With INTENT: The Number One Tool You Need To Fix Your Employee Engagement Problem

With INTENT: our 5 minute deconstructions of the current trends to inspire healthy rethinking and reconstructive action.

by Chris Wickenden, Chief Creative Officer at FROM:TODAY.

In this thought-provoking podcast episode, Chris explores the critical link between engagement and productivity within organisations. With low levels of engagement costing businesses trillions globally, it's evident that traditional approaches to tackling this issue fall short. Chris emphasises the need for deeper, more empathetic conversations within leadership circles, akin to supporting a disconnected friend in need. Drawing on the wisdom of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, Chris underscores the importance of acknowledging emotions in driving behaviour and performance. He advocates for creating safe spaces where employees feel heard, valued, and empowered to share their feelings, stressing that genuine engagement cannot occur without addressing the emotional well-being of individuals. This insightful discussion challenges leaders to prioritise authentic dialogue and emotional intelligence as indispensable tools for fostering a truly engaged workforce.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Chris from FROM:TODAY again. Now last time we had a look at the importance of cultivating more care in your organisation to drive high performance, the extent to which people truly connect to the work that they do and the people around them, both personally and professionally. So today we're going to be talking about a very closely connected subject.

Engagement. Now, most organizations are aware that this is currently a problem. Low levels of engagement are having an impact on the bottom line. So, whether it's about being able to retain the best talent because they're not really engaged with the work that you're doing, or get the most out of the people that you actually have there.

And we know that in the UK currently, we have one of the least engaged workforces in the UK. in the world. It sits at 10%. We also know that globally, not engaged or actively disengaged workers account for 8. 8 trillion [00:01:00] in lost productivity. That's about 9 percent of global GDP. So it's a massive, massive problem.

And this is borne out by the fact that there are loads of organizations that year on year, do engagement surveys, which is a positive thing. There's a desire to understand what's going on. But the problem is the conversations that happen as a result or the actions or lack of action are not good enough.

We're much more comfortable within business having conversations about policy or strategy or action plans. But we're less comfortable having conversations around emotions, around feelings. And engagement is a really complex, nuanced problem. It's a problem that's not going to be solved with misinformed policies, whether it's about, um, mandating people back to work for three days instead of two days, whether it's about giving people a, an extra duvet day per year to cope with, sort of, a perceived level of stress, whether it's raising people's [00:02:00] bonuses, whatever it is, nothing wrong with the policies themselves, but if they're not based on a deeper understanding that comes from high quality conversations, then it won't work.

And I'll use this analogy of somebody in your personal life. So imagine you've got a friend. that is feeling a bit disconnected or a lot disconnected from things. They've completely disconnected. The last, uh, few years saying disconnected a lot last few years, they've gone through some trauma or whatever, not to be dismissive, but I don't want to be too specific, but they've gone through some stuff and it's been very overwhelming and they've lost their way.

Now, are you going into that conversation thinking, I better put a strategy together for you, make a few notes on what actions we could take. I doubt it. Um, or are you going in thinking, uh, I want to make sure I know what's going on, I want to be there for that person, I want [00:03:00] to make sure that I give them a space to share openly, uh, know that I care about them, and maybe through that space they start to re engage a little bit.

Maybe as a result of, um, that conversation, there's some advice to be given. Maybe there's some actions to take, but it could be that just that high quality, genuine, authentic conversation of care is the first step in re engaging. And I think there's really, Some learning for that for leaders within business leaders need to get comfortable asking the question and engaging with that question around how their people are feeling at work.

I love this quote from Antonio Damasio. We're feeling beings that think not the other way around. And this is a key driver. of our behaviour and therefore our performance. And we have a choice really to either accept this, to acknowledge it, to engage with it through the conversations [00:04:00] that we have, to get a deeper understanding of what's going on individually and collectively, and maybe as a result therefore put together the right strategies.

Or we can pretend that actually those emotions or feelings are irrelevant to not have those conversations to repress them. And they don't go away, they're still there, but they drive behavior and performance within the organization whilst you're all Blissfully unaware. Now, of course, asking how your people are feeling is key in getting that information, but you can't just go out and ask it.

A survey won't be enough. You have to lay the foundations of trust with the people in your organization, and there are key elements to it. Number one, people have to feel safe enough to be able to share. Number two, they have to care enough to feel that actually it's worth me being a bit more vulnerable and a bit more open.

Number three, they have to feel that they will be heard if they speak up. And number four, they have to feel that [00:05:00] something might change as a result of them speaking. This is absolutely essential. So these conversations around feelings difficult. There's no shortcut to them. They have to be happening all of the time.

They require high levels of EQ and they are an essential part of every leader's job. They're not a distraction or a diversion. So I really encourage everybody to actually have a look at our blog in this where we offer a little bit more guidance. If you want to carry on the conversation we'd love to hear from you either contact me on LinkedIn or chris at fromtoday.

com But I want to leave you with this thought. You cannot have conversations about productivity without having conversations about engagement. You cannot have conversations about engagement without having conversations about feelings. Thank you. I look forward to speaking to you [00:06:00] soon.