One of the most pervasive influences on internal communication is based on a ridiculous idea.
The ridiculous idea is that thereâs something called âemployee engagementâ that can be measured on a scale of one to 100.
Even with breakthroughs leading to improved technology, empowerment and communication occurring over the last 20 years, the idea that employee engagement is a linear concept that can be refined into a single, almighty score persists.
From time to time, individual companies such as KPMG have openly questioned the value of employee engagement surveys.Â
But the pursuit of the singular goal of ever-higher âemployee engagementâ has retained much of its popularity.Â
Commonly held ânear-mythsâ sustain the engagement juggernaut:
- Employee engagement is about improving employee morale, commitment, satisfaction and productivity.
- Employee engagement is linear, starting at a point of âzeroâ or âdisengaged,â and moving progressively upward to âengaged,â with all employees falling somewhere on that scale.
- Employee engagement is about employees, full stop.
- There is a causal relationship between increased engagement scores and improved performance, more than just a correlation (even though none has been proven).
In addition, thereâs been a moralistic tone to this push – a belief that employee engagement is the state that all companies should pursue for all employees. Companies that reject this view are bad, wrong and unenlightened.
A different view
Even though these are common themes, I chose to look for an alternative perspective. Hereâs how Websterâs Dictionary defines âengageâ:
- to pledge oneselfÂ
- to begin and carry on an enterprise or activity
- to take partÂ
- to give attention to something :Â Â
- to enter into conflict or battle
- to come together and interlock (as of machinery parts) : be or become in gear
Building on Websterâs definition, an alternative view of engagement emerges:
- There is no such thing as âdisengagement,â as long as an individual has any involvement or interest with an organization.
- Engagement is neither a virtue nor a vice, but merely a characterization of the nature and intensity of oneâs relationship with an organization.
Enter the human dimension: six engagement personas
Looking at Websterâs definition, Iâve identified six different personas reflecting different motivations and producing distinct types of relationships:
- Mary E. Ternity (The engagement of the âringâ)âmutual, heartfelt, emotional commitment
- Matt Grappler (The engagement of the âmatâ)âwrestling: active disagreement, but within a productive context
- Smith N. Wesson (The engagement of the ârifleâ)âbattle: active opposition
- Lee Seamless (The engagement of the âgearshiftâ)âmechanical: productivity without resistance or grief
- Mercy Nairy (The engagement of the âhawkâ)âreward seeking: focused on individual outcomes and recognition
- Van Gough (The engagement of the âartistâ)âperfection seeking, focused on fulfilling and developing personal standards
Mary E. Ternity: The engagement of the ring
Mary E. Ternity is the employee with what many employers and employee engagement survey providers consider âthe right kind of engagement.âÂ
With apologies to JRR Tolkien, I call this âthe engagement of the ringâ – a willingness to provide a level of exceptional emotional commitment, supernormal productivity and unbounded corporate enthusiasm manifesting itself in generous degrees of âdiscretionary effort.â
The biggest question facing Maryâs employer is the extent to which it must reciprocate Maryâs commitment.Â
Additionally, if the employer really wants all employees to mimic Maryâs commitment, will the price be a culture that stifles dissent, innovation and change?Â
If engagement is about âextraordinary mutual commitmentâ and there are deep senses of obligation on both sides, can such an organization withstand competition from companies whose approaches are honest but far more flexible?
I do see companies for whom Mary would be their primary employee personaâcompanies in which personal involvement in the product or the process of delivering it makes it a unique, premium offering.Â
Effectively achieving âengagement of the ringâ needs to balance exceptional commitment sought from its managers and staff, with sustained and sustainable organizational commitment from leadership that withstands competitive and economic challenges.
Matt Grappler: The engagement of the mat
Matt Grappler is an engaged employee – but engaged in a very different way from Mary.Â
Matt is often agitating, fighting or struggling with the organization, its culture and processes.Â
In this way, he is a âwrestler,â fighting in a controlled way on the âmat.â In those fights and arguments, Matt is standing up for what he sees as the organizationâs interests, seeking innovation and improvements.Â
At a broader level, disagreements within organizations can bring friction, discord and disruption.Â
Many such disagreements yield or prompt the realizations and realignments that make organizations more responsive to customers, more efficient to operate and more honest places in which to work.Â
The willingness to initiate those fights and arguments is not a form of âdisengagementâ, but rather a keen form of engagement that can be valuable to an ambitious and competitive organization. But you wouldnât know that from Mattâs engagement score.
Lee Seamless: The engagement of the gearshift
For many people, work is about going to the plant or the office, doing everything that comes across the desk, and going home and getting on with the rest of their lives – taking care of the kids, or the boat for that matter. Â
Lee Seamless is that kind of employee.Â
The engagement survey might consider Lee âdisengaged.âÂ
But Leeâs way of working is actually a mechanical type of engagementâcoming into the process, doing her bit and leaving work matters at the door at the end of the day.
This kind of engagement and the organizations that foster it are heavily criticized by those who see âengagementâ as a moral imperative.Â
But for Lee, it works.Â
And for Leeâs employer and others like it, the âengagement of the gearshiftâ endures because there are many employees who do not want jobs or positions that interfere with their non-work lives: They want to go to work, do their jobs, go home and devote their mental energy to their children, churches, activities or communities.
This is not to say that the âengagement of the gearshiftâ must be purely one way and transactional. Effective engagement within such organizations can be built out of an honest understanding of organizational, employee and manager ambitions, and by identifying opportunities where participation can strengthen the organizationâs commercial offerings or production processes.
Mercy Nairy and Van Gough (The engagement of the hawk/the engagement of the artist)
Mercy Nairy and Van Gough are two different personas with one common characteristic: a highly self-oriented sense of what they want to get out of their respective organizations.Â
Mercy practices the âengagement of the hawkâ – a focus on personal triumph and financial reward.Â
Van is driven by the âengagement of the artistâ – a desire to pursue the perfection of his chosen craft.
In a world where the contractor and embedded consultant play an increasingly important internal role in organizations, engagement with people belonging to either of these two species tends to be highly individualized, thus challenging an overall engagement framework that tends to exalt long-term mutual harmony.Â
Smith N. Wesson:The engagement of the rifle
Current models of âengagementâ tend to consider active hostility, opposition or sabotage characteristic of âdisengagedâ employees (or for that matter, âdisengagedâ managers or corporate alumni).
But, while disgruntled, people like Smith N. Wesson are actually profoundly engaged.Â
They care about the organization, and they are determined to pay it back for any real or imagined offenses. This is the engagement of the rifle – an active but destructive form of engagement.
The âengagementâ of Smith and those like him can undermine the enthusiasm of fellow staff members.Â
They can make claims about product and service quality within their social networks. In company towns they can spread rumors that can undermine the stability of the company/community relationship.Â
Whatâs important about looking at the âengagement of the rifleâ is not simply that people so engaged are aggressive and hostile. Instead, they demonstrate a level and intensity of engagement that can be channeled and harnessed in a more appropriate direction.
For many organizations, finding a way to identify, address and channel ârifle-engagementâ more productively – creating closure and reconciliation – could actually be the kind of engagement effort they need most.
In closing
I propose these âsix engagement personasâ to challenge the pervasive view that âemployee engagementâ is a linear idea, while employees, be they good (engaged), bad (apathetic or disengaged) and ugly (actively disengaged) people, are actually quite a non-linear bunch.
People engage in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons. Organizations engage in varied ways as well.Â
Recognizing, respecting and, above all, optimizing this diversityâand looking for the right combination of folks like Matt, Lee, Mercy and Van to be Maryâs teammates – is a way that offers a more interesting and potentially more dynamic future than seeking a perpetual âengagement of the ring.â