The short answer
Forbes ran an article at the end of last year that discussed the need for CFOs to care about this issue.
I had the privilege of attending the Executive Symposium @CiscoLive this year. The content was great, and I got to hear a number of highly impactful presentations. One of them addressed the issue of talent acquisition and the chronic malaise of employee disengagement. The presenter talked about the fact that upwards of 30% of employees are showing up for work, collecting a paycheck but functioning in a way that is disassociated from the corporate mission and purpose.
Forbes ran an article at the end of last year that discussed the need for CFOs to care about this issue. The financial impact of disengagement is staggering. This presenter, and indeed all of the other work that I’ve read on the topic – emphasized the responsibility for corporate leadership to take an active role in addressing the root causes of disengagement (front line manager issues, clarity, and alignment with mission/values, empowerment, etc.). As I firmly believe that any failure in the organization is ultimately a result of a failure in leadership, there is plenty of actionable insight here for me.
However, I wonder if this emphasis isn’t just a bit one-sided. At what point in our corporate history did it stop being OK to talk about expectations and standards for employee character? I believe that an employee who is willing to take a paycheck but not put on the team jersey has a character issue. He has implicitly lowered his internal standards for what it means to do ‘an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay’. To put this another way, perhaps the key to ‘employee empowerment’ is an overt standard of good character that leaders and employees alike are expected to embrace.
‘Putting on the team jersey’ means that everyone chooses to care about the corporate mission and purpose for as long as they accept a paycheck. This means that we expect the employee and the manager to work issues and escalate when needed because they see it as what is needed for the organization. It means that when the employee feels that the mission or purpose aren’t clear, he works to get clarity – especially if he is a manager.
Ultimately, it means that at whatever point he feels like he has given his best and things aren’t working out, he selects a new jersey rather than an old paycheck.
