One of my favorite sections of the New York Times Sunday edition is called the, Corner Office.  Each week they interview a business leader to share their insights on leadership. This particular interview started with the following question, “Do you have the equivalent of a first day speech you use in new jobs?” The leader concluded her response with, “My door is always open.” 

When I hear this, I can’t help but think of Ronald Reagan’s famous line, in a 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, “Governor, there you go again.” How many times have you heard an executive proclaim, “My door is always open”? This declaration of openness must be one of the 10 commandments they teach in leadership school,  Thou shall have an open door policy. But what they fail to mention is just how poorly it works and what an unfair burden it places on employees.

I must admit I have used this slogan a number of times; maybe you have also. What I want to know is, has it ever actually prompted you to walk up to the boss’s office and wait for the door to open so you can share your deepest concerns with the boss about how the company is killing your motivation and that of your co-workers?  My guess is no. Personally, I can only remember two occasions when a employee even asked for an appointment to meet with me, never mind just showing up at my office door.

Why? Because employees do not  trust and believe in stereotypical “I want to know what’s on your mind” leader-jargon. While this is not to say some leaders are not sincere in wanting to have meaningful conversations with their employees and believe that it is important to do so, it is important they not delude themselves into thinking an “open door policy” is the way to achieve this objective.

The reality is that the road from the shop floor to the boss’s office is a gauntlet of pot holes, U-turns, Stop signs, and a host of scowling people with fingers pointing at employees to turn back. Most doors are figuratively and literally closed no matter how often a leader proclaims, “My door is always open.”  As Daniel Goleman in his book Primal Leadership, states, “It may take a small act of courage to confront the boss with bad news about the company, but you have to be even braver to let the boss know he’s out of touch with how people are feeling, or that his ‘inspiring’ talks fall flat.” 

It’s Not Their Job – It’s Yours

It’s not their job to come to you – it’s your job to go to your employees. It not about open doors; it’s about open walls. If leaders need a metaphor, it’s an “office without walls,” and you create this by going down on the shop floor and making yourself available to your employees. Take time to sit in their “office” and just maybe they will start to believe and trust that you really do want to know what’s on their mind.

I can’t say it any better than Frank Sinatra, “Wake up to reality”, a lyric from one of my favorite songs, I’ve Got You Under My Skin. Study after study and survey upon survey confirms that over 60% of employees are disengaged. This means they are not committed to giving their best. To put it bluntly, you are paying them and not getting a fair return on your investment. However, if you are still hardwired to believe that people’s primary motivation to work is only for money, then I want to say, “Wake up to reality.” Consider this statement from an extensive Global Workforce Engagement Survey:

“Employees must trust in your ability and character -- and understand your personal motivation. You won’t be able to match individual passion and proficiencies with organizational priorities if you don’t talk with your people. Get to know them. Understand not only their special talents but also their unique engagement drivers.”

You cannot get to know your employees and they will not understand you nor trust your character and motivation by proclaiming, “I have an open door policy.”  The reason is simple; they will not show up. If, as Goleman states, it takes bravery and courage to give a leader feedback, it takes even more courage to do it in his or her office.

It takes courage for a leader to actively expose themselves on the battlefields of their organization, but that is exactly what employees expect of leaders; to model bravery.   Leaders must lead by example. If you truly want employees to have confidence in you and you believe that their work experience is a critical factor in the productivity and success of your organization, consider these recommendations:

•   Start the New Year by closing your office door as you walk out to engage your employees. Let them know that you are building an office without walls in attitude and actions. Schedule regular “open office visits on their turf” as well as spontaneous visits to your employees’ “offices”.
•   Don’t preach the corporate gospel – Listen, Listen and Listen. Here are a couple of questions to get the conversation started:
•     If I were able to change two things in the way I work with you, what two things would create the most value and benefit for you?
• ·    If I could change or remove something that interferes or prevents you from performing at your best, what two things would be the most important to you?
•   Don’t make excuses or false promises and don’t feel that you need to have an answer. What they want most is for you to listen, understand and reflect, and to take action that is in the best interest of both the company and your employees.
•   Engage your managers and supervisors in the process. They are the ones who must model the  “office without walls” attitude and actions every day. You might want to start with your managers first and schedule a few individual and group meetings, remembering that they might be just as reluctant to give you the unvarnished feedback you need.
• Keep everyone informed. Make sure you create a feedback loop so that employees and managers are kept abreast of all decisions, actions and commitments. If something can’t be accomplished, explain the reasons why. Your employees may not like the decision, but they will develop respect for you, which in time will help to build the kind of trust you are want and need. 

  An Office Without Walls: The following is an except from an article,
The Best Advice I Ever Got, by Michelle Peluso, President and CEO of Travelocity, that appeared in the, Harvard Business Review, October 2008 issue. I think it describes the spirit as well as the examples of what I refer to as An Office Without Walls:
"At a 5,000-person global organization, I simply can't know everyone personally. But I can apply my dad's techniques in a scaled-up way that lets me know as many people as possible, that encourages managers to do the same, and that makes our employees generally feel that this is a place where someone's looking out for them. I often visit our different offices; I hold brown-bag lunches every week; I regularly e-mail the whole staff about what's going well and what needs to improve; I hold quarterly talent management sessions with my direct reports; and I constantly walk the halls. When anyone at Travelocity e-mails me, I respond within 24 hours. I read every single word of our annual employee survey results and of my managers' 360-degree performance feedback - and I rate those managers in large part on how well they know and lead their own people."
 

 

 

 

How much is a gallon of milk at your favorite grocery store? How much is a pound of butter? I’m going to assume that most of you don’t know the exact price.  My confidence is based on research by Eldar Shafir of Princeton University and Sendhi Mullainathan of Harvard University. Shafir and Mullainathan are studying the effects of scarcity – in this case, it would be scarcity of money – on decision-making and how it can create its own psychology and set of cognitive traits.

Most of you likely don’t know the answers to my initial questions because you don’t have to. You are not faced with the necessity of scrutinizing small daily purchases. As David Brooks reported in his article, The Unexamined Society, which highlighted Mullainathan and Shafir’s research, “People with limited financial resources have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t.” These daily life decisions, imposed by financial scarcity, place increased demands on one’s cognitive and emotional resources.

Shafir and Mullainathan also found that scarcity negatively impacts IQ scores and attention span. The study measured farmers pre- and post-harvest and noticed that pre-harvest they possessed a scarcity mindset, which reduced their performance on tests, attention span and their ability to maintain a future orientation. This is understandable. Not knowing if your crop will yield the results you expect, one must be judicious in how resources are used. Once the harvest is in and it meets expectations, farmers are no longer burdened with thoughts of scarcity. And in Shafir and Mullainathan’s study, once the scarcity mind-set was lifted the farmers’ test performance and attention spans improved, as well as their ability to think and plan for the future.

Shafir and Mullainathan’s work led me to reflect on the psychological, emotional, physical and behavioral effects that scarcity has on employees and organizations. We’ve all felt and experienced the effects of scarcity. Scarcity of time, resources to complete a project, money, and even calories all impact our ability and capacity to perform at our best. Gallup reports that one of the top issues that fosters disengagement with employees is not having the right and or needed resources to do their job.

There is another scarcity that I am convinced is as impactful as any other and is implicated in every reason reported by employees as causes for disengagement with their jobs, managers and/or organizations. I call it Recognition Scarcity. 

Before we look at what recognition scarcity is, I want to present a broader perspective that is directly linked to this concept. Workforce engagement is a relatively new way of assessing the level of vigor, dedication, absorption (the ability to fully concentrate) and productivity of an organization’s workforce, which has emerged as a critical driver of business resiliency and success.

National and global surveys of employee engagement provide what is akin to an x-ray of an organization’s workforce. What we are finding is that within organizations the levels of workforce disengagement are severely impacting the organizations’ ability to retain and recruit talented human capital, creativity, productivity and resiliency. The enormity of the problem is estimated to be 350 billion dollars a year in lost productivity, accidents and turnover!

Disengagement Surveys

BlessingWhite 2011 Employee Engagement Report
67% of employees are disengaged (North America)

Gallup 2008 Study
54% of employees are disengaged (North America)

Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study 2008
66% of employees are disengaged (Global)

If these surveys aren’t enough to persuade leaders of the internal malady that is affecting their ability to be efficient and productive, a recent survey by the consulting company Mercer found that half of this nation’s workforce is unhappy, and a third of the employees are so miserable that they are seriously considering leaving their jobs. 

The job and talent market is tough and probably going to get tougher. Companies cannot become or remain competitive, attractive and successful if they don’t retain their talented and committed employees and convert as many of the disengaged as possible.  It makes great business sense to invest in workforce engagement strategies; your organization’s financial performance could improve along with your employee’s performance. Towers Perrin claims that for every 15% increase in engagement there is a 2% improvement in operating margin.  

It doesn’t matter what level or position you are on the organizational totem pole; ultimately you’ve seen and felt the effects and consequences of disengagement and recognition scarcity – a continuous lack of appreciation, respect and/or gratitude shown by management for an employee’s hard work. Recognition scarcity has many symptoms, but primarily it weakens the vitality, dedication and absorption employees have in their work, their team and/or their organization.  

One of my coaching clients described his experience and perception of his boss’s management style as the mushroom style of management: “He keeps me in the dark and keeps tossing in more and more manure on me. I’ve never heard a thank-you or a hint of recognition for all the work I do and the additional work he keeps putting on my plate.” My client was suffering from recognition scarcity. His vitality, dedication and ability to focus on his work was diminishing rapidly.  Mushrooms thrive in this type of environment, but humans don’t; in fact, they wither.

Humans have fundamental needs for social acceptance, increased self-esteem and self-actualization. The more they authentically experience these needs and feelings, the more their vitality increases, allowing them to better focus on their work – which only benefits their organization.

One of the most severe tortures a human can experience is to be deprived of human interaction. Studies have shown that this type of deprivation can cause physical, emotional and psychological problems in all mammals. Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away gives one an empathetic experience of isolation and desperation when, while deserted on an island, he befriends a soccer ball he names Wilson. There is a wrenching scene in which Hanks and Wilson become separated at sea

Although torture and Hanks’ film are extreme examples of the effect of isolation, how one perceives their situation is what is critical. My client felt confused, angry and disillusioned, which was taking a toll on his work and his self-esteem. He said in one session, “I’ve got to get out of this situation before I go crazy.”

In their book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition, Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine refer to recognition as psychic income, which they additionally point out is more affordable, flexible and immediate than the traditional “carrot and stick” motivators of salary, benefits and awards. 

In his book, Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work, Paul Marciano says, “The most important job of a leader is to increase the value of the company’s human resources. Recognizing employees increases their discretionary effort and, in turn, increases the human capitol of the organization.”

I think the message and case are compelling; recognition scarcity is a virus that sucks the vitality, dedication and psychological capacity for employees to be creative and absorbed in performing their work to the best of their ability. Eldar Shafir and Sendhi Mullainathan’s research indicates that a scarcity mindset reduces mental capacity, performance capacity and attention span. When recognition is scarce – or worse yet non-existent – in teams and organizations, you can expect overall workforce engagement to decrease, which increases your organizational susceptibility and vulnerability to effects of the fast-paced, demanding and competitive business environment we all live in.

There is another positive benefit to recognition beyond its critical role in building employee engagement. The mood and climate today is pessimistic, polarized and cynical, therefore it is easy as a manager to become a victim of recognition scarcity when it is difficult to find anything positive worth recognizing – but by practicing the Recognition Strengthening exercises below you can bring balance and vitality into your life as well as those closest to you, in or out of work. There is a reciprocal ROI to recognition. It’s not just for them; it’s a gift for you also.

Strengthening Your Recognition Muscle

·      Everyday think of 3 people or things you are grateful for or appreciate and write them down. As you think and write you will feel an increase in vitality.

·      Write one personal note a week to someone thanking him or her for a contribution they made to your team or organization.

·      Recognize effort as well as outcome and give recognition for it as well as a job well done.

·      Practice giving feedback that is balanced by providing what you liked with what needs to be improved.

·      At every team meeting be conscious of what each member contributes to the agenda and the process of the meeting, and as soon as possible after the meeting make a point to touch base individually with him or her to let them know what it is they contributed.

You can prevent  Recognition Scarcity from incapacitating your team and organization and start building your recognition muscle and culture of engagement with the Creating High-Performing Relationships the EQ Way program. See the Events section for the next program
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