Hi, I'm Bill Crosby. And this video is about engagement. Engagement is the buzzword these days and for good reason. I have been assisting organizations in engagement, engaging their workers engaging everybody at every layer since 1984. And my mentor and father has been doing the same since the 1950s. Because engagement is a key to high performance organizations.

Now, Gallup has recently done some amazing polling over the last few years 142 countries they have assessed and surveyed employees in companies all over the world. And what they have found is that it true engagement is rare. isn't easy. In other words, only a small percentage of companies have successfully engaged their workforce. The vast majority like 80%, struggle mightily to really bring the not just the the hands of the workforce into operation, but the minds and the hearts. So when you get all three, you're going to get big results.

And these are some of the types of results. So in the top quarter of companies that Gallup polled, you see that they have better safety results that may surprise people safety isn't just about having a good program. That's important. But what's more important is that people are not demoralized while they're doing their work. They aren't distracted by conflict between them and their supervisors. They aren't distracted.

By conflict with the bigger organization, they have some clarity not just about safety, but about why it's important for them to do the tests they're doing. It pays off in multiple ways productivity, profitability, customer ratings. And perhaps most importantly, the bottom line. Companies in the Gallup poll that have successfully engaged their people through the measures that Gallup uses, have also got the best earnings per share. So there's a direct relationship between the human factor and between profitability. The key link is emotionally intelligent leadership at every level in the organization.

The relationship between people in their immediate supervisor consistently shows up not just in the Gallup research, but in research done by my own company. In over the last few decades, if you have a difficult relationship with your immediate supervisor, you're much more likely to leave your organization, you're much more likely to be distracted, to have the quality of your work be impaired. So high performance begins at the authority relationship between the immediate supervisor and their subordinates. And that can be both measured and improved. So there's no reason not to do it. So, increasing gaze engagement, first and foremost through emotionally intelligent leadership, decrease your own reactivity.

Decrease the amount of times that you act on emotion without realizing what you're doing. decrease the amount of blame and finger pointing. Help others do the same. Help others calmly have conversation. About difficult work topics, and you will increase engagement and performance. You need everyone to be raising issues.

You need people to be good at hearing the issue, even if they don't like the delivery. Not everyone is going to be smooth in their delivery. If it's an emotional issue if they're raising an issue with people above them. Just the fact that they're talking to someone higher in the hierarchy is likely to cause anxiety, empathize with that and help people get clear about what they're trying to describe. Don't take it personally. Encourage directness between individuals and groups.

Some consultants inadvertently encourage indirectness they have surveys taken and then they look at the data and analyze it and then make a report don't allow that to happen when you collect data. Have the people that filled out the data, analyze it, and have a direct conversation with their immediate supervisor, with the people above them with the people that they are providing services to in the organization with the people that they're receiving from the input throughput output. That whole chain needs to talk to each other about difficult issues. And they need to do their own assessment, and then figure out how to improve the dialogue. directness is a key to high performance and to engagement. Take clear stands.

If you're in a leadership position, be clear about what you want. Be clear about the goals. Be clear about what you're after, and then have dialogue with people be open to what you hear, make adjustments, or stick with it. Sometimes you're going to need to move forward even if people don't like the direction It's not easy being in a leadership position, but you have to become, you have to listen and connect, and then lead, create role clarity, create goal clarity, all of that comes through conversation, it's not going to happen by magic. And then finally, use the skills of Johnny Wallen from his interpersonal gap model. If you are giving a reprimand, be sure that you're being clear about the behavior.

Don't use words like you're not a team player. That is not a behaviorally specific piece of information. People will feel defensive, they'll probably just resent and even blame you for whatever the problem is. Instead, you have to say, Look, when we start this task, I need you to be present. I need you to be prepared on this circumstance, I didn't Believe that was happening on this circumstance, I didn't believe that was happening. That's what I mean by team player.

If you're even going to use a word term like that are professional. Any word like that you have to get specific about what what's the actual behavior. You don't even need the words like professional or unprofessional. Those are loaded words. What's the specific behavior you're looking for? That's the key behavioral skill from Dr. Wallen the other skills that he also teaches.

Being clear about your own emotion letting people know if you're happy with what they're doing, reinforcing their work with feeling description, and when you are reprimanding, letting people know that you're unhappy, don't hide it be be straight with them. They need to know people want to know if their boss is happy or unhappy with what they are doing. perception check from Dr. Wallen that is your hunch about other people's emotions. You have them all the time, tune into other people's emotions, don't take it personally find out when the emotion is distress, what is happening, what's causing the distress to the best of your ability. So you can decide whether it's something you can act on, you can't act on all problems. But if the interactions are so tense that you don't even know what the problem is, then that's going to create gaps and that's going to decrease performance and decrease engagement.

So the power is within your hands as a leader to increase engagement to create the conditions for a high performing team. I know you can do it. I appreciate your time and attention and I look forward to our next conversation. Have a great day.