Let's say you have a business: you build bridges across chasms. What would happen if you focused only on the architecture of the bridges - put all your energy into making sure that they were well-designed and balanced - and paid little attention to the quality and maintenance of the materials used to build the bridges? You might then have a bridge that's a thing of beauty, structurally, but is made out of rotting timbers and rusted metal.
That would be dumb, right? Not only dumb, but dangerous. And the odds are, your business would be very short-lived.
It seems to me that many companies deal with employees in this way. They focus on the "architecture" of their products or services - putting huge amounts of energy into making sure they have something that will wow the marketplace. But they don't focus much at all on the "materials" behind those products and services - the people. And when you don't pay attention to employees, you'll tend to hire badly or indifferently - giving you "poor materials quality." And then once they're in place, they'll tend to be disengaged and unproductive - they'll "rot and rust."
And research, more and more, supports this idea, that companies ignore the quality and engagement levels of their employees at their peril. The Gallup organization, which has created the hugely useful Q12 employee engagement filter, has reams of high quality data to demonstrate this fact. The "Q12 Meta-Analysis" white paper is pretty fascinating reading (even though a lot of the statistical analytics are way beyond me). The bottom line: there's an almost point-to-point correlation between the level of employee engagement in a particular business unit, relative to its overall organization, and that unit's composite performance (customer loyalty, profitability, productivity, turnover, safety, absenteeism, shrinkage, quality) relative to the company median. Higher employee engagement: better performance. Lower employee engagement: worse performance. (It's on page 26, for those of you who download the white paper.)
They also offered an equation that I love: they say it's the core equation underlying their "Q12" approach, and arises from their data:
Per-person productivity = Talent x (Relationship +Right Expectation + Recognition/Reward)
Let's take this equation apart - so you can see whether your company is building its "bridge" out of great materials, well-maintained...or using shoddy materials and letting them degrade:
Talent: Companies and leaders that do well in this part of the equation focus a lot of attention on hiring people who have the needed skills and experience and are a great fit for their culture. This pre-supposes a couple of important things: that the hiring organization (and managers) know the skills and experience needed for a particular job, and that they're clear on what their culture is. If companies hire purely for "resume," for instance, and don't think about culture, they're likely to get folks who may be talented, but can't integrate into the organization well enough to have that talent benefit the enterprise. To continue my analogy, it's like buying great quality structural elements for your bridge - that don't fit. And doing the analogous thing with employees has equally bad outcomes - data shows that when new hires fail in their first year, 87% of the time the problem is "a poor cultural fit." Not hiring people with the necessary skills is less common, but also problematic - I've fairly often seen people hired because the interviewer liked them, or somebody in the company vouched for them, or they had impressive resumes...only to demonstrate, once they're in the job, that they don't have the necessary competencies. A few structurally unsound bridge timbers can take down the whole thing.
Relationship: I'm thrilled that this element of the employee equation now has data to support it. A generation ago, talking to executives about whether or not their employees felt personally connected to and supported by the enterprise and those around them resulted in either rolled eyes or blank looks, for the most part. I think executives (at least those I deal with) are understanding now more than ever before that if employees feel trusted, respected, listened to, and supported, they're much more likely to respond with great work, good ideas, and ongoing loyalty. The good news: creating good relationships with employees is almost entirely up to a company's leaders. The bad news: creating good relationships with employees is almost entirely up to a company's leaders. By which I mean, creating good relationships with employees is, for the most part, not dependent on factors outside of your control, like the economy, business cycles, technology, competition, etc. It really is about how each person is treated by his or her manager, and whether the senior executives in the organization model and hold everyone accountable for treating each other well. So it is completely controllable - but managers and company leadership can't phone in this part of the job: it has to be an ongoing area of real focus, as important as any other result. It's checking the bridge elements regularly to protect them from rot or rust.
Right Expectation: On a daily basis, the lack of "right expectation" may be the most frustrating and productivity-eroding problem in organizations. When people aren't given the tools they need to do their jobs, or when they're not given clarity about what success looks like in their part of the business, or when they're required to complete tasks over which they don't have the necessary control...so demoralizing. Most people want to do their jobs well, and when any of these expectation mismatches make that hard, they quickly lose heart. It's virtually impossible to be fully committed to accomplishing something that doesn't seem achievable. Doing this part of the talent equation right requires leaders of a company to be truly objective about whether these problems exist in their companies, and then - if so - to take steps to correct them. It's all too easy to assume, from the leader chair, that everyone's clear about their job and has the tools and authority to do it. But it's a dangerous assumption - it's like the guys in charge of the bridge just assuming that it was put together correctly, and that everything's attached and functional...you really need to make sure.
Recognition/Reward: This isn't just about money. Yes, people need to be paid a fair wage, and if your company's compensation is out of whack with common practice and industry standards, you won't be able to attract and keep good people. But beyond that, people have a deep need to be valued and appreciated for the work they do. And while nearly everyone appreciates additional money, other forms of reward and recognition can be as motivating and meaningful - or more. For instance, my colleagues at Proteus and I conduct a yearly program for some of our clients called Leading With Impact - a five-day leadership and management course that they offer to high-potential "rising stars" in their mid-management ranks. Without exception, the attendees in these programs are pleased and proud to be chosen to participate, and they tend to go on to be the leaders of their companies. Supporting good people through added developmental or on-the job opportunities can pay huge dividends. And on an everyday basis, simply thanking people for their work, and acknowledging their contributions more broadly in the organization, is enormously motivating and resonant for most people. It's nourishment for people's hearts and minds. In the bridge analogy, it's Rustoleum and WD40: substances that protect and enhance the strength and function of the bridge's material.
When companies see their employees as "what the company is made of," they treat them with the same care they'd treat the critical underlying machinery of any high-performance machine. Are you attending to the "human building blocks" of your enterprise...and, if not, what can you do differently?
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