She did not understand the following:

• Increasing engagement is a process, not an event
• The reason why there is disengagement is usually due to the lack of appropriate leadership skills such a supportive culture, trust, recognition, involvement, clear expectations and accountabilities to mention but a few.
• People respond to how they are treated. If they feel no one cares, why should they?
• The key idea – it’s not so much what managers do, its who they are –it’s all about character and integrity
• Engagement is an “inside job” – more difficult for task oriented people
• To have become involved and seriously wanting to implement engagement over a twelve month period would be worth a savings of $1 – 2 million on the bottom line. I’m afraid it’s opportunity missed.
• Oh, by the way, the CEO was not present. What does that say? It all begins at the top. Who is responsible for high or low engagement – the CEO or MD.  Sorry if that’s a bit blunt, but it’s the truth!

“What are we doing to invest in ourselves, and what are we doing to invest in our people?”

Companies never remain static. They are either moving forward or going backward. A critical element in determining the direction is the development of their people. Where investment is made, it is often at the middle management level that can have minimal effect if Executive Management is not involved. CEOs who condone this by delegating (or abdicating) this responsibility to HR or individual managers do so at their peril! A high return on the investment in human capital needs to be modelled by starting at the top.

Effective leadership is about positive influence, about having followers – the art of achieving excellent results through others. If the followers are on the average 50% effective, what does this say about leadership? The challenge is much of the “good” leadership development is often aimed at middle management, while senior executives are “too busy” or claim they “don’t need it” or make some other excuse.

Having “good” middle managers does little to change engagement levels if not strongly supported by executive leadership. It all starts at the top. Some executive managers would not like to hear this. Some would be justified as they do “walk the talk” support their managers, get involved and have high expectations and achieve great outcomes. But too many don’t. The numbers don’t lie. Often when discussing mentoring and coaching opportunities, these folk think it’s a great idea – for someone else!

So what makes for effective leadership and its many forms? At its core, it necessarily includes the ability to:

• Articulate a strategy
• Establish guiding principles
• Make decisions quickly, efficiently and effectively
• Earn the trust of your people, include them in the process, treat them fairly, keep them informed and above all else communicate effectively
• Keep the organisation focussed on the positive outcomes 

Therefore a definition of Leadership –

“To maximise the expectations, the positive hope of the outcomes that come from change – while minimising the fear of change for those involved.”

Today most commentators place coordination, cooperation and collaboration under the single banner of collaboration. But the important skill is knowing when to collaborate, cooperate or coordinate.

Some simple definitions may assist here:

Coordination

Everyone is working separately to achieve the overall goal of completing a specified task or project.  Only a modicum of trust is required (that’s trust in the system) to get the job done.

Cooperation

Cooperation is, for example, when you meet with your team to work out a project review process?

Here we are cooperating with our colleagues to deliver a task that we all know needs to be done. When we cooperate there is often a medium level of trust involved (trust in each other’s competencies and character) – the value of the activity tends not to accrue directly to the participants cooperating and, in most cases, someone else is driving you to do it.

So what is Collaboration then?

It’s when a group of people come together, driven by mutual self-interest, to constructively explore new possibilities and create something that they couldn’t do on their own.

Imagine you’re absolutely passionate about the role that performance reviews play in company effectiveness. You team up with two colleagues to reconceptualise how performance reviews should be done for maximum impact. You trust each other implicitly and share all your good ideas in the effort to create an outstanding result. You and your colleagues share the recognition and praise equally for the innovative work.

The important factor is mutual self-interest – indeed self-respect. When people create things they really want to create, and it is good for the company and its clients, it energises and engages people like nothing else.

It is also important to consider therefore the value of collaboration between synergistic firms to the overwhelming benefit of the client – this is vital, for example, in the context of working with Family firms – where the various aspects of the Family Business dynamic (the family, business and ownership dimensions) require a client centric, multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach.

HOW THEY “FEEL” IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO HOW PRODUCTIVE THEY ARE

Not feeling OK is an annual $33 BILLION eyesore to Australian business, because people are not engaged. They don’t feel good about themselves and their situation for a wide variety of reasons such as lack of recognition, support, being poorly treated, ignored or not listened to. Some of them give up, even good people, because of this. They become disillusioned, cynical and negative. The major reason for this is lack of leadership or totally inappropriate leadership. It affects the bottom line, causing unhappiness, disharmony and pain.

Leadership has a responsibility to employees, shareholders and themselves to ensure employees are engaged, cooperative, team players who give of their best. Surely nothing less should be acceptable? We get what we expect, only if we accept nothing less. If what we get is not what we expect, why do we accept it? We so often tolerate what we teach – even though we don’t condone it!

• How many of your employees are fully engaged?
• How do you know?
• How do you develop and maintain a high-performance culture?
• How do you develop employee’s responsibility and accountability?
• Do your current performance management practices ensure maximum return on your investment in human capital?

Can any other issue be more relevant, especially in the current economic climate?  We can assist by engaging the hearts, minds and spirits of your people to respond positively; choosing to enroll because of how they are treated.