision, mission, values, etc.  The people who talk the loudest or who have the most authority are usually the ones whose opinions prevail. At the end of the session, they congratulate themselves, take it all back the corporation, send out an announcement about it, present it in a town hall meeting, put it in a binder, post it on the wall – and that’s about as far as it goes.

A Better Alternative
We’ve developed a Cultural Assessment instrument that’s designed to make values more meaningful, more reflective of the collective team’s views, and more actionable. It has 40 value statements that have been created and validated to reflect different culture types through a rigorous research and development process. Each person on the team (typically senior leaders and the next layer of management) completes the assessment, identifying from each person’s perspective the values that are most like and least like both the current and target cultures.

Every response is then tabulated and run through a computer program that identifies within one hundredth of a point on a 7-point scale the composite team score on each of the 40 value statements – for both the current and target cultures. The process is always enlightening for teams, and it points specifically at the areas where the biggest gaps need to be closed.

Beyond the Binder – Putting Values to Work
Once identified, we work with the team on how to close those gaps – particularly where they have an impact on employee engagement. One way we do that is by having each manager identify specific actions that he or she will start, stop, and continue to close the gaps. Then they review those actions with one another first.  Later they review the action plans with the teams of people who report to them. Then they periodically reconnect with their teams and review the progress that’s being made on closing the gaps and achieving the target culture.

That’s just one way to make values more relevant and long-lasting for an organization.  Whatever approach you use, just make sure it doesn’t become a retreat exercise that turns into nice-sounding words on a poster that lead to 96% of employees being uninspired.