The Elements of Great Managing: 7 - Valuing Employee Opinions
[Part 7 of a 12 part series exploring the concepts in 12: The Elements of Great Managing
"Don't ask me. My opinion isn't worth a lot around here." This is what a Northwest Airlines flight attendant told Rodd Wagner on a June 8, 2000 flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. Does this sound like something one of your employees would say to a customer?
If so, you've got a problem.
Gallup's data show a strong correlation between respect for employee opinions and business results. Gallup asks a person's level of agreement with the statement, "At work, my opinions seem to count." Higher agreement with this statement corresponds with better safety, customer loyalty, productivity, employee retention and profits.
Why? Probably because helping to come up with the solution to a problem increases employee ownership in making that solution work. Tell me exactly what to do and I'll give you malicious compliance, or at best, sullen capitulation. Ask me how I think it could be done, and I'll do everything I can to make my idea work. (Remember the lesson Frank Belleque taught me years ago.)
It's about respect. Respect for people, for their roles, their skills, their experience, their ideas - their brains. Frederick W. Taylor was wrong - workers are more than just bone and muscle. Workers are complex personalities and brains. You want to really supercharge your business? Ask your folks to bring everything to work, including their brains.
We have all seen negative examples of this element. The authors offer up the flight attendant, and Henry Noll. Henry Noll was a steel worker who became the primary object of Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management theory. Taylor told Noll to do just what he was told, and not to think about it. Taylor wrote a book, "The Principles of Scientific Management," that was extremely influential in the mid-twentieth century. Unfortunately some of us still cling to Taylor's ideas.
Mike Schaffner found an interesting negative example the other day. Apparently, Convergys requires supervisors to track 50 indicators on every employee every week. Each employee is then rated as Red, Yellow, or Green, based on the likelihood he or she will leave for another company. Seems to me this is a recipe for losing more folks, not for improving retention. Not only are employees turned into objects, but their supervisors have no time to listen to them. Instead, they are busy compiling data and rating employee flight risk. Why not just listen to people, find out what's on their minds, and do something about it?
Like so many of the concepts in this book, this one seems like common sense. But surprisingly few employees feel their opinions count at work. So you and I still have much to do. Start looking to your team to help you solve the problems you face. Ask them what they think, and then do something about it.
For more information:
- One-third of my suggestions in "Leading Safety" revolve around listening to employees and taking action. Listening is a cornerstone of safe operations.
- See "Listening to the Periphery" for a wealth of listening resources.
- "How listening saved a mill" is a story about the best listener I have worked for.
- "Is it safe for your employees to disagree with you?" offers ten signs of an unsafe leader. At least four have to do with failing to value employee opinions.
- Read more posts like this in my "Leading Change" category.
