Employee Engagement III - Creating Something Better

A few months ago, we made a mistake when we were delivering fuel to one of our customers. I called the customer to apologize for the mistake, but I got his voicemail. I really wanted to apologize to the customer in person so I tried calling him a second time. Once again, I got his voicemail, so I left another message. I also sent a couple of emails to the customer.

The weeks went by, and I never heard back from the customer. I became increasingly concerned that the customer was really upset with us. In my mind I had visions of this customer leaving us and switching to the competition. I actually became afraid to call the customer because I had convinced myself that the customer didn't want to talk to me.

I finally got my courage up and tried calling the customer again. This time he answered his phone. He apologized for not returning my calls. He mentioned that he had been extremely busy, but was really glad that I had called. Over the next several minutes we had a great conversation. He mentioned that his business was expanding rapidly, and he wanted to know if we could help him with handling more of his business. I couldn't believe it. All the stories I had made up in my mind regarding this customer weren't true. Not only was the customer not upset with us, he wanted to give us more business. It was amazing how a little feedback from the customer changed my entire outlook.

Jim Moats, the founder of PeerPlace has said:

"when and where the quantity or quality of feedback isn't adequate the mind makes up a story that allows it to cope with what we don't know. Stories are powerful motivators because we need drama. We find drama through our role in the stories we live in and stories primarily take place within the relationships found in our most intimate groups, the ones we build identity through, like our business team.

Accurate feedback tells me if I'm part of a strong group or not, if I'm earning my place in the group or not, if my influence is valued or not. Without feedback we make up stories. With regular feedback we connect through reality.

Feedback fills a critical need: it offers the opportunity to accelerate learning and adjustment. We are all addicted to feedback - without it we create drama through stories."

Dynamic companies are typically characterized by rich feedback environments, which leads to increased levels of collaboration amongst employees and customers. This in turn leads to experimentation, adjustment and action. Within this environment, employees find their voices, and their active engagement ignites the company's growth.

How does a company create an environment characterized by candid feedback, employee engagement, and value creation? Let me suggest five steps that can assist a company in this transformation:

1. Develop a process for regularly measuring employee engagement.

2. Implement a process to solidify and communicate the "objective distinctions" of the company's customer strategy. Involve managers, employees and customers in the process of constructing this.

3. Develop a system to objectively measure progress on each of these. Post this for everyone to see the monthly progress.

4. Implement structured meetings to provide management, team members, and customers with a forum to provide and receive candid feedback.

5. Twice annually, complete anonymous, web based, 360 reviews for each manager.

You may not know this, but our company has already started executing on the above steps. In my next blog, we will review our progress.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. tony@repowell.net

Tony Christensen