“There is nothing permanent except change.”
Heraclitis, approx. 500 BCE
Talent is hard to keep. Everyday, the real asset in a company walks out the door and may not come back. Today, the main nightmare within the minds of most managers is the ability to retain valuable employees. Hiring good people is tough. Keeping them is even harder. Demographics tell us that the cycles of available staff have substantially decreased and will continue to do so for some time to come. Technology adds to the problem in that globalization provides an open marketplace ... people not only move from their current place of employment, they move from their current geographical location.
For more and more people, it’s most definitely not just a job – it’s a career, a cause, a passion, a chance to make a meaningful contribution. These individuals are characterized and motivated by deeply embedded life-interests. If the organization and the individual share in those interests, a match is made and valuable knowledge workers will be retained. That is why it is critical for any organization to openly espouse its values - what do you stand for? What behaviors will you and will you not tolerate? What are you passionate about as a company – over and above making money, that it is!
And it’s not enough to adopt and espouse a brave and bold sounding vision in an age of transparency and instantaneous global connectivity. Behavior must flow directly from the claimed value system. In short, you must walk your talk.
Sadly, few companies do walk their talk and create an environment that inspires, retains and enables their primary assets to create value. A recent article published by the Havard
Business School
adds further evidence of a de-motivated workforce. The author’s found that in 85% of companies interviewed (52 companies of 1.2 million people), employee morale declines sharply after their first six months.
You draw and retain your staff through your tacit structure – the implicit, invisible sum total of company values and behaviors over time. But, if by its very nature a tacit structure is hidden, how do you find it? Corporate culture is a buzzword that makes little sense unless you can grasp what your particular culture entails. One way to bring this type of information into concrete form is to conduct a cultural measurement. This provides any manager a baseline for continued use.
One of our favourites to use is the Q12 devised by the Gallup Organization. This series of 12 Questions can be found in the book, First, Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. It is a measure that is simple to conduct and informative in results. We recommend that your key knowledge workers within your organization complete the questionnaire and then have the results interpreted. We also favour keeping the results from professional and support staff separate for two reasons. One, the aggregate responses provide a baseline by which to measure any internal development program for a specific group. The second reason is that these responses will give you an indication of whether a potential problem is endemic to one group or systemic of your organization. You can then tailor your approach in change management.
There is a difference between managing and coaching knowledge workers. When the majority of assets possess feet, a parent-child management relationship is no longer functional.
The same HBS study found that one of the most counter-productive rules in business is to distribute information on the basis of “need to know”. It is usually a way of severely, unnecessarily and destructively restricting the flow of information in an organization. Workers’ frustration with an absence of adequate communication is one of the most negative findings we see expressed in employee attitude surveys. The HBS study adds “ a command and control style of management is a sure-fire path to demotivation”
Most organizations today are not known for their flexibility, a left-over approach from the industrial age. But, as the world of business becomes more and more competitive, even the most conservative of organizations are coming to the realization that their previous style of management must change. For example, take at look at your turnover statistics. If they are high, it is time to review your management style and underlying philosophy. It may also be time to communicate with your staff and ask for input from all levels of your organization. Why would anyone stay with your organization if they have no voice in their own future? Again, participatory management enhances your ability to retain valuable intellectual capital.
If your organization is not aware of the deeply held beliefs of your key people, how do you hope to retain them? Most people remain within an organization that actively supports and enhances their common belief structure. Skill-sets can be moved in many directions, but if those directions do not complement embedded life interests, passions and values you run the risk of employee dissatisfaction and fostering a lack of commitment.
While there is much talk today of work/life balance, we believe the issues is deeper than that. People get sick when they are forced to act out multiple personalities, in other words, if we feel we cannot be who we really are at work; if we feel we must put on a mask or bury a vital part of ourselves when we walk through the office lobby. If we live only by our persona, we live an inauthentic life not resident in our own skin. Such a life is characterized by a longing for something that cannot be expressed, dissatisfaction in general ... anything purchased or accomplished brings but temporary relief. Then, once more, we are faced with this hunger that seemingly cannot be fed.
As individuals we ignore this condition at our peril. If we do not pay attention we will fall ill; psychically, physically or both. As employers, we too ignore this condition at our peril. At the very least we’ll see systemic reductions in productivity and morale accompanied by increased turnover.
So, how to respond?
We believe that companies are made of warm, complex, dynamic, intriguing, creative and for the most part caring people – individuals, who are each trying to make sense of their brief existence as well as “earn a crust”.
Each of those individuals has a unique calling, purpose and destiny and a unique set of talents that exist to help fulfill their life’s purpose. Those companies that also know what their corporate calling, purpose and destiny is can attract people whose personal values and goals are in alignment. If they do; and if they nurture the talent and creativity latent within each of their employees, such companies will literally see magic in the making. Agents of Change @ Work is devoted to making magic @ work! Subsequent blog posts and our seminars will explore how.......