What I’m excited about today . . . 

Leadership – Active vs. Activating Engagement

Several months ago, I began working with a client known for valuing its culture and high quality communication who had recently hired a new director for one of its teams. “Sheila” came from a highly structured and bureaucratic organization in which doing things the way they had always been done was the best explanation anyone had as to why anything was done the way that it was. Sheila was thrilled to step into a role that invited new ideas and open collaboration. She embraced the organization’s belief in aligning its values with how things were done. But, within a month, she felt exhausted and worried that she was failing her team.

“I meet regularly with each of my team members and feel very committed to helping them succeed,” Sheila explained during one of our early meetings. “They all have a lot of enthusiasm and great ideas on how we can improve our client’s experiences and make things more efficient but, I haven’t had time to implement any of the good ones.” 

Good leaders actively engage with their teams, great leaders activate engagement within them.

I love working with enthusiastic leaders like Sheila who embrace the powerful results that come from listening to their teams and being proactive about following through on the good ideas they raise. But, I recognized that Sheila’s background had not prepared her for leading a team of high performing and innovative thinkers. 

Policy drones drag teams down.

Transitioning from a “management by policy” environment to one that activates engagement from within can be exhausting. Let’s face it, managing by policy is the laziest form of management there is. Everyone knows someone who watches the clock waiting to leap at the first person to walk in at 8:04 or leave a minute before 5:00. “Our policy states that the workday starts at 8:00 not 8:01 or 8:09,” she says, her unblinking eyes burrowing into your skull. Policy drones are also turf warriors who refuse to revise or modify any process over which they have some or total control. These types of managers are also the most likely to cause disputes and impede growth.

“Shiny objects.”

Next level managers practice active engagement. Like Sheila, they engage with each of their team members thoughtfully and intentionally.  They seek feedback, provide honest assessment and coaching. And, they want the best for the individual and the organization. But, they also run the risk of losing focus, over promising, and becoming distracted by the latest shiny object or idea.

Inaction erodes trust.

Actively engaging is great until it isn’t. And, the reason it breaks down usually involves an erosion in trust. Actively engaged managers often try and make all the great ideas happen on their own or by working with their peers in other departments as opposed to empowering their teams to prioritize, investigate, plan and implement solutions themselves. So, when someone raises the same issue multiple time with no results, trust between the manager and the employee erodes. Sheila was starting to lose trust because she was trying to move ideas forward on her own. And, she was falling into old habits like protecting turf and expecting bureaucracy to move any new idea forward.

Activating engagement does more than solve a problem.

Activating engagement within a team and between teams within an organization does more than solve a specific problem. When a manager empowers her team, she builds a lasting foundation for success. 

• She immediately builds trust between herself and her team by empowering them to identify and prioritize solutions. 
• She creates new opportunities for her team to build trust with one another and between themselves and other teams. 
• She opens the door to new ideas and solutions that naturally align with other goals and objectives. 
• She establishes ownership and accountability within her team for creating and maintaining alignment. 
• And, she builds a system to deeply align the organization’s values more efficiently over time. 

Sheila and I worked with her team to prioritize their ideas by asking “what is it time for now?” We created small alignment groups to perform root cause analysis and create solutions strategies that “made the right thing easy.” And, she empowered her team to communicate with peers from other departments impacted by their work. The discipline and focus quickly paid off. Sheila’s team was so successful that other groups within the organization asked her team to help other teams adopt similar alignment strategies.

Culture is the result of behavior not the driver of it.

Operationalizing core values creates a culture that welcomes feedback and innovation, and relies on open collaboration within and across teams. The trust it builds facilitates constructive communication, and generates ownership and accountability from the inside. But, it requires leaders to step back from “doing” and focus on “empowering.” 

What can you do today that will activate engagement within your organization? Keep it simple. Make it bite sized and easy to accomplish. Watch it flourish.