A new Leadership I.Q. study reports that in 42% of companies, the best workers are the least engaged while the most engaged workers are low performers who think they’re doing a great job. This may strike fear in your heart: If you’re in that 42%, how do you engage your “A-team”? How do you engage further with your “B-team” to help them improve their performance? Which do you tackle first?
First you need to understand how your company culture got this way. Think about it: If your lowest performers feel engaged, they may believe they know "how things work around here" but they’re doing just enough to not get fired – think Peter Gibbons from the movie Office Space. If there are no repercussions for only doing the bare minimum, your lowest performers will do nothing more than that. And, if your top performers see this happening, they may do enough to meet their metrics, and may earn raises and bonuses, but will not share their new ideas on how to improve the business because, most likely, it will just lead to more work.
Ultimately, it all ties back to a lack of leadership. No one has been having the difficult conversations with low performers that inspire them to improve. And no one is rewarding new and innovative ideas with recognition throughout the company or providing resources to help employees turn their ideas into reality.
If you’re part of the 42%, take a look around to see if leadership is in place and being reinforced on a daily basis. If not, this could be a simple fix. So how do you build that organization? Yeeeeaaaaaah, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and tune in next week for part II.
Shaun Spearmon is an engagement leader at Kotter International (KotterInternational.com), a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy implementation in their organizations. John Kotter is the head of research at Kotter International and is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.
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Dr. Kotter's most recent article, Accelerate!” available from the Harvard Business Review, describes how your organization can develop the agility required to succeed in today’s rapidly changing world.
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