Why No Survey Will Solve Your Engagement Problem

Why no engagement survey will solve your engagement problem.

Certainly not alone.

Alone, it will do very little at all.

After all, only 8% of employees really believe that their organisation will actually do anything as a result of engagement surveys.

And only 1 in 4 employees feel that their opinion matters in their organisation.

If leaders aren’t engaging with their teams in a meaningful way on a day to day basis, why would we expect those teams to engage in a survey in any meaningful way? - however well it might be positioned.

The appeal of the shortcut solution:

“Employees aren’t engaged. It’s a problem. What do we do?”

There’s a temptation to jump to solutionising without the sincere investment in trying to fully understand the problem first.

It makes sense.

We work in a fast paced, ever changing world that’s placing a lot of pressure on businesses to keep up and deliver results.

Businesses need action. Businesses need to stay productive.

However, if we try to take a “productive” or “efficient” approach to addressing how our people are feeling, we won’t get very far.

And ultimately, low engagement is down to how people are “feeling” towards their organisation.

The source of the problem will be manyfold, depending on the specifics of your organisation.

The root of the solve will be in how your leaders show up, relentlessly investing in their relationships with their team.

If we aren’t doing this, then people aren’t going to tell us all just because we’ve asked a few questions in a survey. Even if we have promised that we value their honesty and are committed to acting on what they say. These are just words.

Your most successful relationships

“I’m not a psychiatrist.”

No you are not.

And yes you are busy.

However, we all manage to build hugely successful relationships in our lives, with shed loads of trust, honesty and bumps along the way that actually end up enhancing the relationship.

When we’re having some struggles, we talk about them. We listen to each other. We understand each other better. We move through it.

We don’t go: “Hmm, I wonder what’s wrong with Ashley. I might knock up a little survey. Really invest in getting the questions right. Then I’ll know what to do.”

I know, I’m being flippant.

I know, it’s harder when we have more people in our care and we can’t be, nor should we be trying to be best friends with everyone.

However, I do think there’s learning here.

There’s no substitute for “being about” as a leader. Speaking to people. Really getting to know and understand them.

All paving the way for those habitual, high performance conversations that keep people engaged more than any other activity.

Active listening and high performance conversations

In ANYTHING you read, watch or listen to around great communication, “active listening” comes up.

I tell you what: I’m going to make a case for “passive listening.” Hear me out.

“You cannot truly listen to someone and do anything else at the same time." - Morgan Scott Peck.

In business we need to be active, of course, but any high quality listening requires the cessation of doing - which can feel uncomfortable when we’re so busy.

“What’s the ROI of this listening? Can we make it active? Is it solution oriented?”

Just listening feels like too much of a hard sell in a world that craves action and output so we’ll make it “active.”

But conversations aren’t all transactional.

Conversations aren’t all about what’s said. They’re also about what’s not said. They’re also about the emotion behind the words. A look, a pause, a sense of distraction or unease etc.

How do we pick up on all of this if we’re entering into it with a productive mindset?

This is the stuff that simply cannot be picked up in a survey.

This is the stuff that cannot be picked up unless we are fully present. When we are too focused on the outcome of a conversation, it blocks this ability to be present. When we’re fully present, we give the person speaking the gift of our attention.

The ability to truly invest in each of these moments has the power to engage teams more effectively than anything else. Not every conversation has a clear solution or outcome.

An essential precondition for any high performance conversation is how present both parties can be in that conversation.

Perhaps “present listening” is better than “passive listening.”

"A manager having one meaningful conversation per week with each team member develops high-performance relationships more than any other leadership activity.” - Gallup.

How do you coach your managers - How do you coach yourself to feel confident in having more of these meaningful conversations all of the time?

The most back to basics advice to transform engagement:

I learnt this from Eckhart Tolle.

(I don’t know him. That would be cool. I just read his books and listen to his stuff.)

When I do it, it absolutely transforms the quality of my listening:

THE PREMISE:

-- Don’t just listen with your mind (where all the noise, distraction and ego is), listen with your whole body.

HOW?

-- To take the attention away from your mind, place a light attention on your breath as you listen.

SO WHAT?

-- This should quieten down the noise of your own thinking, increasing your presence and, therefore, the quality of attention you give to the other person.

That it?

Yes. Don’t knock it before you try it.

Remember, a high quality conversation is not just about what is said and what happens as a result.

We’re not going to be in a blissful state of presence all of the time. Of course not. We’re human and our work places a huge pressure on our thinking minds.

However, the more that we can show up in our conversations with this quality of presence, the more trust we’ll build and the more we’ll engage our teams.

It also builds a platform for the right action to be taken based on a deeper understanding.

Now, running a survey from this context, could absolutely have an impact. It just can’t come out of nowhere.

Join us on 22nd May for our live workshop to learn more about “High Performance Conversations: Why they matter and how to have them.” You can learn more and sign up by clicking here.