I’m currently reading two different books. One is The Champion’s Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive by Dr. Jim Afremow. The other is Jon Gordon’s latest book, The Power of a Positive Team. I’m a current marketer with a background and experience in human resources. I’m educated in both areas of business and have experience in each. I care about consumer behavior, products, branding, sales, and how to help clients make money. I also care about employee engagement, culture, training, team and personal development, recruitment and hiring, communication, conflict resolution, and strategy. I also coach high school basketball, which combines both areas of business leadership and more.
As I began reading The Power of a Positive Team, a paragraph about culture caught my attention immediately. “Culture is the living and breathing essence of what a team believes, values, and does. Team culture is the written and unwritten rules that say how a team communicates, connects, thinks, works, and acts. Culture isn’t just one thing. It’s everything. Culture drives expectations and beliefs. Expectations and beliefs drive behavior. Behavior drives habit. And habits create the future. Apple says that “Culture Beats Strategy.” You have to have the right strategy, of course, but it is your culture that will determine whether your strategy is successful.” Culture isn’t what you say, it’s what you do. Culture drives engagement.
I’ve been on both sides of culture and engagement development. I’ve sat in the room talking about how to increase engagement among our employees, and I’ve been in the seat listening while those seeking to drive engagement are making their pitch that they have been talking about behind closed doors for weeks. With that being said, I’ve narrowed it down to three areas where culture directly drives employee engagement.
1. What does your employee value in the workplace, and what areas of the business are they interested in? You may have great employees in the wrong place, and in turn, they are average. Ask your employees what drives their engagement. What are they interested in? What do they want to do? What do they want to learn? You may be surprised by your findings. Putting people in a position to succeed is leadership. Are you leading your employees?
2. What do your employees value outside of the workplace? I’m sure you’ve heard the buzzword “side hustle.” As employees become drained in the workplace, trying to make ends meet, HR and other business professionals are recommending finding time for their passion on the side to keep them energized and engaged. As an organization, if you have the chance, give your employee the opportunity to combine their workplace duties with their side hustle. Empower your employees to engage in their interests, and they will bring that energy and engagement back to you. For example, I’m a high school basketball coach. It’s my passion. I love the game of basketball, the kids I coach, and teaching the game. When my organization said they would work with me on making that dream possible, my engagement immediately increased.
3. Does your culture allow for autonomy? Dictionary.com defines autonomy “independence or freedom, as of the will or one’s actions.” Autonomy is built on trust. Trust is developed through relationships. Relationships are the center point of any leadership opportunity. You can’t lead those you don’t know. Employees are looking to add value, but some may not know how to do it in their position. I’ve found providing direction and giving autonomy to accomplish tasks drives engagement. Generally, as creative human beings, we don’t want to be micromanaged. Now, this isn’t to say we don’t want to collaborative and ask questions to clear up expectations or have a sense of the general direction. Watching over your employees shoulder while they try to operate will directly affect engagement, and culture will deteriorate.
The most challenging, yet rewarding aspect of being a leader and a culture driver, is developing the individual relationships in your organization that will drive individual employee engagement. If you have 100 different employees, you’ll most likely have 100 different things that drive engagement. Before you can develop a culture of engagement, you have to invest in your people enough to know what those engagement factors are