Disengaged employees cost companies as much as $550 billion every year in lost productivity. As a result, frustrated companies are looking for better ways to increase employee accountability. But increased accountability on its own creates a culture of micromanagement that leads to unhappy workers. This, in turn, has a negative impact on employee productivity.
When I was a leader in one of my own businesses early in my career, I had the misfortune to discover that my employees had nicknamed me “Hurricane.” It was NOT a compliment!
Part of what earned me that nickname was the rage I felt when I had to repeat myself several times with my employees. I thought telling people something once should be enough! I hired really smart people, so when they didn’t seem to remember things I’d told them, I thought they just weren’t paying enough attention to what I said, and that made me furious.
When a leadership team embarks on the journey to implement EOS® in their business, one of the first things they learn to do is run weekly Level 10 Meetings™. While some teams resist, most come to love them quite quickly. It’s not unusual for a team to see the quality and value of their meetings improve dramatically in a few short weeks.
After the leadership team masters this discipline, Level 10 Meetings are introduced throughout the company, one level at a time. That’s when I start getting one of the most common EOS questions:
“How can I make my people more engaged in our meetings?”
You need team conflict to have a healthy team. Yes, you read that right. (Actually, you need conflict for any relationship to be healthy.) As psychologist Michael Batshaw says, “Engaging in conflict isn’t going to end the relationship, it’s avoiding the conflict that might.”
The autopilot can be an aviator’s BEST friend. It’s precise, alleviates workload, and provides good peace of mind. All positive factors, but if the pilot isn’t careful, it could lead to big trouble!
I recently spent the day with two groups of mid-managers, helping them become more comfortable with EOS®, improve their leadership and management skills, and create more accountability. Late in the day, while teaching five important disciplines used by great managers, we had some terrific dialog about providing feedback to employees. The group easily understood the importance of giving both positive and constructive feedback to employees, and about the need to do so quickly (within 24 hours). What they were struggling with was the “how.” In other words, how, exactly, do you give someone negative feedback that is CONstructive rather than DEstructive?
