“I think most of us would have followed him into
the gates of hell carrying suntan oil after that.”
The Thank God It’s Monday Project
Going to the source of employee engagement
Vanessa Fudge : November 2015
Agenda
o Who we are
o About the Thank God It’s Monday project
o Employee Engagement 101
o However…
o Step back and look up
o A real-world example
o Next steps and an invitation.
Who we are (and why we’re worth listening to)
o We’re experienced
o We’re hands-on and live in the real world
o We’ve done our research.
Slide 4
About the Thank God It’s Monday project
TGIM is a five-year research project aimed at
uncovering just what it takes to create a business that
employees love to work for.
What is Engagement?
The ROI of a highly engaged team
In a study of 50,000 employees worldwide
the Corporate Leadership Council found:
• Engaged companies grow profits as
much as 3X faster than their competitors
• Highly engaged employees are 87
percent less likely to leave the
organization.
Discretionary Effort
Engagement mix
Intent to stay
Worst case…
Leading indicators for engagement
The correlations are real and important
Over years of surveys and thousands of responses we can
confidently say that businesses with strong organisational
skillsets tend to have higher engagement scores:
Organisations with these
skillset scores:
Typically have these
engagement % scores:
In the 70’s
80+
In the 60’s
60-80
In the 50’s
40-60
In the 40’s / low 50’s
Below 40
* Capability Score out of a possible 100 points
Some skills matter more than others
o What are highly engaged organisations focusing on?
o
o
o
o
o
Culture
KPIs, Reward & Recognition
Performance Management
Purpose
Recruitment
However…let’s talk for a minute about
some awkward truths
• Spending on employee engagement is now on the order of $1
billion annually in the USA alone. What do we have to show for it?
• Are we just making the “stayers” happier while our “achievers” go
elsewhere?
• Correlation is not causation
• The numbers don’t add up.
Something is not quite right…
According to a recent Gallup poll:
• Only 30% of workers are engaged
• Only 35% of managers are engaged
• 51% of managers are not engaged
• 14% are actively disengaged.
To put it another way, after years of widespread focus on employee
engagement two out of three employees are still functionally zombies - and
this is not surprising because half of them are being led by zombies (even if
they pretend otherwise to keep their paycheck).
Maybe we’re not looking in the right
place…
Leadership mindset is the leading,
leading indicator
Leadership
Mindset
Organisational
Skillset
Employee
Engagement
Mental Models – Reactive
Signs of a Reactive mindset
Leaders who:
o Have unrealistic expectations and push too hard for perfect
outcomes
o Are not happy unless things are done their way
o Seek to please others and gain approval rather than risking
transformational change
o Are too conservative and wishy-washy with decision making
o Are emotionally distant and ego driven.
Mental Models - Creative
Signs of a creative mindset
Leaders who:
o Foster warm and caring relationships
o Take time to connect with people
o Lead in a manner that is aligned with your values
o Are courageous and speak out directly even on controversial
issues
o Tend to see the positive side, even in the worst situations
o Get the job done without the need to draw attention to
themselves and their contribution.
Our research has demonstrated a strong
relationship between leadership mindset and
employee engagement levels
Behavior prevalence (100 = “always present”)
70
60
50
40
Perceived creative leadership
30
Perceived reactive leadership
20
10
0
High engagement
companies
Low engagement
companies
Other research broadly confirms our premise
Belief in leaders makes a huge difference
• Where Australian employees perceive both their leader and manager as
being effective, 72% are highly engaged and just 3% are disengaged.
• Where they perceive both their leader and manager as being ineffective
just 8% of these employees are highly engaged while the majority (56%)
are disengaged.
• Only 44% of Australian employees say their senior leaders are effective.
Making great leaders – Creative Mindset
Reactive
Creative
Leadership Energy
Achievement
Inspiration
Control
Dependence
Task
Relate
Experiencing the Difference
o When did you play it safe?
o What did it feel like?
o What were the outcomes?
o What were the consequences?
o Were you creating or reacting?
o When did you play it brave?
o What did it feel like?
o What were the outcomes?
o What were the consequences?
o Were you creating or reacting?
Designing a leadership program
to impact Mindset
What is the change that people are
passionate about? And what is the
mindset shift needed to bring it to life?
Designing a leadership program
to impact Mindset
•
Don’t be wishy-washy – nail your vision first and measure how your
leadership program progresses you toward that vision
•
Integrate – your leadership program needs to be a facet of your
organisational strategy
•
Leadership is core – so you can’t afford to remain dependent upon
external providers for your leadership development. You may need external
help to start with but eventually all the skills need to come in-house
•
A multi-dimensional approach works best – training, coaching,
diagnostic, mentoring
•
Include a giving back component
•
You will need both courage and persistence – changing how you think
requires looking in the mirror, beyond a blind-spot.
Example: NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS)
Our Approach
1. Develop the Corporate Plan
2. Then design the leadership program to fit the Plan
3. Develop leadership workshops targeted at the required
mindset/behavioral changes
4. Make the program scalable and sustainable by coaching the
coaches
5. Embed the cultural and mindset changes via mentoring
6. Extend the framework to strategic partners (in this case Rowing,
Swimming, Hockey, ClubsNSW)
Leadership modules
The individual modules selected for NSWIS were similar
to the following:
Phase One:
– Continuous Improvement
– Coaching & Developing Others
– Aligning Performance for Success
– Planning and Organising
– Gaining Commitment.
Phase Two:
– Building Trusting Relationships
– Leading High Performance Teams
– Innovation
– Building Strategic Relationships
– Marshalling Resources.
Next steps
o Take the capability survey back to work with you
o Take the mindset survey next - http://www.altusq.com.au/employeeengagement/the-leadership-mindset-survey/
o Altusq.com.au - engagement research reports
OR
o Our leadership mindset programs.
“Many of the individuals are not used to
looking at themselves in the mirror and the
concept of leadership has been very
hierarchical/power driven – a thing you do
to people, rather than QLead's
collaborative, self-empowering framework
of leadership as a skill to help people
become better..…”
Leadership is not
a position or a title,
it is action and
example.