BEDC Blog

IT'S NOT THAT THEY'RE LAZY, IT'S THAT THEY JUST DON'T CARE
Employee engagement. Meaningless buzzword or real organizational dynamic that can be measured and managed?

Your view probably depends on who you’ve heard speak on the topic or what you’ve read. It’s OK to be cynical and
jaded - that’s what we love about you. That’s also why we’re going to avoid deep science and lead with what we think
everyone can relate to regarding employee engagement.

That’s right, a clip from the Hollywood classic on employee engagement, Office Space.

REPEAT AFTER ME: LIKABILITY IS NOT FEEDBACK IN THE HIRING PROCESS

It’s easy to get lost in the details when facilitating feedback from multiple people who have interviewed the same candidate for your company. You know the drill. You’re responsible for driving the hiring process and as a part of that, you’ve got to circle back around to everyone who interviewed the candidate and say, “What did you think?”

Imagine you’re a mid-level manager with an interview schedule filled to the brim with a mountain of resumes accompanying it. As you wait for the next candidate to walk in, you notice in the two-page rendition of qualifications that she has a Master’s degree from a well-respected university along with 2-3 interesting internships. However, it seems the only real work experience this candidate has is in the food industry as a hostess. Judging from the look of things, you’re more likely than not to expect that the person about to walk through the door will probably be in her early to late-20’s, bearing one or more tattoos, smiling with uber bright white teeth and carrying a blank notepad.

Let’s face it…conflict is inevitable when working with people. You can almost guarantee some form of angst will arise in any relationship no matter its shape or form - whether it be romantic, friendly, political or heaven forbid – some form of rivalry between two top contending sports teams (Go Chargers!).  It should come as no surprise then that conflict happens in the workplace as well.  According to CNN Living in January 2008, human resource managers reported spending “24% to 60% of their time dealing with employee disputes.” Even more alarming was the finding from the same research group that “53% of workers lost time at work worrying about a past or future confrontation with a co-worker.” Yikes! It’s apparent a good number of people are finding themselves in the midst of some discord. Not only are they consumed with the fear of confrontation, but they’re spending an invaluable amount of time trying to avoid “it” rather than learning how to deal with the disruption effectively.

“Managing-Up” is often on people’s radars. So is managing down, managing cross-wise, sideways and in every other imaginable GPS-like direction.  Just how to you get people to do (or at least listen) to what’s important to you especially if you don’t have the title or authority to force them to be your captive audience? It’s time to Author-Edit my friend. I created (or rather stumbled upon) this model more than a decade ago when working with Reuter’s News Service in London. Great group – those news service types… just a bit “blank” when it came to the inevitable discussion around managing or influencing others. Here’s how Author-Edit works- draw a square…