“I have no idea what to do about my employee Sally!” Mary vented in frustration. “I hired her for the front desk/reception position and she was great! But when we lost a team member and I had to move Sally to the back of the office to do the filing, she has been horrible! She’s constantly leaving the filing and running up to the front to say hello to a patient or talk with the girls at the front. And to make matters worse, she’s constantly late and more recently, she’s been calling in sick a lot! I just don’t know what to do with her!”
Does this complaint sound familiar? So often we have employees who lose engagement, or worse yet, we find ourselves losing focus and drifting from being engaged.
What’s going on? Why is this happening?
I think this situation is primarily a case of not understanding the “Engagement Style” or more deeply, the Personality, of the person you’re working with. I get this question a lot, and let’s face it – it would be so much easier to do life if everyone could just do it the right way…you know, MY way! 🙂
So let’s do a quick overview of how to make sure you are creating the best Engagement Culture for yourself and your employees. We’ll cover it Engagement Style by Engagement Style…
Sunshine Sally stays engaged when the project is fun and I mean fun for her. Filing isn’t fun for her. Her emotional tank is full when she has lots of approval and acceptance and attention. Getting stuck in the back of the office fills NONE of those needs, and that’s why she’s always running to the front. Mary must find a way to get Sally back in the job she was hired for (and was very good at) working with people and talking while doing her other work. Making sure Sally is having fun and engaging with people will ensure she stays engaged. Oh, and I’ll bet her tardies and absences will drop off too.
Perfect Paul’s emotional tank is a little different. He will stop being engaged when he is missing details and doesn’t have enough time to do his work. He wants to make sure he understands the scope of the project along with receiving all the needed details…and he need LOTS of details! That’s because when he does his job, he wants to do it perfectly. And that’s a good thing. So make sure you are giving him lots of details as well as the time needed to accomplish the task.
Action Annie (Mary in our story above) has a deep need for control. She becomes disengaged when she feels powerless. The situation with Sally was driving her crazy because Sally was totally out of her control. Annie likes to be in control because she likes to get things done and she always (almost always) sees the best way to accomplish the work in the least amount of time. She wants her employees to be loyal and hardworking and her bosses to acknowledge the amount of work she does to achieve all that she achieves. Make sure, if you have Annie for an employee, you are acknowledging her efforts and you are providing her lots of opportunity to control the situation.
Peaceful Pete is the balm to every office. Not only does he bring the peace, but he needs the environment to be peaceful as well. He will use procrastination and disengagement if he is stuck in the middle of a tense or conflicted environment. The other day my son Graham, (with a big Peaceful Pete part of his personality) was listening as my daughter (Action Annie) and I were bickering about something. The discussion (ahem) started in the car and carried on as we came into the house. My little Graham took stock of the situation and immediately diffused the conflict with a well spoken “Girls, Girls, Girls!”…Amelia and I both broke down into giggles and remembered how much our own Peaceful Pete hates conflict. So make sure Pete has plenty of calm, a lack of conflict and that you take time to listen to him, and then he will be less likely to procrastinate and will feel motivated to stay engaged.
The happy ending to our story is that Mary moved Sally back into her receptionist position, she moved some of her other employees around to work on the filing and productivity (and full engagement) was restored in the office. Sometimes, all you need is to take a good look at the Engagement Style of you and your team to be able to Live Fully Engaged.
How about you? What engagement style is most difficult for you to deal with?