Give up on converting C-level executives?

We have to convince all our positive leaders to coach every possible individual they’re in contact with if we hope to see a ‘tipping point’ in our lifetime

By Dave Crisp

Recently, a group of 23 senior vice-presidents of HR (the top people in their companies) met for three hours to listen to and discuss with a panel composed of:

•a highly respected CEO (now chair of his organization)

•a PhD researcher in the field

•a highly specialized and successful consultant and a very senior coach of C-level executives with a long history in the field.

The topic: How can we get the C-suite involved in actively understanding and promoting employee engagement?

The issue:  We see mountains of research proving engaged workers deliver vastly superior financial and company results that accumulate dramatically over time. Still, 82 per cent of leaders seem to ignore these results and in almost every company only about 20 per cent of employees are substantially engaged in their work. It seems no coincidence that these figures work out as they do — the 18 per cent of effective leaders are reaching about that proportion of staff apparently.

The conclusion: By the time executives gain top authority, they either believe employees contribute and need to be engaged and treated so they will be… or they don’t (and most still don’t despite the concrete evidence). Those who don’t still find many ways to slough off the figures — doesn’t fit my industry, wouldn’t work in our culture, too difficult, expensive or time-consuming to be bothered, too slow, too distracting from “the real business.” You name it, you’ve probably heard it. And yes, boards demand quarterly results, so CEOs have to dish out orders, not wait and hope creative leadership will produce results sometime.

The recommendation: (This is where it gets frustrating.) There’s not a lot you can do except hold up examples of positive, people-oriented leaders who are getting good results and then try to make the connection. Even then, most nay-sayers will do their best to find other reasons for the success that do not suggest the nay-sayer should improve their behavior.

Two days later this posting appeared on a learning officer site:

Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to sustain participation in leadership development offerings? We have a lot of great programs and a wonderful framework in place to continue to develop our leaders. We have monthly lunch-and-learn type exchanges, bulletin boards, blogs, wiki sites, book clubs, online learning, mentor programs and formal classroom style learning.

We select topics either from leader suggestions, developmental gap areas or from business driven timelines. Some leaders are actively seeking self-development and they attend and participate in almost all of the offerings, and other leaders either attend sporadically or infrequently. Any suggestions on how to truly engage all the leaders in their own development? Does anyone else see the same things in their organization?

My answer: Everyone sees this. We have to convince all our positive leaders to coach every possible individual they’re in contact with. I believe the message is spreading, but if we hope to see a “tipping point” in our lifetime, where the majority of leaders take this stuff for granted and keep on improving themselves and their staff, we all have to get this message out. Period.  A single powerful CEO can influence major improvement, that we know, but we also know there are very few of these and developing more probably waits for new generations to make it to C-level. In the meantime all any of us can do is try wherever we work to influence as many as possible.

Dave Crisp is a Toronto-based consultant with a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson Bay Co. where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to “best company to work for” status. For more information, visit www.crispstrategies.com.