• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Cornerstone International Group

Executive Search Firm

About Cornerstone

About Cornerstone

The Cornerstone Edge

AESC

Leadership Team

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Become a Partner

Play Video

Get to know Cornerstone

Retained Executive Search

Discover

Retained Executive Search

Assessments

Specializations

Consumer / FMCG

Industrial

Non-Profit

Finance & Private Equity

Life Science & Health

More...

Find an Office

North America

Latin America

Europe / Middle East

Asia

 Find an Office

 Find a Search Consultant

Coaching / Leadership Dev

Discover

Executive Coaching Services

Leadership Development

Board & CEO Advisory Services

Assessments

Find a Coach

News / Blog

News & Blog Posts

National Outlooks

Videos

Surveys

Press Releases

Popular Blog Topics

COVID-19

diversity

leadership development

Healthcare

executive search

executive coaching

women in business

Life Science

neuroscience

vitality quotient

Latest Blog Post

Do’s & Don’ts of Phone Interviews

July 21, 2022
Contact
Blog Why You Get the Engagement You Deserve
Aug 10

Why You Get the Engagement You Deserve

George Bradt of Cornerstone New York

Employee engagement will play an essential role in the challenge of restructuring the workforce after COVID.  What leaders must realize is that organizations get the employee engagement they deserve because they prompt it.

They do so in one of four ways.

Purpose-driven organizations that let employees co-create the path forward get employees committed to the cause. Those that invite their employees to contribute are more likely to get those contributions. Organizations with a command and control way of operating get mostly compliant employees. And organizations that continually re-organize and do not give their employees clear direction should not be surprised if their disengagement scores are way high.

1. Prompting Disengagement

Every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet new situations by reorganizing…and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”

 – Petronius Arbiter, d. A.D. 65 – Roman governor and advisor (arbiter) to Nero

What’s most terrifying about this quote is that this is not a new problem. We’ve all seen leaders rip the heart out of organizations, close stores, eliminate projects, lay off people, put dramatically more pressure on the survivors. They change their messages continually, sometimes looking like the strategy of the month club. Then they are amazed when those left standing start disengaging.

2. Prompting Compliance

Sometimes compliance is what you need.

U.S. Army colonel Randy Chase visited the store on a navy ship at sea to buy a tube of toothpaste. He went to the end of the queue of people waiting to get into the store and said “good morning” to the man in front of him who took one look at him and ran away.

Colonel Chase had done two things wrong. (1) At that time, officers didn’t talk to enlisted men on ships except to convey orders and (2) officers didn’t wait in lines.

Where the army pushes decisions down and out in line with commander’s intent so people can react to changing situations in ground warfare, the navy has a strong culture of command and control to minimize the chances of devastating onboard mistakes. The army wants contribution. The navy needs compliance and has built a culture to get it.

3. Prompting Contribution

The army promotes a culture that prompts contributions. Communication is a critical part of this. Bryan Smith laid out five methods of persuasion in The Fifth Discipline Field book:

Tell – Sell – Test – Consult – Co-create

If you tell someone to do something, the best you can hope for is compliance. The good news is that all you will need is indirect communication to make them aware – things like emails or corporate announcements. Just keep your message clear and consistent.

Prompting contributions requires selling, testing or consulting to help people understand what is needed. This requires direct communication so people can ask questions along the way to get at why you want something done.

4. Prompting Commitment

While you probably can force compliance over the short term and certainly can encourage contribution, prompting commitment is inevitably an exercise in unlocking a passion that’s already there.

As Jim Whitehurst learned in his own onboarding as CEO of Red Hat, in an organization with high levels of employee engagement it’s more about sparking conversations and getting out of the way.

Hyper-committed people aren’t going to follow your direction. They’re going to do whatever it takes to drive the organization’s purpose.

Doing good for me and doing things I’m good at matters to everyone to some degree. On top of that, hyper-committed people care a lot about the doing good for others as part of their purpose. They have to believe in the cause. That’s why your communication with them has to connect with them at an emotional level to change feelings.

It’s why live performances have so much more impact than any note or video ever can. Magic happens when both communicating parties connect. Just as audiences get the performance they deserve, organizations get the employee engagement they deserve.

If you want magic, deserve it.

LinkedinFacebookTweetShareEmailPrint

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: COVID-19, employee engagement, employees, engagement

About George Bradt

George Bradt is the founder and Chairman of PrimeGenesis, and an authority on business leadership and culture. He is author of the best selling "The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan", a regular contributor to Forbes and a consultant to Cornerstone New York.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

  • News
    • Blog
    • National Outlooks
    • Press Releases
    • Newsletters
    • Surveys
    • Articles of Interest
    • Whitepapers
    • Videos

Get Latest Posts and Stay Informed

Our thought leaders share their industry knowledge and expertise.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Recent News

  • Back to Basics: A Classic Treatise on Leadership Reissued by Harvard Business Review August 9, 2022
  • Do’s & Don’ts of Phone Interviews July 21, 2022
  • The Cornerstone Eagle – July 2022 – The Future of Work July 15, 2022

News / Blog Archives

Footer

Areas of Specialization

  • by Industry
    • Life Science & Health
    • Financial Services PE & Family Office
    • Industrial
    • Consumer
    • Technology
    • Private Equity
    • Infrastructure & EPC
  • by Function
    • Board Directors & CEO
    • Human Resources
    • Finance and Legal
    • Agile Talent
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Operations & Supply Chain

Quick Browse

  • Find an Office
  • Find a Consultant
  • Find a Coach

Services

  • Retained Executive Search
  • Board & CEO Advisory
  • Executive Coaching

About Us

  • About Cornerstone
  • The Cornerstone Edge
  • Join Cornerstone

Switch Language

Connect with Cornerstone

Copyright © 2022 · Cornerstone International Group · Sitemap

Website Development by LimeCuda

Member-Only Portal