Leadership, Management, and Team Engagement (A COVID-19 Conference Favorite)

Episode #406 with Josey Sewell

Do you find yourself dreading Mondays? Well, 70% of the working world is with you! Employees are disengaged worldwide, and they are increasing in number. And to help prevent you from having frustrated and disconnected workers, Josey Sewell from Dental Intel shares how to grow better leaders and managers and have better team engagement. If you want to create a healthier, more joyful work environment so you can look forward to Mondays, listen to Episode 406 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Only about 15% of the world’s workers are engaged.

Great managers are critical for worker engagement.

Lack of clarity creates chaos and frustration.

People want to be coached, not managed.

Create vulnerability-based trust with your team.

Don't be afraid of numbers and data.

Quotes:

“People are looking for purpose in work, and it’s up to us to provide them and help them see that purpose. And when you can do that, it’s amazing how your team can support you.” (10:49—11:02)

“[According to a Gallup poll,] just 15% of the world’s workers are engaged at work or appeared to have great jobs. 70% are just not engaged. And what I mean by “not engaged” is that maybe they clock in, and they clock out, and they're not necessarily super excited to be there, but they're not really that miserable. They're just in-between. They just do enough to not get fired. And, unfortunately, 70% of the world’s population is living that. The other 15% are actively disengaged. So, what that means is they are miserable, and they want to commiserate with everybody and make everything difficult for everybody else.” (11:51—12:35)

“One of the things that I learned is that that 70% [who are not engaged], sometimes they were on the fence. And what we found in working with a really large team is that their choice to become the active employee or the disengaged employee often had to do with how we dealt with the 15% of people who were disengaged. Because if they got away with whatever, and there was no accountability, and they made everybody miserable, but it didn't matter that they didn't follow the rules, why on earth should I really put forth a lot of time and effort into this team or into this company? So, make sure that you are consistent with your rules. If you say this is the way that it’s going to be, you stick with it.” (12:36—13:16)

“Gallup says that if we increased even just to 50% of people being actively engaged in work, the world would literally change overnight. Actively engaged employees boom your business, inspire teams, and solve problems instead of creating them. They volunteer in the community, have fewer workplace accidents, have better health and well-being, and make fewer mistakes.” (13:26—13:51)

“The single, most profound, distinct, and clarifying finding ever: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager. It’s the manager that makes such a difference.” (14:24—14:42)

“Being a great doer of tasks does not always make somebody a great manager. And there's not a lot of training or things that are available for managers, so you have to put an emphasis on helping them lead and manage people.” (15:29—15:43)

“If you're just doing an annual performance review like they used to do decades ago, that is not enough. [Employees] want constant feedback and coaching.” (16:37—16:46)

“People don't want to be managed. People want to be coached. And so, the manager has to turn into being a coach. The coach does not only just provide answers with every question that's asked; they ask good questions to facilitate learning. They're not judgmental. They're supportive. They do not dictate what must be done. They facilitate development and learning....