Every company wants to be on The List—you know, the list of companies employees and customers rave about. Every leader and team member wants to be on The List of engaged, exceptional employees. If that’s so, why don’t we have a longer list? The reason is simple: To be on that list takes more than wanting to be on it. We have to earn our way on the list.
The problem is that we have a tendency to think we’ve earned our spot on The List when we haven’t. At least not from the point of view of our customers, employees or fellow team members—the ones who create and maintain what I call The List. How many of us, as companies or individuals, are really on The List?
Ten to twenty percent—but hey, let’s be generous and use the bigger number. Oh, and one thing: We can’t put ourselves on The List—that has to be done by someone else—and that reality explains why the list is dismally small.
You might think you’re the exception—as a company or as a manager or team member. Maybe you are. Most of us aren’t–only the top twenty percent are.
Yesterday I had a director in a large company tell me, “My boss would never ask me those questions.” What questions was he referring to? The questions I told him every manager needs to ask his or her team:
- What am I doing well that you want me to keep doing?
- What am I doing that you want me to stop doing or do differently?
- What are my key strengths as a manager? (Or employee)
- What are my key weaknesses as a manager? (Or employee)
The truth is only about twenty percent of managers (or employees) would have the emotional intelligence to ask these questions. The other eighty percent are busy with other things—things that are urgent, but not nearly as important. That’s one reason we have an employee engagement problem.
This isn’t about knowing what to do to fix our problem, it’s our not being willing to look in the mirror to see the real problem. Yet, each one of us needs to look in the mirror because each one of us needs to improve in some way—from the CEO down.
We all want to be on “The List”—yet the facts are that most of us (Company or individual, aren’t.) To get on The List takes looking in the mirror and having an honest conversation with self and with each other. The mirror, by the way, is the results we produce and the feedback of our internal and external customers. But the mirror won’t come to us and pose the questions—we have to go to it and ask the questions above.
These questions, honestly asked, will help us earn our way onto The List. I know we’re all crazy busy and many of us are overwhelmed and even cynical. But I also know that we do what we value and prioritize. If we really prioritized employee engagement, we would be asking The Mirror for feedback.
Bottom line: We have to do more than want employee engagement. To get on The List, we have to do what it takes to earn it. We can do it—the only question is “Will we?” The List doesn’t care if we’re’re on it or not—do we? What does The Mirror say?
Categorized in: Career Success, Employee Engagement, Leadership
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