Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Public Apathy and Low Engagement in Businessworld: Lessons for All


The news of the accident in the tunnel in Jaipur, in which two lives were lost and the survivors unsuccessfully begged for help was neither shocking or surprising it was a simply an amplification of how numb our national conscious has become. The only discussion point is how we explain this to our children and the rest of the world.

In a recently published article in the Gallup Business Journal titled “Is India Having a Crisis of Soul” writers Deepak Chopra and Gallup CEO Jim Clifton have tried to provide some insights on why we as a nation have become so numb (http://goo.gl/lY74O).

According to Gallup World Poll, currently in its eight year, finds more Indians- than ever before-are suffering -31%-while fewer than 10% are thriving. These numbers are amongst the lowest in the world. The article further points out that any society which reaches such a low number is in trouble. When the suffering quotient reaching a tipping point street riots take place- examples of which we have seen lately.

Could the economic deprivation be the only explanation of this societal malaise?  No! There are multiple indicators which go into the calculation. A quote from the same article states “A nation’s soul is the sum total of all the interactions between all people in the society.   Every tiny decision that accumulates can profoundly change the day and even the rest of a person’s life.”
 
So what kind of interactions are we having as citizens with each other-are they positive, negative or neutral? Some may argue differently but I would say that overwhelmingly the experiences are negative. If TV and films were a mirror on the society and a mirror does not lie-the answer is glaring at us.

Lessons for the business world
It is often said that how employees treat each other has a bearing on how they will treat their customers. In this hyper competitive world here is one more reason why attention to the quality of interactions is important.

What can managers do?
Leaders and managers have an important responsibility to ensure that the quality of the experience and interactions in the workplace have positive value. Positive does not mean absence of difficult conversations; positive means that the larger context is never lost.

Soft skills have hard value
If an individual contributor is rewarded for his personal achievement, a manager is rewarded for the performance of his people. Daily employee-manager interactions have a lasting impact.

Some examples of these interactions are: feedback, opportunity to reflect, goal setting, encouragement for risk taking, relationship building, reprimand for mistakes, mutual respect, reward for outstanding work, performance comparison etc., will have a direct bearing on the level of engagement of the employees.

The questions that the senior leadership should ask are:
 
§      Are managers aware of the impact they have on people around them
§      Are they trained to have quality conversations with their team members
§      How often and where do such conversations happen-is it daily, weekly, monthly or only   
       when need arises?

If leaders are unsure of the answers to the above questions, results of an engagement survey may be a good place to start. If engagement surveys are not done find out what does your customer satisfaction survey says, how many innovative ideas are generated from your employees? In case you have not dived to such depths the two questions to ask are: Are you happy with your top and bottom line. That should be a good starting point.

The same Gallup Poll article states that only 9% of Indian employees are engaged and 33% are disengaged-meaning this group actively brings down those who are engaged.

After reading the above one can conclusively say that if one has to improve innovation, retention, collaboration, productivity and performance one of the way to do is by improving the quality of everyday interactions at workplace.