The Thank God It’s Monday Project Going to the source of employee engagement Vanessa Fudge : November 2015 “I think most of us would have followed him.

The Thank God It’s Monday ProjectGoing to the source of employee engagement

Vanessa Fudge : November 2015

“I think most of us would have followed him into the gates of hell carrying suntan oil after that.”

Agenda

o Who we are

o About the Thank God It’s Monday project

o Employee Engagement 101

o However…

o Step back and look up

o A real-world example

o Next steps and an invitation.

o We’re experiencedo We’re hands-on and live in the real world o We’ve done our research.

Who we are (and why we’re worth listening to)

Slide 4

TGIM is a five-year research project aimed at uncovering just what it takes to create a business that employees love to work for.

About the Thank God It’s Monday project

What is Engagement?

The ROI of a highly engaged team

In a study of 50,000 employees worldwide the Corporate Leadership Council found:

• Engaged companies grow profits as much as 3X faster than their competitors

• Highly engaged employees are 87 percent less likely to leave the organization.

Dis

cret

iona

ry E

ffort

Intent to stay

Engagement mix

Worst case…

Leading indicators for engagement

* Capability Score out of a possible 100 points

The correlations are real and important

Over years of surveys and thousands of responses we can confidently say that businesses with strong organisational skillsets tend to have higher engagement scores:

Organisations with these skillset scores:

Typically have these engagement % scores:

In the 70’s 80+

In the 60’s 60-80

In the 50’s 40-60

In the 40’s / low 50’s Below 40

Some skills matter more than others

o What are highly engaged organisations focusing on?

o Cultureo KPIs, Reward & Recognitiono Performance Management o Purposeo Recruitment

However…let’s talk for a minute about some awkward truths

• Spending on employee engagement is now on the order of $1 billion annually in the USA alone. What do we have to show for it?

• Are we just making the “stayers” happier while our “achievers” go elsewhere?

• Correlation is not causation

• The numbers don’t add up.

Something is not quite right…

According to a recent Gallup poll: • Only 30% of workers are engaged• Only 35% of managers are engaged• 51% of managers are not engaged• 14% are actively disengaged.

To put it another way, after years of widespread focus on employee engagement two out of three employees are still functionally zombies - and this is not surprising because half of them are being led by zombies (even if they pretend otherwise to keep their paycheck).

Maybe we’re not looking in the right place…

Leadership mindset is the leading, leading indicator

Employee Engagement

OrganisationalSkillset

Leadership Mindset

Mental Models – Reactive

Signs of a Reactive mindset

Leaders who:o Have unrealistic expectations and push too hard for perfect

outcomeso Are not happy unless things are done their wayo Seek to please others and gain approval rather than risking

transformational changeo Are too conservative and wishy-washy with decision makingo Are emotionally distant and ego driven.

Mental Models - Creative

Signs of a creative mindset

Leaders who:o Foster warm and caring relationshipso Take time to connect with peopleo Lead in a manner that is aligned with your valueso Are courageous and speak out directly even on controversial

issueso Tend to see the positive side, even in the worst situationso Get the job done without the need to draw attention to

themselves and their contribution.

Our research has demonstrated a strong relationship between leadership mindset and employee engagement levels

High engagement companies

Low engagement companies

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Perceived creative leadershipPerceived reactive leadership

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Other research broadly confirms our premise

Belief in leaders makes a huge difference

• Where Australian employees perceive both their leader and manager as being effective, 72% are highly engaged and just 3% are disengaged.

• Where they perceive both their leader and manager as being ineffective just 8% of these employees are highly engaged while the majority (56%) are disengaged.

• Only 44% of Australian employees say their senior leaders are effective.

Making great leaders – Creative Mindset

Leadership Energy

Rea

ctiv

e

Task

Achievement Inspiration

DependenceControl

Cre

ativ

e

Relate

Experiencing the Difference

o When did you play it safe?o What did it feel like?o What were the outcomes? o What were the consequences?o Were you creating or reacting?

o When did you play it brave?o What did it feel like?o What were the outcomes? o What were the consequences?o Were you creating or reacting?

Designing a leadership program to impact Mindset

What is the change that people are passionate about? And what is the mindset shift needed to bring it to life?

• Don’t be wishy-washy – nail your vision first and measure how your leadership program progresses you toward that vision

• Integrate – your leadership program needs to be a facet of your organisational strategy

• Leadership is core – so you can’t afford to remain dependent upon external providers for your leadership development. You may need external help to start with but eventually all the skills need to come in-house

• A multi-dimensional approach works best – training, coaching, diagnostic, mentoring

• Include a giving back component

• You will need both courage and persistence – changing how you think requires looking in the mirror, beyond a blind-spot.

Designing a leadership program to impact Mindset

Example: NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS)

Our Approach

1. Develop the Corporate Plan

2. Then design the leadership program to fit the Plan

3. Develop leadership workshops targeted at the required mindset/behavioral changes

4. Make the program scalable and sustainable by coaching the coaches

5. Embed the cultural and mindset changes via mentoring

6. Extend the framework to strategic partners (in this case Rowing, Swimming, Hockey, ClubsNSW)

Leadership modules

The individual modules selected for NSWIS were similar to the following:

Phase One:– Continuous Improvement– Coaching & Developing Others– Aligning Performance for Success– Planning and Organising– Gaining Commitment.

Phase Two: – Building Trusting Relationships– Leading High Performance Teams– Innovation– Building Strategic Relationships– Marshalling Resources.

Next steps

o Take the capability survey back to work with you

o Take the mindset survey next - http://www.altusq.com.au/employee-engagement/the-leadership-mindset-survey/

o Altusq.com.au - engagement research reports

OR

o Our leadership mindset programs. “Many of the individuals are not used to looking at themselves in the mirror and the concept of leadership has been very hierarchical/power driven – a thing you do to people, rather than QLead's collaborative, self-empowering framework of leadership as a skill to help people become better..…”

Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example.