第四师七十七团开展“全民国家安全教育日”活动

????A disengaged workforce is costing you money.

There’s an overwhelming consensus, backed up by piles of research that an engaged workforce leads to higher productivity. Engaged employees demonstrate improved loyalty and simply put, get better results, saving businesses lots of money.

World wide, lost productivity because of employee disengagement has negatively impacted business finances by $7 trillion!

So it might be surprising to learn that in their latest State of the Global Workplace report, Gallup found that 85% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged at work.

????Two-way communication is the best way to engage staff. 

Since communication is the best way to engage staff, it’s imperative that leaders perfect the art of two-way communication if they want to achieve better outcomes. 

Two-way communication, by definition, is dialogue or conversation that goes back and forth between the sender or the receiver. Most importantly, it’s communication where the sender expects and encourages feedback from the receiver. 

Sounds so easy, yet today’s leaders continue to miss the mark, by either failing to ask for feedback altogether, or repudiating staff for sharing their honest opinions.

?? STORY TIME ??

Once, I saw company leaders post a new policy on the organization's message board asking staff to provide feedback and ask questions. Some staff left comments criticizing aspects of the new policy or questioned possible unintended consequences that would result from the new policy. Managers responded to those comments angrily, berated staff for sharing their opinions, publicly calling them out for “not getting behind the mission.” 

????Weave two-way communication skills into your leadership DNA in 3 ways.

If you’ve found yourself questioning why your staff doesn’t offer feedback as often as you’d like them to, or if you’ve recently seen a dip in productivity, then it may be time to assess whether you’re employing these critical two-way communication strategies. 

 My advice to clients and colleagues when conducting such an assessment is 3 fold:

1. ?Always ask for feedback
2. ?Empower staff ~ with humility ~ without threat ~ nicely ~ to share honest feedback
3. ?Listen and act on feedback.

Let's dig in...

1. ? Always Ask

Leaders who only give information to their employees in a top-down, hierarchical approach, miss the opportunity to learn from staff, make them feel valued, and confirm a shared understanding of team and organizational goals. That’s why it is essential to unceasingly ask for employee feedback and insights. Leaders can do this by: 

• Regularly scheduling group and individual discussions. Making sure they are collaborative discussions where each individual has a chance to share their voice. 
• When presenting information, remembering to periodically stop and gauge audience reaction. Ask the audience what they think using open-ended questions and give them enough time to respond. 
• Sending employee engagement/feedback surveys. Teams are usually comprised of a diverse range of personalities, to hear from introverts and extroverts alike, remember to ask for “off-line” feedback as well as in-person feedback. 

2. ? Empower: Be humble, avoid threats, and be nice.

Even if they regularly ask for it, leaders that don’t empower their employees at every opportunity are not likely to receive honest and open feedback. The best way to empower your employees is to create safe and trusting workplace environments where individuals are recognized for their contributions and permitted to speak freely without fear of negative consequences. To do this, leaders must:  

Be humble.

Research has shown that “executives who demonstrate higher humility are more positively associated with empowering leadership behaviors of their top management teams” which in turn “positively impacts their perception of having an empowering organizational climate, which is then associated with their work engagement, effective commitment, and job performance.” Humble leaders know that their employees are their most valuable commodities. They don’t make the mistake of believing that they are the only one with all the answers. They know that leading with humility does not make you weak or powerless. They know that the best thing you can do as a leader is to share your power with your team. This is why humble leaders are more likely to empower people to share their thoughts, appreciate diversity of thought, and credit all staff, regardless of title, for their great ideas and contributions.

Avoid threats.

Neuroscience research on human brains, shows people perform best when they work in environments that avoid threats. Leaders create threatening environments by relentlessly pointing out problems and assigning blame. They constantly criticize and chastise their staff. This behavior makes people feel rejected and insecure, and shatters trust. When this happens, people do not feel empowered to share truthful feedback and are much less likely to remain loyal to the organization.

?? STORY TIME ??

Take for example the time a former colleague told me she stopped recommending improvements to leadership because during meetings with her boss, she was often told when her colleagues had shared recommendations that were viewed unfavorably by the executive leadership team, and that as a result these employees had found themselves “in leaderships cross hairs." This threatening language, even directed towards others, created a hostile working environment for this employee. She respected the employees who were being targeted and even agreed with some of the feedback they had given to leadership. The constant criticism of her peers caused her to fear that her own recommendations might put her at risk of losing her job, and resulted in her keeping her mouth shut during meetings with leaders. Not only did the threats stifle her contributions, it led her to spend more time dusting off her resume, and inevitably led to her departure from organization. 

Be nice.

Instead of criticizing staff for their opinions, celebrate them. Build trust by publicly recognizing your team member’s accomplishments. According to one study’s analysis, only one in three workers in the U.S. strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days. Show gratitude often. Always remember to tell staff when they're doing a great job. Highlight their strengths and acknowledge their talents. 

? Listen & Act

You must be capable of receiving feedback, which means you must listen and act on the feedback you receive. Even if you create a safe space and never admonish staff for sharing honest thoughts, it’s all for naught if you don’t listen and act on that feedback. If you never do anything with their feedback, employees will stop giving it. 

“Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say” - Andy Stanley 

Listen to what staff have to say, make decisions based on their recommendations, and make sure they know when their ideas or the ideas of their peers are being implemented. 

?? STORY TIME ??

One of the most important decisions I ever made based on pausing to listen to all sides of an issue, was overturning the discharge of an environmental services employee who had been caught literally sleeping on the job several times during scheduled work hours.

The protocol for progressive disciplinary action (that which ends in employee termination) dictated that as the Vice President for the area I had the authority to uphold or deny the department director and human resources recommendation to terminate an employee. Since I’d always woven staff rounding practices into my leadership DNA, I knew the employee in question. I had talked with her about her family, challenges, milestones and celebrations. My impression of her was a positive one; she was known for being a hardworking and dedicated employee. The recommendation to terminate in this case was, therefore, quite surprising. I asked the Director to investigate a little further. He did, and found out that the employee had been recently diagnosed with diabetes, was a single mother raising three children, and had no disposable income. She had made the conscious (and extremely difficult) decision to forgo buying insulin so she could afford to feed her kids. Her failure to balance her blood sugar with the necessary medication was resulting in a lack of energy and frequent need for sleep. With this new information I decided to overturn the recommendation to terminate. Instead, we worked out a financial assistance program so she could get the medication she needed without sacrificing meals for her family. She was grateful and continued working hard for the organization for years thereafter.

Summary

????A disengaged workforce is costing you money. 

????Two-way communication is the best way to engage staff. 

????To weave two-way communication skills into ones' leadership DNA, you must

1. ?Ask for feedback
2. ?Empower staff to share honest feedback
3. ?Listen and act on feedback.

What do you think?

If you enjoyed this article, please give it a great reaction, share it and comment below.

??????????

Tell me your stories...

?? Tell me about a time where you and/or a leader you admire changed a decision/changed course based on employee feedback? 

?? Tell me about a time where you implemented something, or made a critical decision based on staff feedback?

?? What steps will you take to encourage two-way communication?

Let's Connect

Contact me directly on Linkedin or through patternshifts.com for consulting services. We can implement strategies for shifting - weaving two-way-communication into your leadership DNA and into that of your company's leaders.