51% Of Your Team Might Be Emotionally Cheating On You

51% of the global workforce is either watching for or actively seeking a new job.

53% of people say that now is a good time to find a new job.

They’re on the market, so to speak.

The lights are on but no-one’s home.

People are going through the motions, under the radar, somewhat.

Can you really say that you’re able to get the very best out of these people when they’re constantly keeping their eye out for something better?

I wonder if you can relate?

You’re speaking to someone at a party or networking event. They’re nodding their head and making trite agreeable noises but it’s not lost on you that they’re scanning the room for someone more interesting to come along 

(Maybe that says more about how compelling I am in conversation than them, but hopefully you get my point!) 

What impact does it have on the quality of conversation when neither of you are fully engaged?

One’s looking for someone more entertaining and the other is self conscious about that.

So what impact does it have on your organisation when 51% of people are effectively in this state of limbo?

PRESENCE AND PERFORMANCE.

PRESENCE is an absolutely crucial element of any high performance culture.

In any high quality relationship.

The extent to which people are afforded time and space, and have the inclination to dedicate all of their attention to the here and now (determining the quality of “being”).

Poor Quality human beings inevitably leads to poor quality humans doing.

It’s therefore a crucial element of our diagnostic organisational performance tool - INTENT: (whilst you're here, take a quick look and find out what's blocking high performance in your organisation).

It’s one of the key determinants of our performance in EVERY aspect of our lives.

We acknowledge it more with things like sport, but not so much in business, which can be quite a heady game.

Mark Vancil said this of Michael Jordan in episode 10 of The Last Dance:

“Most people struggle to be present. Michael was a mystic. He was never anywhere else. His gift was not that he could run fast, jump high or shoot a basketball. His gift was that he was completely present.”

For a more laypersons’ analogy, just think of the impact of presence on driving your car.

The challenge of hybrid working:

There’s an even greater challenge represented by the hybrid working environment with teams being physically present in the same space for less of the time. This is here to stay. It’s easy to think that this is old news, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s still really new.

70% of managers say that they don’t feel trained, skilled or confident enough to manage a hybrid workforce. They don’t feel empowered. 

This, of course, also has an impact on THEIR engagement levels and willingness to look for pastures greener too.

We need to give our managers our time and attention - a bit of TLC. Almost all the info out there stresses that a worker’s relationship with their manager has one of the biggest impacts on how engaged they are, and how much of themselves they are willing to GIVE to the organisation.

It’s all about relationships.

Thinking about the quality of relationships in your personal life:

You need to be there. You need to invest in them. You need to care. You need to show up. You need to back actions with words. 

At the risk of over-sharing, I sometimes look back over my wedding vows  and honestly challenge myself how I’m doing against them. It can be quite confronting. And everything comes back to how present I am and how invested in each moment. It’s hard when there’s lots going on. For all of us. But it’s so important.

Business leaders need to take the lead in being more present - showing up - and investing fully in the relationships with their people.

Otherwise people will continue to look over our shoulders for people that will treat them better. And in the meantime, while they’re shopping around, just go through the motions with us. Quietly quitting.

What’s most confronting is that you already know the answers.

I know there’s no magic solution here. And you’ll probably say, “yeah, I know that. Everybody’s saying that. You said it again last week. And the week before that.”

There’s comfort in thinking that there’s something out there that you don’t know yet that will solve all of your problems. And when you find it out, you’ll action it.

But 9 times out of 10, the things that have the biggest impact on our organisations (and behaviour and relationships) are things that we already know, but don’t do. And that’s more confronting.

As leaders, we have to take the lead and model the behaviours that we want to see in our organisations first. If we’re not fully invested, how can we expect our people to be? And this has to start with an honest assessment of ourselves:

A couple of simple actions:

• Raise awareness: Start with you and answer these 5 questions honestly:

1. To what extent would you describe your organisation as where you want to be right now?

2. To what extent do you truly understand yourself, your colleagues and the work that you do?

3. To what extent do you give yourself space to reflect, think laterally and make adjustments?

4. To what extent do you consider your physical and mental wellbeing?

5. To what extent would you consider yourself to be in a state of “flow” at work - happy, at ease and present?

   Be honest and think about how you shift the dial positively in each of these areas.

• Mindful breathing: I’m not one for hacks generally. But this works. Any time that you find yourself less than invested in what you’re doing over the course of the day - be it a conversation and your mind drifts; a seemingly menial task; driving - take 5 mindful breaths, giving them your full attention, to reset and bring you back into the present.

These actions might seem tiny but we have to start somewhere. With the biggest challenges, it’s all so easy to get daunted into inaction. Don’t make that mistake and start with you. FROM:TODAY.

If you’re a little bit more present every day, every moment, the impact will spread.

As always, we want to hear from you. Please do get in touch to continue the conversation.