Most engagement exercises don’t work.  As a matter of fact, most employees highly resent any corporate efforts to get them engaged, and so the efforts backfire. Actually, I have seen many employees become disengaged by their company’s efforts to tar everyone with the engagement brush, saying “I am already engaged, I am feeling manipulated by having to jump through these hoops.”

You can’t force engagement. It’s not a behavior, it’s an attitude.

You can only create conditions where people choose to jump on board and give it their all.  Telling them to do it will not work.

Let me explain.

I was asked by a company recently to work with their team and to get them communicating and talking with each other.

The very first day of the training found me up in front of the team and just ramping up to deliver an enthusiastic full day of development, when from the back row, I heard “Mister, you are a **&^%%$ idiot.” He was looking for a fight and I wasn’t about to play his game.  Nothing I could have done at that moment was going to change his mind or his level of engagement, so I ignored the comment and soldiered on.  During the break I called him aside away from his cronies and suggested we take a walk outside. I needed to connect with him.

“So”, let’s call him Pete, “you really seem out of sorts about this training.  I’m sorry you feel this way.  Do you realize how you made yourself look in there this afternoon? I don’t think that’s the kind of reputation you want to have is it?  It seemed very childish to me, and I know that’s not you.”

He gave me “the look” and said, “I don’t want to be here, I resent the company saying I have to, and I don’t like it.”

“So you chose to have a temper tantrum?  You know, you wouldn’t accept that from your children or grandchildren, what makes you think it’s acceptable here in this environment?”

Silence.

“I’m just saying Pete, you are better than this, and frankly, I expect more from you.  Your team does as well.”

I got a call later in the week from the plant manager saying, “I’m not sure what you did or said to Pete, but he came to me and promised that he was going to behave for the course and try to apply what we are doing into his daily work.”

Most engagement efforts don’t work because companies try to force people into these little square boxes when the people come in many more shapes and sizes than they have boxes, but still they try to make one size fit all.

If you want to get your team committed, work on the relationships that exist between supervisors and workers.  That’s where you will get your greatest success.  According to a study done recently by Dale Carnegie Training, there are three levels that reflect and build engagement:

1. The pride they have in the company brand,
2. The respect they have for the senior management team and
3. The relationship they have with their immediate supervisor.

There’s that word again: relationship.

In my experience, I’ve witnessed that many companies don’t want to build a relationship, they want people to do what they tell them to do, and they want it done now, and to them, that’s what engagement is all about.

I’ve been in this business for 28 years.  I have learned a thing or two about engagement, and I can say with certainty that, when you become genuinely interested in the other person and you make them feel important, and do it sincerely, you get engagement.

The great Zig Ziglar said, “You can get anything you want in life IF you’ll just help enough people get what they want.” Do you know what your people want? No? Well then stop telling them what you want and build trust by asking them what they need to feel important and successful.

So stop trying to manipulate people into a way of acting and start talking with them and treating them with respect and they will choose to be engaged.

It’s as simple as that.

~ Paul Kearley
Managing Partner, Dale Carnegie Business Group – Maritimes Division
(506) 432-6500