Episode #256: Getting Staff Engagement When Doing Business In Japan

According to our global research, there are three critical issues that determine the level of engagement and one key trigger point to getting engagement. This research was duplicated here and japan and showed the same trends. The relationship between the staff member and their supervisor or boss is an obvious make or break point for getting high levels of engagement. What is your relationship with the team?

Often we are promoted on the basis of our ability, our smarts and then we find we are leading people who are not like us. We think that being smart is enough but actually our EQ or Emotional Quotient is much more important than our IQ when it comes to leading and engaging the team. When we start a new business there is so much pressure and we are so time poor, we often forget about the impact we have on the people around us. We forget to thank them, to encourage them, to coach them.

As the old saying goes, we don't leave companies, we leave bosses. Now in many cases they don't actually leave, they stay put but they are not fully engaged. They are there to collect their pay and do the minimum possible to stay out of trouble.

The second key point is the level of trust on the part of the troops with the direction for the company being taken by senior management. The degree to which the people at the bottom believe the people at the top, know what they are doing has a strong influence on engagement. This sounds simple but often the internal communication mechanism from those at the top, to those at the bottom are not working well.

When people don't know the WHY it is hard for them to sign on for the journey. We may think we have fully explained the vision and mission and the troops get it. This is rarely the case. We have to keep hammering those key messages over and over again because people do not get it from one telling. Middle Management should be reinforcing the key messages from the top but often they are not doing that.

They are soaking up all the information but they are not passing it on. The people at the bottom do not have a clear idea of the rationale for decisions or direction changes, because no one has sufficiently explained it to them. The other aspect was pride in the company. When you work for a brand name or a big powerful company, it is easier to feel pride in what you are doing. But for small medium enterprises, we have to work hard to create that pride.

Battles between internal silos is a factor of modern corporate life. This is directing energy and focus away from the rivals out there in the market. The silo leaders complain about other parts of the organisation and this doesn't help to build a strong sense of engagement within the organisation. This is a weakness in the leadership because they don’t know how to engage the team from a holistic point of view. I had a case of a client where their key opponent in the market had been disorganised and wasn't much of a rival, but they were changing, they were improving, they were on the way to becoming a strong rival. This is perfect. You can unite the team against those rivals, galvanise people’s energy and attention. Have the offsite, the dinners, the after work drinks - anything that will help bond people on the inside against the enemy on the outside.

The trigger point to engagement was feeling valued. Everyone is working away in their role but do they understand where they fit into the big picture. Where their little job makes a difference, where they make a difference. For a lot of admin jobs it is hard to feel anything you are doing means anything. We have to have those conversations where we reassure everyone that what they are doing is important and that they are important. One of the issues is we forget to tell them because we think either they know already or they don't need to know. They should be able to work it out for themselves.

Well they can't and they need to have their importance, their value to the organisation constantly reinforced thru the communication skills of the leader. In a time poor world we can find ourselves moving from one meeting to another and shooting out orders in the interval. This is not going to engage anyone and where is the feeling valued part? You might think you are doing this but you may be fooling yourself. You can do a quick self audit and confirm how much of your time is spent communicating to the troops that they are valued in this organisation.