Speaker 1: All right, good afternoon. Thank you for coming out to the program, first of all. It's always a pleasure to be at this program. I think this is my fourth year doing this, and every year it gets bigger and better, so I'm always excited to be invited back. My name is George Wright. For those of you who don't know me, I am, first of all, I'm an industrial organizational psychologist, and I have my own practice. And this program actually came out of my own practice. My own clients talk about this idea with me a lot, about engaging and engagement. And this is a very popular topic right now in the literature. How many of you have heard the topic of employee engagement, right? Maybe think about measuring it. Okay, great. Well, I want to begin to unpack this a little bit with you, because I have a problem with that. I have a problem even with my own clients. So we're going to start here. Contribution or commitment. What's the difference? What's the difference between contribution and commitment?

Speaker 2: Intellectual versus emotional.

Speaker 1: Okay. Can you really break it down for me, though? Can you break it down for me? Can somebody break it down for me? I think contribution is they just, they kind of do their work, they make a contribution.

Speaker 3: But commitment is they're really loyal to the company.

Speaker 1: Okay. Well, that's what I think about. What's that? Breakfast thing. Okay. Bacon and eggs. Great. Here's the deal. The chicken made a contribution. The pig made a full commitment. So when you're going to talk about this idea, about what this is, you think about it, okay? Contribution? Yeah. Okay. So you've got to think about this, because there's a reality here for us. Why do we want our associates, and why do we want to be engaged or, why do we want to be that committed? Why? Well, there's outcomes. There's real outcomes here. What is this thing? First of all, it is really technically defined as this. Are you willing to engage discretionary effort? This is not just showing up every day. This is going a little bit above and beyond because you feel like you want to. That's difference. That's engagement. That's really what we're talking about here. And I'm all for the measurement of this. Now, how many of you have taken an engagement survey? Great. What did you do with it? What did you do with it? I'm not hearing any. Okay. So we branded it. We communicated it. We measured it. We put plans together. And we made the difference in some areas.

Speaker 2: Okay. I wouldn't say all areas, but some areas. Great. Because most companies don't do that. Yeah. I know. Even my own clients don't do that. We go out. We do the survey. We give the information back.

Speaker 1: And then I get a little frustrated because, in fact, great, we'll do that. But what does it actually take to get that discretionary effort going? And that's what this program talks about. You know, we're talking about being committed. We're talking about making the full on commitment here. But what's behind the measurement is more important to me. What are we actually doing? First of all, as leaders, what are we doing? And second of all, as just members of the team, what are we doing? And it turns out, when we begin to unpack the idea, we can see what's going on here. There are things going on, okay? This isn't the interesting thing. It's about the individual value. Am I doing interesting work? Most people who are really good at their jobs, what do I know about them? They're incredibly passionate about it. They love the work itself. When I do career development work, I always advise people, do something you love, because otherwise you will not be good at it. And that means you really have to love it completely. You have to have focused work. You have to be knowing what you're doing. You've got to be on the right path. You have to have clear performance standards. We need to give people an understanding, what does it take to be a really good performer? What does that actually take? You have to have this, interpersonal support. First of all, trust has to be there. What do you do with someone when you don't trust them in your personal life? Yeah, you basically kick them out. Well, it turns out our associates are also doing that. When they don't trust us, they basically shut us out. And we as leaders can do the simplest little things to make trust go away. It's so simple, actually, and it's so harmful. That's one of the first areas we're going to be thinking about. We need cooperation. We need support. So those include that. It's that thing. And I don't mind you measuring it. I'm an industrial psychologist. I do measurement for a living. I like it. But let's get beyond that. Let's go do something else with this idea. A lot of studies have shown some very interesting things about this. Now the gentleman this morning was talking about matching up your needs and what you want with business interests. Here's one that we can do that with pretty quickly. What do we know? There's a direct link between employee engagement and profitability. Direct link. Your associates become engaged. Your profitability tends to go up. Earnings per share. So if you're in that realm, great. Always challenged by that measure, actually, but for a different reason. Operating income goes up. Net income goes up. Profit margins go up. Your satisfaction goes up. The driver of all that stuff goes up. Sales go up. How many of you like to drive sales up? I see all the smiles. There it is. I see the smile on the hand goes up. Yeah. Well, Gallup. Now, Gallup's a great organization. I love it. They do a lot of great measurement work. And they've shown this. You get better performance as an organization if, in fact, you have engaged employees. But it still begs the question, how do we get that? How do we get that? And this program's going to drive to that. What do we have to do to get people to become engaged? Well, even this. I mean, you want to outdo your competitors? There's a reason you want this. All of these reports show that there's a thing. But why is it so important? Even here. Correlation between levels of satisfaction. Take days. All of this points to the fact that employees who are engaged are going to do something different. But I really want to get into the unpacking of this. Bless you. OK? Yeah. I know it's good for business. But it's good for all of us. So how do we do that? That's the important question. How do I get you to do this? How do I get your leaders to do this? Well, consider this. There are 11 essential practices. 11. If we break out these 11, this program unpacks all 11 and talks to you about them. What are we talking about? Connection. Practice number one is connection. You need to somehow connect with your associates. One of the great things about this is if you have a very good working relationship with your associates, their level of engagement goes up pretty dramatically. That means things like, I trust my boss. That means my boss has driven trust to me. So we're going to talk about communication. We're going to talk about the act of listening. We're going to talk about how do I get people to do that? How do I get you to make a connection with your associates? First practice. Second is this. You've got to give people things that are meaningful to work on. You need to challenge them. You need to get them to grow. Now what's happened with career development in the last 20 years? Where's it been driven? It's been driven down to the actual associates. They're now responsible for their own career development, but we still need to keep an eye on that with them. We need to have the conversations. Are you growing? So again, we're going to drive that practice. We're going to bring that out in this session. Clarity. This is my biggest concern when we talk about employee engagement. Lack of clarity. More often than not, I will go into programs and I'll talk with associates and what's the one piece of feedback they all give me? I don't care what organization it is. What's the one piece of it? What do you think it is? They don't hear enough from the management? That's it. They do not hear enough from leadership about where we are going and why are we doing that thing. So we talk about getting this, clearing that up, and making sure that people understand what that is. It's this. Do I convey my simple expectations to you? Do I give you a clear understanding of what I expect on a day-to-day basis? It's the spoken and the unspoken. You've got a great job description, right? I assume that's all in place. What do I know about that job description? What do I know? If I look at it, it probably doesn't reflect everything you do because there's spoken and there's unspoken. So this really goes to the heart of saying, what is that? Have we conveyed really what we expect of our associates? Have we done that? It's about that. It's about recognizing people for what they do. We talk about motivation. What's your simplest and cheapest motivator? What is it? That means more to people than that pay raise, actually. That appreciation that you show on a regular basis that's meaningful to people is your best motivator. People engage people more often than not. So getting people to do that, giving them the understanding they need to do this regularly. Yeah, show me that I matter. If you want me to be engaged and you want to be engaged, show me that I matter. How does my work contribute to this organization? People sometimes don't know. And so if we as leaders are not doing a good job about showing them where their contribution lies and why it matters, we don't get engagement. What else is here for us? Control. Turns out that if I exercise or give you a little exercise of control, you engage your work differently. It's like if I asked you to paint this room. If I told you to paint the room just white, how many of you would say, oh boy? Not one of you, probably. Not one of you. But if I actually said to you, guess what, you get to paint the room any color you want, what would I see? I would see a ton of excitement. I would get people to be engaged by that task. Simple little things, acts of control, give people higher levels of engagement. We're so reluctant to do that now, right? It's our biggest mistake. We don't give people enough control over what they're doing, even in the smallest ways, and we wonder why we're challenged with engagement issues. So getting people to do that, getting them to see that. Here's another one. Why do people come to work most often? It's not for the money, it's for the social. You and I are social animals. Don't forget that. If we do not allow collaboration, you don't get engagement. I was fascinated when Cube Farms came up, Dilbert's idea of Cube Farms. I was fascinated by that because what are we doing? We're driving engagement out of the workforce. So getting people to collaborate and fostering that kind of environment is what we're also going to drive this program. We talk about what it takes to get people to collaborate. Credibility, yeah, again, I need to have trust and you need to demonstrate ethical standards for me. If we don't have credibility as leaders, you do not get engagement. It's not say one thing and then close the door and do something else. It's driving credibility out to people and demonstrating that with them. We talk about this. If I don't believe in you, I'm not coming along for the ride, I refuse. If I do not believe in what you're telling me, I'm not coming along for the ride. I'm simply not going to do it. So we're going to talk about issues of confidence. And communication, biggest problem I face when I work with leaders is they're simply not communicating enough. They're not standing up. They're not giving people an understanding of what they're doing. So if you begin to drive these ideas home, you get engagement. So what do they do? They do that. They do that. Now, that first one's probably the most important one. If I talk about one skill more often than not when I talk to leaders, it's that. How are you listening? Because most of you don't listen well. And we talk about why. No listening, no leadership. They're that. They have that support. They are target focused, but they don't overdo it. They show empathy. And if you look right now at the business literature that's being generated, what are they showing? Empathic leaders are the most effective leaders. If you can't empathize with people and their situations, you're probably not going to be an effective leader. Having that, understanding what that is, showing an active interest in people. Simple little things like, hey, how is your day going, matter to people. And those are the behaviors that are going to drive engagement. Having those. So we go back and we look at what good leadership skills are. The number one good leadership skill that I harp on all the time is set a good example for people. If you expect people to do something, you should demonstrate that yourself. You want them there on time, you should be early. It's the simplest thing possible, but we forget that stuff. And so if we're going to talk about engagement, these are the behaviors we're going to drive towards. And they respect people. Personal respect is a driver of engagement. Questions for me before we begin to wrap up for the day. Does anyone have a question for me about this program? That never happens. Yeah. Sure. Have you done this program for banks and what level of employees do you recommend starting

Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a client who's an investment bank in Chicago and we did it for their senior

Speaker 1: leadership team because they were having an active discussion about doing this and I advised them before they did any survey at all that we start by saying what are those behaviors. So it started with them, and again, you can drive that behavior down, but I prefer to talk to leaders about that because that's where your engagement is going to go. We drive this stuff, and we're the ones who are doing it, so that's my preferred audience for this.

Speaker 4: And how long is the class approximately?

Speaker 1: We can do this in four hours. I prefer to do this in four hours because there's so much to unpack, so I'd much prefer to do it in four hours.

Speaker 3: And do you have them do activities throughout different things?

Speaker 1: Yes. Oh yeah. I'm famous for my listening skills. Activity that people don't like, but too bad. Yeah? How would you do this training course with a large company? For example, who are your employees? I'd start with your leadership team. That's why I want to drive this. I want to drive this to leaders because you can measure it as much as you want, but unless you're actually driving the behaviors, you're not going to see that needle move in any way. Okay? Anything else? Yes? The 12th, I mean the 11th essential practice? Come to the program.

Speaker 2: Huh? Come to the program. Somebody was counting. Yeah. Come to the program.

Speaker 1: That's the ringer. It's commitment, by the way. It's commitment. Do people intend to stay, and how do we get them to make that full commitment? Anything else? How long is your seminar? This runs four hours. This is four hours, but there's breaks built in, but there's so many activities that come with it. I prefer to do that in the four hours. Doing this in a two-hour time span is really hard, and it eats a bit much, so I prefer it to be the four hours. Sorry. Okay? Yes, sir? Do you leave behind all the tools? The way I work this now is I will leave behind the materials, the actual slides themselves, and the activities that come with it, and I ask people to take notes. I'm an active, I want people taking notes. So I send these out afterwards as a PDF. It's more efficient. It's less damaging on the environment. People tend to take these things and don't usually use them except for one or two pages, so you get to print out what you want.