How Lucky

yet again, I'm writing about engagement

I worked “extra” remote for a chunk of December and January (long story). On one of my last nights away, I stopped in a pub for some dinner and a beer. It was pretty quiet, so given that I’m so outwardly social, after I ordered, I got out my Kindle and read while the kitchen did their magic.

Eavesdropping

I was as much in the zone as someone sitting on a bar stool cold be. I was halfway through my chili nachos, at the top of my second beer, and highlighting passages from Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish. I didn’t look around, but I knew the place was still pretty empty. In a moment of deeper thought (which actually may have just been a long pull on my IPA), I picked up on a conversation happening at the end of the bar. The bartender was talking to someone about employees in the bar. I couldn’t help but listen more closely, as their conversation ran through a lot of the same things I run into leading teams, and what makes someone a good employee…or not.

Patrick (the bartender) appeared in front of me and asked if I wanted another beer. I declined, but for some reason mentioned that I enjoyed hearing bits of his conversation at the end of the bar. With that, the person he was talking to (Mike - the owner) came closer and apologized for having “work talk” in the bar - which I immediately told him was definitely not an issue for me. Then we spend the next hour in a long conversation about management, leadership, and employee engagement.

The Truth About Miserable Jobs

I’m no expert by any means, but for that sixty minutes, I felt like a character out of a Pat Lencioni story. We covered a lot of management and leadership topics, but it really came down to engagement - again,(previously discussed here, and here). Productive and happy employees want just three things - they want to know why their job matters (purpose), they want to know their manager cares, and they want feedback.

As it was coming together for me that management and leadership at a restaurant isn’t that much different than management and leadership in tech (and still feeling like I was part of a business novel), I remembered Lencioni’s The Truth About Employee Engagement. As a side note, I own the book under it’s original title, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job - which is certainly a more provocative title, but also a book title that will catch a few eyeballs if someone sees it on your desk.

The book tells a story of a CEO who retires from his job but isn’t findig any joy in retirement. He ends up managing a local pizza store and discovers that his staff is disengaged and miserable. The manager comes up with three concepts that he uses to get his employees - and the restaurant back on track.

Same Story

Above, I mentioned three indicators that research have shown high correlation with employee engagement. Not surprisingly, Lencioni’s three principles are almost identical.

The first sign of a miserable job (or detraction from employee engagement) is Anonymity. If you feel like a cog in a machine, or that your teammates or manager don’t know you personally, it’s difficult to be engaged. This is the “care personally” part of Radical Candor. Again, the research shows that the best employees know that their manager cares about their well-being as much as their accomplishments. In my experience, this personal connection leads to high-trust and Autonomy.

The second sign is Irrelevance. If you don’t know why your job is important, why it matters, or who it affects, motivation suffers. I know I’ve been on both sides of this at times in my career. I’ve been a cog in a machine for sure - but I left those roles and found work that mattered. Purpose matters.

The third sign is Immeasureability. Employees want to know how they’re doing. Feedback is a big part of this, but having a way to measure progress helps as well. Ask yourself if there’s something you could measure to know that you’re doing well in your job. You don’t even have to share this metric, but ideally, it’s something you can discuss with your manager. Note - it’s not a performance metric - it’s a measurement of the outcomes you create. In the book, one of the employees measures success by the number of customers they were able to get to smile or laugh. If I’m working on building a high-trust psychological safe organization, for example, I may count success by the number of respectful debates I see in a week. Thinking about measuring the outcomes we generate - and feedback from our manager and peers is how we grow (and create Mastery)

There’s a trend here buried above. The research I’ve read says Purpose, Feedback, and Manager relationship are the key drivers of engagement. Similarly, Lencioni says Irrelevance, Immeasureability, and Anonymity are the anti-patterns for engagement. If that’s not enough, those three principles also align with the massive research behind Dan Pink’s Drive where he calls out Purpose, Mastery, and Autonomy as the principles that drive high performance in all knowledge workers.

Book Soup

I read a lot. I’m not confident enough in my own abilities to do my job without a lot of coaching, so I rely on great leadership authors to give me ideas that I can let bounce around in my head. But for some reason, it wasn’t until that night in the pub that realized that three of my favorite books (Drive, the Lencioni engagement book, and When They Win, You Win, by Russ Laraway all converged on the same principles.

So let me spit out the soup in a different way.

Understanding Employee Needs

As I said last week - focus on the team, and the results will follow. All three of these authors say this in one way or another.

Lencioni argues that employees need to feel known, understand their work's relevance, and be able to measure their success.

Pink suggests that people are most motivated and engaged when they have control over their work (autonomy), opportunities to develop expertise (mastery), and a sense of contributing to something bigger than themselves (purpose).

Laraway emphasizes a focus on employee growth and development, aligning individual goals with company objectives, and the significance of understanding every team member's career aspirations.

Be a Better Manager and Leader

Top down management will always fail with knowledge workers. All three authors advocate moving away from traditional, top-down management styles that often prioritize organizational goals over individual employee needs.

Instead, they propose a more holistic and human-centric approach to management, where understanding and supporting the individual's professional journey is key to organizational success. Treat people like humans rather than cogs, and they do better work. Great leaders work on building environments where these principles can thrive - and this requires communication, empathy, and a focus on employee growth and well-being.

Correlation

All three of these authors found the correlation between employee engagement and organizational performance and productivity. They took different paths to get there, but the outcome is the same. Healthy organizations create stronger outcomes.

Back at the Pub

Towards the end of our conversation, we talked about a server who was being promoted to bartender. I’ve never done either job, but I’ve been in enough bars to know that the bartender generally has more of a leadership role and more responsibility. What I loved about the conversation was that Patrick (the bartender and the server’s boss) had taken the time to set her up for success. He made sure that she knew her role and why it was important. He gave her feedback on things that he had seen that would help in her transition, and then he gave her freedom and autonomy with the promise that when (not if) she fucked up that nobody (on the staff, at least) would get mad, and that it would be a great learning experience. Patrick told me she was nervous, but excited - which sounds like a great experience to me.

I kind of wonder why more managers aren’t like Patrick.

Be like Patrick.