Is YOUR Team Engaged?

In yesterday’s article, we spoke about the ways in which we have to find ways to do better for our people. This is the organisation’s To-do, of course, but realistically it isn’t theirs only and even if it were, we simply can not afford to wait for them to deliver. So it’s everyone’s to-do and we all have to do something about it. 

About what? Where to start? 

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In this video, we suggest that if you want healthy, happy and high performing teams, then you should start at your own team level and start with the definition of “engagement”. There are of course many other aspects to let us know whether our people are suffering from the abuse we discussed yesterday, but this one should be easy and if we are to look at it we have to start by redefining it. 

Any data you choose to believe shows the same thing - an overwhelming majority of employees are not engaged with their place of work. Furthermore, most are, a step further "actively disengaged". That has monetary as well as human costs. It's a clear one to tackle. Let's start this honest exploration together.

We spoke about this many times before and next week we will do a deeper dive exploration into the topic, the history of the term, the way it has been approached historically, the connection between engagement and its predecessor - “employee satisfaction” as well as its alleged evolution towards “employee experience” and so on. 

In this video, we simply remind you that the definition was made before terms such as “purpose”, “impact” or “belonging” and “personal brand” became commonplace and that we ought to examine the definition and create one of our own. 

All we are asking of you is to look at your own team and ask yourself “Are my own teammates engaged? What does that mean? How would I work that out if this were my startup and I’d really need to know? What would make me believe they are, what would make them be that? What should be in this definition FOR US?”

I answered a LinkedIn poll not long ago asking how many times should Engagement be measured by what essentially was “never if this is what we think it is” and I stand by that. 

Without an open exploration as to what it truly means and what affects it, if we insist it’s reduced to a yearly box-ticking exercise or if we allow it to mean nothing more than a net promoter score it is of absolutely zero value to everyone. 

If instead, we are curious, honest and real as to what it means TO US we’ll find such evident ways to look at it anew and if one step further, we learn how to interrogate it incessantly with care and goodwill and bring the whole team along the journey of the getting more of this redefined goodness then we are on the right path. 

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The 3 “commandments of Psychological Safety” to build high performing teams are: Understand, Measure and Improve

At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams. If you care about it- talk to us about a demo at contact@peoplenottech.com  

To order the "People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age" book go to this Amazon link