INTRODUCING PEOPLE EMPOWERED

Dear %FIELD:190%

This first newsletter launches this new initiative of mine - People Empowered, a dynamic place committed to inspiring leadership for changing times. Featuring this month:

• WE CAN DO IT! - Empowering Ourselves
  
• Responding to Change in the Worplace............DEBRA'S STORY
  
• Engaging Employees in the Workplace - Changing the Dynamic of Our Companies and Organisations

People Empowered is exactly about what its name implies - empowering people in their work. In many workplaces today, there is a great gap between the rhetoric that espouses that "our people are our greatest assets and we need to value them", and the reality of people's lives at work that sees them struggling to find meaning and purpose, feeling unappreciated and powerless to change their work-life experience. The challenge is to turn that around. Organisations have to value, engage and empower their employees, who, in turn, have to proactively endeavour to empower themselves.

My work has always been about empowering people, helping them discover strengths and resources with which they'd lost touch, reframing seemingly impossible situations into new opportunities and possibilities, rebuilding hope and re-igniting energy and excitement.

Maintaining a sense of empowerment is always more challenging in times of change when expectations keep shifting. Changing times are exciting to some, threatening to others. Yet, because change is the only certainty we really have, we need to engage it in a creative way if we are to be successful today. It will be people who are able to maintain a sense of empowerment in the midst of change who will bring most to their companies and organisations.

The leadership we need in times of change needs to be proactive. It is so easy to drown in change, to respond with rigidity, to fail to adjust, to lack flexibility in our ways of being and knowing and become reactive - blaming and criticising. Proactive leaders empower people to believe they can make a difference. They generate hope rather than fear, success rather than failure, passion rather than apathy.

I invite all of you to engage with me in this new endeavour. I believe all of us who want to can be People Empowered.

Maree Harris

WE CAN DO IT!
Empowering Ourselves

Many people - if not most - have the capacity to empower themselves. What do we need to do?

• Get to Know Ourselves.
  We need to frequently spend time in quiet reflection by ourselves or with someone we respect, getting to know ourselves. What's important to me? What do I value most? What do I want to do with my life? Where do I want to make a difference? What are my strengths? How do I use those to achieve my goals? What it is about me as a person that stands in the way of me achieving my goals, hopes and dreams? What do I want to do about that? Is there congruence between who I am, what I believe, what I do and how I do it? Congruence empowers us.

• Believe in Ourselves, Our Dreams, Our Ideas.
  If we don't, no one else will! We need to find ways to nurture, sustain and maintain that belief and those dreams and to ground and develop our ideas.

• Be Positive.
  We need to challenge all our negatives, always seeing the glass as half full, rather than as half empty.

• Be Proactive rather than Reactive.
  We need to be able to look forward, not backwards when we face challenging situations. What can I do with this? What am I being asked to learn here? How can I turn this into an opportunity rather than be threatened by it? We can be the change we want to see in our work rather than criticise, complain and blame others for not measuring up.

• Be Assertive.
  We need to learn to be assertive about what we want and need for our lives and work. Being assertive is the opposite of being aggressive. The assertive person is positive and constructive, respectful of self and others, proactive, transparent and open, and focuses on issues not personalities. Assertiveness empowers all involved; aggressiveness is an intimidating and defensive activity.

• Manage Our Emotional Lives.
  We need to develop self-awareness, learning how our thoughts and actions impact on our lives and work and on those around us. Knowing and understanding which emotions elicit destructive reactions in us, what triggers them and how to constructively manage them, will empower us in all our relationships. Managing our emotions creatively in emotion-charged work situations brings positive outcomes for all. The way we manage our emotional lives is a crucial indicator of how successful we will be and of our leadership potential. This is about developing "emotional intelligence".

• Set Goals and Ways to Achieve Them.
  We need to make sure the goals we set emerge from what we really want for our lives and our work, rather than from other's expectations of what we should do and be. Setting goals includes setting priorities. We need to be true to ourselves, stay focussed and revisit our goals and priorities on a regular basis.

• Make Our Health and Well-Being a Priority.
  We need to look after ourselves. This means eating well, exercising and managing our stress. Maintaining work/family balance is integral to managing stress. Balance comes from looking after our spirit as well as our body, our inner life as well as our outer life. And, of course, we need to take time periodically to regenerate and revitalise.

• Surround Ourselves with Other Empowered People.
  This is what makes this all easy! We need, however, to learn the difference between people who are "empowered" by ego, whose motivation is solely their own advancement, and those who live their lives empowered by integrity and motivated by conscience, who want to empower their workplace, team and organisation along with them. Network with these latter empowered people, socialise with them, belong to organisations with them and plan shared ventures with them.

If when you read this it acts to affirm and re-enforce what you are already doing then "seize the day!" and confidently continue forward. If, however, it all sounds impossible and unrealistic, if you can't see where you would find the time to do what is suggested here, if, in fact, you feel completely disempowered about changing your life and work, then take your first empowering action. Be proactive. Take one hour for yourself (and you'll probably have to take it from someone or something else) and do some reflecting. Ask yourself what price you are really paying for living your life the way you are. What will happen if you don't make a change?

As was said at the beginning, many people can do this by themselves. Many others, however, find that their ability to stay focussed, motivated and committed to living their lives the way they want to is greatly enhanced when they are engaged in a process of professional development or coaching with an experienced mentor, coach or supervisor.

So if you want to learn to be more assertive, for example, then finding a coach to help you may facilitate the process. But if you want to re-focus your life and work, if you realise that you need to make some life changing decisions, or if you want more congruence in your life, then engaging in a more all-encompassing process of professional development may be the way to go. We offer both at People Empowered.

RESPONDING TO CHANGE IN THE WORKPLACE............DEBRA'S STORY

Debra had managed a small team of eight people in her organisation for the past three years. It had been her first management position and she had brought much enthusiasm and energy to it. It had paid off because she had created a very coherent team, committed to her, the organisation and to one another. They were positive and passionate about their work, and Debra found enormous professional satisfaction in being recognised as a successful manager. There was, however, an amalgamation of three organisations, of which Debra's organisation was one. Her position, and those of her counterparts in the other two organisations, was made redundant, and one new position was created in the new organisation as manager of the three old teams - 28 people in all. Debra had applied for and got the position. She proceeded to bring her successful management approach in her former position to the management of this much expanded team.

When Debra came to see me five months into her new position, she was frustrated, disillusioned, stressed and bewildered at what was happening. Her sense of professional identity was battered and she was worried that her professional credibility may be being questioned. She had been doing with her new team everything she did with the old one, with very limited success. She hadn't managed to create a coherent team of the 28 people. There was little enthusiasm, certainly no passion, considerable resentment and disengagement, and no commitment to her, the organisation or one another. Even her old team had become quite fragmented and seemingly lost all that had motivated it. Feeling a failure and unable to do the job, Debra felt her only option was to resign the position - even though that was not what she wanted to do. This is when she came to see me.

In the first session we were able to engage in some critical reflection on what was happening in this new "team" (that incidentally had emerged from an unwanted and much resisted amalgamation), and also what had happened for her that saw her so devastated. This was a real "ah! ah!" experience for Debra, that saw her strongly motivated to want to go back into the organisation and approach her management role from this new perspective. In two more sessions we were able to develop processes for engaging the staff in what was essentially a newly formed organisation. Most importantly, Debra reframed her role, and her enthusiasm and passion for what she was doing was restored. What was a crisis became an opportunity for her to grow and learn, one she proactively embraced.

All the work we do at People Empowered is confidential. This story has been produced with permission, and names and minor details have been changed to protect the identity of the manager and the organisations.

ENGAGING EMPLOYEES IN THE WORKPLACE
Changing the Dynamic of Our Companies and Organisations

What manager, team leader, co-ordinator or supervisor doesn't want enthusiastic, energised, loyal and committed people to work with? Who wouldn't want passionate people who make things happen every day in their workplace, who not only make the workplace a great place to be but who also co-operatively produce the results and outcomes that the company and organisation desires? When companies and organisations engage their employees in their workplaces, this is what they get.

Engagement is a two-way process in which employees and their companies or organisations make commitments to one another and align their goals and aspirations. It is about making, what the Hay Group calls, an "emotional investment" in one another. Companies and organisations endeavour to give their employees meaning and purpose when they come to work and employees reciprocate by bringing the whole of themselves to their work, embracing it with enthusiasm and passion.

"A New Psychological Contract".

Companies and organisations need to offer their employees "a new psychological contract", says the Hay Group. "We'll make your job (and life) more meaningful. You give us your hearts and minds".

Hewitt Associates, a global HR outsourcing and consulting firm, works with companies and organisations to research and analyse employee engagement. They have come to believe that increasing employee satisfaction, traditionally used to measure the quality of workplace culture, does not translate into better results and outcomes for companies and organisations. They say it is not enough for employees to feel "satisfied" in their work. This is not enough to engage them. Rather engaged employees consistently demonstrate three ways of being:

1. They always speak positively and with affirmation about their company or organisation to clients, customers, co-workers, and friends.
2. They are committed to staying with the company or organisation, even when they may be offered a higher salary somewhere else. It is their employer of choice.
3. They enthusiastically give the whole of themselves - their hearts and minds - to the company or organisation wanting to be part of its success and to do whatever they can to make that happen.

Disengagement is epitomised by employees physically being at work, but leaving at home that part of themselves that brings value and quality to their work - their hearts and minds.

WHAT HAS RECENTLY BEEN SAID ABOUT ENGAGEMENT?

• Management Today, September 2005, talks about the Gallup Organisation in Australia study that found "that 20% of employees are actively disengaged at work with an estimated cost to the economy of $31.5 billion per year.......Only 18% of Australian workers are engaged". 62% are in "bland no-man's-land of being just 'not engaged' ".

• The same journal refers to a 2004 Gallup study that showed that "it takes four fully engaged employees to counteract the impact of one disengaged person".

• A Hay Group Engaged Performance Diagnostic Survey of 10 offices of a particular professional services firm showed that the five "most engaged" offices generated $238,000 in revenue per consultant. Those in the five "least engaged" offices generated $166,000 per consultant. This was a 43% difference.

• The Hay Group Working Paper on Engage Employees and Boost Performance (2001) talks about how General Dynamics Defense Systems in Pittsfield, Mass. re-engaged the hearts and minds of their devastated staff after a restructure of their company in 1997 when they let go 550 of their 1600 employees. Their "attrition in software engineering dropped from nearly 20% in 1999 to 2.4% in 2001. Confidence in management shot up and commitment rose. Union grievances, which had cost the company as much as $10,000 each, dropped from 57 in 1999 to none in 2001, saving thousands of dollars. Best of all, earnings and profit margins doubled." What was especially significant about what GDDS did was the reflective approach that management used to look at what management itself was contributing to the disengagement.

Research and studies that have been done in recent years leave us in no doubt that there is an integral relationship between employee engagement and the degree to which companies and organisations achieve their goals and productivity outcomes.

Employee engagement needs to be motivated by more than the potential for greater profits. It is a way to value employees and add dignity to their work. Henry Ford once said:

"Business must be run for a profit......else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also must the business die."

HOW DO WE GET OUR EMPLOYEES TRULY ENGAGED WITH THE WORK OF OUR COMPANY OR ORGANISATION?

What's most decisive here is whether employees feel that the contribution they are making to their company or organisation really makes a difference. If they know that it does, if they are told that it does, if their contribution is valued, then their engagement is assured. They are then not just working for their company or organisation. They are working with it. Its success is their success and they are constantly being told that by managers, team leaders, co-ordinators and supervisors.

How this is done is the issue. Do managers have to go around thanking people for every little thing they do? No! But the leadership that sees engagement become reality in workplaces does come from the top. Unfortunately some managers don't have the interpersonal and leadership skills to make it happen.

"I was meeting all my targets and doing a good job. Every year I received a bonus, some stock options and a salary increase. Strange though it seems, I walked out of every one of my annual reviews feeling empty. The reward I wanted most was some positive feedback from my boss, or for that matter, any feedback. It would have been good to know that what I did was being noticed and making a difference. I wanted him to say that he really appreciated me and my contribution to the business. I never really felt recognised. That's why I left the company for another job." Manager, FMCG.

This appeared in an article in The Networker of The Australian Businesswoman's Network, September 2004. It clearly makes the point that it is not necessarily salary increases or stock options (or even a new coffee machine for the staff room or flat screens for computers) that employees want. What they want is to feel they are a significant contributing part of this company or organisation.

Processes of engagement have to filter right through to the grass root staff. No matter how small their contribution, they have to be empowered to see that they are building cathedrals, not just laying bricks.

It is often something quite ordinary - but very real - that makes a difference. A manager can come through the front door of the building and walk to his/her office meeting and greeting employees on the way, rather than park at the back of the building and slip into the office unnoticed and have little or no relationship with employees. His/her attention to them makes them feel valued.

DOES YOUR COMPANY OR ORGANISATION MAKE AN EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT IN YOUR EMPLOYEES?

• Does it try and meet their needs for work/family balance?

• Does it provide flexibility of working hours to provide for their specific short or long term needs?

• Does it engage new employees right from the start by spending time with them in a meaningful and empowering orientation to the company or organisation?

• Does it use its performance appraisals and annual reviews to affirm employee's contributions and to plan their further engagement with the company or organisation?

• Does it encourage and support the professional development and career goals of employees?

• Does it have a culture that "breeds" valuing and appreciation?

• Does it inspire and motivate employees to want to do the best and be the best?

• Does it take their ideas and concerns seriously and engage in a mutual interchange to address them?

In other words, is it a place to which employees want to bring their whole selves, including their hearts and minds, because they know that its values and culture will enhance their professional and personal identity? Or do they leave at home the part of it that is most important to them to protect it from being damaged and destroyed by their workplace reality?

Copyright © People Empowered-Maree Harris 2005
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