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Business jargon can be a place to hide at the same time as being a kind of weapon to show off your prowess. Meetings can sometimes feel like they’re dominated by people jousting with words.

And despite the volume of words being used, all too often people are left in the dark about what’s going on and feeling disconnected from each other.

How do you burst the bubble when you come up against ‘bigger, cleverer words’?

We’d love to know

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While commentators complain that our politicians aren’t being straight with us about the scale of the national debt, what we’ve picked up from our clients – particularly those in the public sector – is an overwhelming sense of foreboding.  People sense that something is coming that isn’t good, but no one quite knows what it will mean in practice or what if anything they can do about it.

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Once that energy is released, do you know how to steer it towards the target you’re aiming for?

Many people think that strategy is a hit-and-miss affair in their organisation. They see their leaders light the blue touchpaper – and then (like the old firework safety briefing says) stand well clear.

Is it ever like this in your organisation? Have you ever felt like you were strapped to a strategic rocket about to launch up the ramp?

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In Delta7, we fondly call this picture ‘The Blofeld Chair’ – a reference to the archetypal lever-operated chair used by arch-villains in Bond films to dispose of henchmen who have incurred their displeasure.

We’ve heard stories of people who practically roast anyone who dares to disagree but more often than not the threat is less overt and takes the form of a pressure to just agree and not rock the boat. ‘If you’re not with us, you’re against us’ is a gentle reminder that questioning or disagreement is considered negativity.

Have you ever found yourself sitting in The Blofeld Chair? How did it feel? And what did you do?

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Last week saw us taking a new Big Picture to the PR Week Engaging Internal Communications conference at the Grange City Hotel in Tower Hill. The new picture is a cityscape depicting what happens when organisations don’t pay attention to the 4 key drivers of employee engagement.

According to the McLeod report on engagement, these are:

• Strategic narrative - a clear, compelling vision of where the business is going, why and what’s going to have to happen to get it there

• Engaging managers – people with the ability to communicate the strategic narrative in a way that engages, includes and motivates their people

• Employee voice – the willingess to give employees a voice and to seek, listen to and act on their feedback

• Living their values with integrity – leaders who ‘walk their talk’ by embodying the businesses values and who take responsibility for leading by example

Each of the four main buildings represents one of these key drivers and is filled with examples of what it’s like when these drivers aren’t in place.  People running around without any clear idea of what’s going on; people asking for feedback then not listening to it… in short, a range of things familiar to anyone who’s ever worked in a large organisation.

It was an ambitious picture and great fun to make and our artists worked tirelessly to achieve such a striking result, with it’s dizzying perspective. It’s so convincing that people standing in front of the picture reported they felt like they were falling forward into the story.

Which, of course, is just how we like it!

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“What are the characteristics of an engaged employee?” is a question they’re asking over at David Zinger’s ‘The Employee Engagement Network’

There are many different ways to characterise an engaged employee but one stands out for me – seeing yourself as part of the organisation rather than apart from it.

In my experience, engaged employees are those who care about some (or all) aspects of the work they do. Engaged employees care about doing their part well because they can see how that feeds into developing and safeguarding the thing they care about. They perceive themselves as part of the business and know where they fit in the bigger picture.

Disengaged employees, on the other hand, care more about their pay packet than the experience or importance of what they do – or how they do it. They see themselves as apart from the business, can only see through the view-frame of their own interests and often speak of themselves as though they were engaged in a struggle against the company.

Productivity can come from one of two basic motivations: either external or internal.  If you try to force productivity up through external motivation, you end up with an organisation that can only treat its people like slaves: resources to be exploited and controlled through a range punitive measures.  This approach will eventually create disengagement and at best, compliance.

Since you’re going to need ideas, creativity and willingness to keep productivity and innovation high, it follows that the only motivator that really makes sense is the internal one. Helping people to care about the organisation, what it stands for and to see the part they can play in its success will go a long way towards making that motivation personal – with far higher levels of engagement as the reward.

What do you think?

The Employee Engagement Network is free to join and features a wide range of interested people discussing employee engagement.

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One particular table exercise was to discuss “what HR can do to create employee engagement?”

A theme that came up on several tables was: ‘we need to see people as human beings who are valued and respected instead of a simple resource to be used up’.

That really got me thinking.  So many people share that feeling of not being treated by their organisation as human beings – it’s an unspoken that lies just below the surface.  I made this picture to capture both the intensity and simplicity of this issue.

Interestingly, the problem is clearly embedded there, in language, in the name of that most familiar of organisational job functions: ‘human resources’.

So what can HR do to make an organisation treat its people more like human beings and less like resources to be consumed?
What could I do today that would treat the people I work with more like human beings and less like raw resources to be used? What could I change personally?

At Delta7 we know that in order to treat other people with respect we have to first learn how to respect ourselves. What one thing could you do to treat yourself with more respect today?

We’d like to know how this picture makes you feel. Just post a comment (below)

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It’s interesting how often the title of these charts is the name of the company, as if the piece of paper actually is the company itself.

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Soon, no one wants to talk about the real issues even though they are staring everyone in the face. These things are difficult to talk about and all too often at key briefings and presentations people just sit in silence, unable to say what they really think because it feels too risky to speak up.

What is the Elephant under your table?

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In this picture, the leadership team, excited and motivated by their charts and strategic concerns in the comfort of the well-lit office contrast starkly with the demoralised employee dragging himself to work through the rain and cold.

This picture reminds us that the jargon of leadership, if used in the wrong context, can widen any gulf between leadership and the rest of the organisation.

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The imminent future is one where social issues continue to rise, fed by increased debt and unemployment, while the pipeline of funding is abruptly turned off. While money could be used to disguise inadequacies in the past, this is no longer possible – public sector organisations are going to have to rely on their own “intangible” qualities to weather the storm.

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The real problems that need fixing are often left hidden under the table; unacknowledged and undealt with – a taboo subject.  For a lot of people the stuff hidden under the table is what really matters.  If you’re looking for employee engagement then be prepared to bring this stuff out and put it on the table.

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So many people we’ve worked with tell us that there’s a painful contradiction between what organisations have to say about what’s going on and what people actually see and feel.  This leaves them wondering ‘why can’t they say how it really is’?  The result? Disengaged employees.

What about you? Do you see things differently from your organisation? How does this affect employee engagement?  Why not print this out and ask a colleague what they think.

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We see this a lot in organisations. Everybody thinks that the people above them don’t really contribute as much as they do to the success of the business. Result? Disengaged employees at every level. What about you? Who does all the work in your organisation. Why not show this to a colleague and ask them what they think?

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