FireFly Facilitation

Here’s the headline:  Employee engagement drives loyalty and business performance at World’s Most Admired Companies.   According to the Hay Group’s latest research, top companies are particularly focused on making sure employees feel engaged by their work.

Hay also conducted supplemental research on employee engagement practices at these organizations, which found that companies at the top of the list generated stronger employee loyalty to the organization over the last two years and reported greater decreases in employee frustrations over work conditions that were not conducive to their success.

“The World’s Most Admired Companies have been particularly good at focusing on long-term strategies, showing little tolerance for executives that compromise long-term objectives for short-term gains,” said Mel Stark, vice president with the Hay Group. “Equally important, the WMAC communicate their objectives to all employees, connecting the goals and objectives of every employee to the overall business strategy, and as a result, were able to come out of the downturn with motivated and loyal employees.”  Hay Group’s study found that 90 percent of respondents from the WMAC identified their company as very effective or effective at fostering high levels of employee engagement compared to 71 percent of their peers.

These findings are supported by another study conducted by consulting firm Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson).  They conducted a Global Workforce Study, the largest study of its kind, in which they asked 90,000 employees in 18 countries,  “What can a company do to attract, retain, and engage top talent?”  They boiled it down to 5 key things:

1. Get leaders out front to talk with employees about the business environment…how the organization is responding…the long-term vision…what the organization stands for.
2. Involve employees in efforts to manage costs to help them feel like active contributors.
3. Communicate consistently and candidly about both short- and long-term objectives.
4. Listen and gather input from employees.
5. Promote development opportunities so people can see a future for themselves worth working toward.

 If you look at 1,3 and 5, you will see these are all about talking to or telling employees something about the company.  2 & 4 are all about listening and getting employees to tell you ways to manage costs, perhaps front line customer feedback on what needs to change, etc.  The researchers noted: “The challenge for senior management is to recognize the value of employees’ untapped potential and to channel it in ways that yield real improvements in business performance.” 

More engagement comes from being recognized as unique and with value.  The good news is with a more engaged team – the leader doesn’t feel they have to do this alone – it truly becomes a team effort.  And they may even come to care as much about the success of the organization as you do.

What do you need to start doing today to attract, retain and engage your top talent?  There’s no time to waste, because even in this tough job market, your highest performers always have choices.

Did you know that Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a gigantic supervolcano? Molten rock simmering beneath the earth’s surface causes the park’s bubbling geysers, boiling mud pots, and hissing thermal vents. An eruption of Yellowstone’s volcano would have cataclysmic consequences on the environment, and is capable of wiping out vast stretches of North America.

Have you ever been around a “volcanic coworker”—a person prone to angry outbursts? If so, then you know the damage such a person poses to the work environment. When they erupt, they spew out toxic emotions on everyone else and cause irreparable damage to team dynamics.

How do you defuse a coworker who appears to be on the verge of a destructive eruption?

1) Give them safe outlets to vent negative feelings.

Volcanoes erupt because of the building pressure of toxic gases trapped beneath the earth’s surface. If the gases have an escape valve, then no eruption occurs.

2) Keep them away from combustible situations.

Volcanic eruptions are fueled when fresh inflows of molten rock add volume to the caldron of magma boiling under the earth’s crust. Absent of the added inflows, a volcano lacks sufficient energy to erupt.

3) Turn down their temperature by removing stressful assignments.

Volcanoes are triggered by intense heat that can liquefy rock. Reduce the hotness, and your remove the threat of an eruption.

There is minimal wasted energy in the glow of a firefly. Incredibly, 96 percent of the energy that a firefly uses to create light is actually converted into visible light. Compare that to a typical light bulb, which converts only 10 percent into light and uselessly expends the remainder. Fireflies know how to shine without creating heat—without wasting energy on unnecessary conflict.

Leaders are the gatekeepers of conflict—monitoring the degree to which it manifests itself within team dynamics. They allow conflict when it generates light, but defuse conflict when it serves only to raise the tempers and temperatures of those involved. However, what if you, as the leader, keep falling into useless arguments and petty debates?

From a healthy tension, conflict can easily boil over into a destructive war of personalities. Here are three pieces of advice to prevent you from stumbling into wasteful conflicts.

1) Start with the heart. Clarify your goals and intentions up front. Be honest and sincere in your motivations.

2) Innocent until proven guilty. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. It’s easy to be suspicious of their motives and ascribe rotten qualities to them in the heat of the moment. Remain composed and seek their perspective, even when it seems to make no sense.

3) Mirror, mirror on the wall. Evaluate your own motivations when you find yourself ensnared in a fiery debate. Sometimes our prejudices and predispositions make us unreasonable. Looking in the mirror makes us aware of our underlying desires and enables us to communicate in a more levelheaded way.