"E" stands for "emotions" in Employee Engagement

By Howard Stanten MPT, CPCC

With all the palpable inattention to the emotional component of employee engagement, it is no wonder that it remains stuck around 30% despite billions spent on the issue.  Marshall Goldsmith wondered about this and puts forth an admirable reframe of the problem in his latest book, Triggers. Goldsmith argues that there is an overreliance on programs that emphasize what the company can do for the employee to improve engagement.

His approach involves asking the employee to take personal responsibility for his or her own engagement and get off the blame and complain hamster wheel.  I greatly appreciate his approach and have used it in my corporate trainings.

And, Goldsmith leaves out what I believe to be a critical factor necessary to moving the employee engagement dial, the emotional stake of the employee.  Within a relatively healthy corporate culture, the exercises Goldsmith offers to help employees take personal responsibility for their own engagement can be effective.  However, within a corporate culture defined by silos, poor communication, and poor alignment around a shared vision and mission, the taking personal responsibility model will likely gain little traction.

As Harvard’s award winning change management guru John Kotter says,

 “You need to show people something that addresses their anxieties, that accepts their anger, that is credible in a very gut-level sense, and that evokes faith in the vision… People change what they do less because they are given an analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings.”

Yes, there is no doubt that the failure of employee engagement programs is in part due to not guiding employees to take more responsibility for their own engagement as Goldsmith suggests. And, taking responsibility needs to matter to the employee.  If the employee doesn’t give a damn about all of this, nothing will change. 

Again, Kotter adds some insight,
​
“Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response.”

Similarly, Daniel Pink, author of the best seller, Drive, argues that healthy organizational cultures are defined by the degree to which they offer employees, “autonomy, mastery, and purpose.”
​
Such a culture requires courageous leadership willing to get to the heart of what matters to their employees.  This means sitting down with them and being vulnerable. Having authentic conversations that welcome their input.   Extending trust. And, requiring strict accountability around expected performance.
 
Employees are people. People cannot be expected to take more responsibility for their own engagement in the absence of an engaging culture.  And, that is the responsibility of the organization beginning with its leaders.

---