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Employee Engagement = Competitive Edge

by Joan Cook

Employee engagement seems to be a hot topic these days (along with talent management).  To our way of thinking, employee engagement is the key to having a competitive edge.  The Gallup Q12  survey and the Marcus Buckingham book based on it, First, Break All the Rules, distill what the best managers do to create an engaged organization.  It boils down to three simple needs on the part of all employees:

1.  The need for inclusion
2.  The need for significance
3.  The need for openness

Inclusion means:  Do I belong?  Am I in or out?  Am I known?  Significance means:  Do I matter?  Do I make a difference?  Am I important?  Openness means:  Is it ok to tell the truth?  Can I be honest in front of management/my boss?

When we work with organizations on employee engagement, we oftentimes approach getting answers to these questions by asking managers to list what they think they do that demotivates employees and causes them to feel NOT included, NOT significant, and NOT able to be open. Then we talk about what they need to do to rectify the situation. 

Inclusion means communicating information, including people in planning, involving them in decision making (particularly on those decisions that directly affect them) and as a manager, being available.  Significance means appreciating people, praising them, asking them for input, paying attention to what they say (no sending emails or shuffling papers while they're talking), and getting their buy-in.  Openness is created by showing appreciation, listening (without an agenda and without thinking about what you're going to say next while they're talking!), asking for feedback, being interested in people and not reacting negatively to mistakes or bad news, but using them as learning and/or coaching opportunities.  Creating an engaged team depends a great deal on these competencies; can you imagine an organization of engaged teams, all pulling in the same direction?

There's a lot of nuance to this work and we frame it differently, with different activities, depending on who we're working with.  But the essence is the same:  engagement = competitive edge.  Smart companies invest in engagement and reap the rewards.

Teams Need Skills as well as Process

by Joan Cook

Jeff and I are working with a number of different teams in organizations around the country.  After each teambuilding experience we debrief, usually on the plane home, and we've lately had one of those "duh" moments:  although we're working for the most part in sophisticated organizations (one of them a Fortune 50 company), their people lack some of the most basic Management 101 communication skills--which of course, holds back progress toward becoming a highly effective team.  If being able to give (and receive) feedback effectively, hold fellow team members accountable, handle difficult conversations and use effective listening skills are key, our experience is that most team members shy away from using these critical skills simply because they feel they aren't very good at them--or they've never learned them in the first place.  Understandable, since a.  they aren't taught in b-school and b. most people learn them--if they learn them at all--on the fly, by imitating what they see others do.  If they're lucky, they have good models.  If they're not, they perpetuate a culture that is likely weak in supporting the use of the very tools that enable effective working relationships, and effective teaming.

So in addition to team process skills and experiential team events, we're discovering that there's a third leg to this stool:  management communication skills that enable team members to engage in effective team processes in the first place.  We're now looking at how we structure the teambuilding experience and what we may need to include, in addition to team processes, in order to equip teams to be able to make good use of those processes.

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How can financial advisors overcome increasing skepticism - particularly in a down economy? (Part 3)

by Jeff Dorman

The last post in this series--the first post is here and the second post is here-- is all about communication.

As discussed in the previous two posts, you can have the right consultative mindset, and a strong meeting process, but without being adept at balancing a set of crucial communication skills, an FA (financial advisor) will stumble.  FA’s talk more than anything else. It turns the client off. It’s that simple. The communication skills that distinguish an average FA from a great one are:

•    Listening – not just focusing and “getting what they’re saying”, but truly demonstrating to the client that you “got” what they’re telling you. We call this skill “reflecting”.

•    Questioning – being able to naturally lead the client to reveal all kinds of key information. Not just the financials, but their hopes, dreams, and fears. And, not making it an interrogation but a conversation.

•    Speaking – you can call this suggesting, advising, recommending, pitching, sharing or explaining. Whatever you call it, it needs to be clear, concise and relevant. And followed by checking and listening.

•    Flexing – the ability to FLEX (adapt) your communication style and build rapport based on the client’s communication style and preferences is one of the toughest, yet most high leverage skills you can have in your toolkit.

The best FA’s are incredibly “self-aware” of their behavior in front of clients and balance these four skills elegantly. They develop trust. They grow their share of wallet.

Happy to answer any questions about any of this, and would love comments as well.

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Making the Six Month Review a Priority this Year

By Stephen Giordano

I know that many managers, myself included, can create a multitude of excuses why not to hold six month reviews with our staff members--the time it takes to prepare and reflect on the past six months, the time it takes to hold the discussions, the myriad of other activities that populate our to-do lists, the clients that need our attention, the projects that we have due.  The list goes on.  At the heart of it though is the critical question - Are our people worth our time? - and the answer is unequivocally yes.