Joe Hart 27/6/22 Joe Hart 27/6/22

Ticker TV Insight- Interview with Mike Loder on authenticity in the workplace

Last week I was interviewed by Mike Loder on Ticker TV in what was a really interesting discussion. To listen to the interview see the link below or read the full interview transcript.

Mike Loder

Hello and welcome back to Ticker Insight. I'm your host, Mike Loder, and my first story for now. And we all hold conflicting views of self, multiple perspectives of who we are and how we should act. And as leaders, these selves seem to be a constant tightrope walk, negotiating personal and professional lives. Joe Hart is the founder of leadership consultancy True Perspective and is here to help us unpack these thoughts. Welcome to you, my friend.

Joe Hart

Thank you, Mike. Great to be here.

Mike Loder

No worries at all. I think this is a really important one to discuss because I mention that everyone has these two sides of the coin, but in your book you say that honesty and perspective are key to effective leadership. Is a time for leaders to live more transparently, do you think?

Joe Hart

Absolutely. It's always been really important for leaders to live with transparency. I guess when I talk about honesty, I'm talking about honesty with self. It's one thing to not lie, I think it's incredibly important for everyone to show up and be truthful, but to be really honest with yourself about what is it that you're doing, what are you engaged in, are you actually in the right role at work? Are you actually a leader? And is that what you really want to be doing? Because it's an important role and honesty is incredibly important in terms of being a leader.

Mike Loder

I think it's very difficult for some people to be honest at times, especially in their workplace. Got to keep going, got to keep moving, not say how they're feeling, etc. But how is important is self-development for leaders at this time, is it absolutely critical?

Joe Hart

It always has been important and I think now it's probably more important than ever. It's really easy, especially as a leader, to want your team to have all of the development opportunities thrown their way. I think leaders need to take a look at themselves and actually know what they need for themselves because that is going to help develop their team. And it's incredibly important to prioritise that as a behaviour. It role models the right sort of behaviour for your team and demonstrates that that's what's important to continually evolve and develop as a leader yourself, it’s not about giving it to everyone else, give it to yourself first, be selfish with it and that is probably the most selfless thing you can do as a leader.

Mike Loder

Absolutely, Joe, selfish is not always an ugly word, but authenticity is another key buzzword at the moment. How important is this for employee buy-in, and do you think when it comes to being your authentic self, it’s really important?

Joe Hart

It is a bit of a buzzword and unfortunately sometimes gets a bad rap. When people say, “you lead with your truth” and “my truth”, it can sometimes turn people's noses up, which I really appreciate. What I'm talking about when I'm saying being authentic is don't be afraid to bring yourself to work and I see a lot of leaders, or even as a psychologist myself, not wanting to fully open up about some of your challenges or what's going on for you. I talk about it in my book, the importance of discovering who you are by disclosing who you are. And when you disclose, a sense of reciprocity kicks in and people want to give more of themselves as a result. So this really lovely process happens, and this ripple effect of sharing happens as a result. So don't be afraid to throw it out there. You can never know how people are going to respond. And I hear people say it all the time, it's like, “Oh, well, I know that's not going to be good”, or “I know that's going to be career suicide”. How could you possibly know that? So just go there, have a go at being who you are and see what happens, and I count on it, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Mike Loder

Totally, your mind starts going, all of the negative things that could happen, sort of catastrophizing, I suppose. But should self-reflection lead from the top down to employees as well, do you think, Joe?

Joe Hart

Absolutely. I think self-reflection is something that we all need to engage in, whether it be journaling, whether it be an opportunity to sit quietly with yourself and reflect on how you've behaved and how others have been behaving around you and in response to your behaviour. Self-reflection should be something that everyone engages in. And of course, the senior leaders in your organisation, whether they be right at the top, they need to be role modelling that and engaging in self-reflective behaviour as well.

Mike Loder

Yeah. Just to finish, what key factors do you see are impacting engagement, do you think?

Joe Hart

The same things have always been impacting engagement. Really what we're talking about is the leader. The leader in the organisation is the single biggest factor that influences how people feel at work. Research from Gallup and other organisations demonstrates that about 70% of the variance in what you're feeling at work is accounted for by that behaviour demonstrated by your leader. So if you're a leader or aspiring to be a leader, you really owe it to everybody and yourself to show up, be honest, and be authentic, because that's what's going to impact everybody else's experience. To step outside yourself and demonstrate a bit more empathy in terms of what you're doing. By that, I mean to allow people to give you feedback so you can see yourself the way they're seeing and experiencing you. So I think a lack of that is probably affecting engagement negatively.

Mike Loder

It's not always easy to look in the mirror, I suppose, as well. Joe, I really appreciate our chat, and love to get my hands on your book because I really enjoyed our discussion today. I think it's a really important one to consider. So thank you for your time and your insight.

Joe Hart

Thank you so much, Mike. Appreciate it.

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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

I’m fascinated with people, always have been and always will be. From a very early age, I keenly observed people, I was curious about what motivated them, what made them successful and why they made certain choices. This curiosity led me to study Psychology. After graduating with my Master of Organisational Psychology, I worked for Gallup, a global leader in engagement and strengths-based development. I became a strengths-based coach, engagement expert and worked with senior leaders all over the world.

If you’re curious about how I can help you personally or with the leadership of your team/organisation get in touch via my email: joe@joehart.com.au | website: joehart.com.au | Phone: +61425 224 825

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Joe Hart 27/9/21 Joe Hart 27/9/21

Employee Engagement: Five things you need to know

In October last year, Gallup published the 10th Employee Engagement Meta-Analysis, the world’s largest study linking business performance outcomes to measures of employee engagement. The study revealed the same results consistent with previous iterations - Teams, or business units, scoring above average (in the top 50% of the database) more than double their odds of success compared to teams scoring below average on engagement. More specifically, highly engaged teams outperformed their poorly engaged teams by 10% customer loyalty, 23% profitability, 18% productivity and a staggering 81% absenteeism. After reliably replicating this finding over a 20+ year period, there is no denying the importance, and significance of ensuring the engagement of your team/business sits at the apex of your business's strategic objectives.

The truth is, engagement still features as a formality for many organisations, a tick-the-box exercise to demonstrate that they ‘care’ and want to ‘listen’ to their employees and provide them with a ‘voice’. While there are some organisations out there doing a great job, I’m still astonished at the number of organisations that stuff this up….and by organisations, I mean the people that work in them (you know who you are!).

The reason why employee engagement catapulted Gallup to success back in the ’90s is that they were the first organisation to demonstrate the consistent link between how employees felt, and how organisations performed. It seems like a no-brainer, the happier your people are, the more productive and profitable they will be. Like most powerful ideas, the research merely confirms a timeless truth that we all intuitively know. The real challenge is to take action, now that there is no denying the truth.

Recently, I was reminded of how poorly most organisations apply the knowledge that engaged employees lead to better business outcomes. A client of mine shared that they received the results from a recent employee engagement survey and the results weren’t good. Rather than take this as an opportunity to learn, understand and deepen the opportunity for change, the executive director gave them all a lashing for ‘being so selfish’ and not appreciating how ‘good’ they have it. My client shared that the message was received loud and clear “you’d better give better scores next time otherwise, things won’t go well for you around here”. This was further tainted by some speculation that their executive director needed good engagement scores to achieve an annual bonus.

This is a familiar, and horrible example of how NOT to use employee engagement surveys. Furthermore, it reinforces the importance of measuring employee engagement for the right reasons. To help you establish if you are on the right path, consider the following list:

1) If you don’t want the truth don’t ask I.e. you aren’t willing to accept any feedback from the team, no matter how harsh or confronting…don’t bother asking them at all. You’ll do more damage asking for their perspective and not actioning the results than you will if you don’t ask them at all.

2) Don’t make engagement scores key Performance Indicators. If you must tie them into KPIs, make sure you keep them at the senior executive level and ensure that the focus is on change or improvement in engagement coupled with a measure of taking action or belief that action will be taken.

3) Don’t shield your team or organisation from the truth. If engagement is low, and the data supports this, people already know. They did provide the feedback after all. I know it’s tempting to ‘protect’ people to avoid panic but in reality, people aren’t stupid. The talented people are already looking for other jobs so by facing up to the truth, you are far more likely to engage your best in turning things around.

4) Stop making engagement an ‘HR’ thing. Yes, HR should be involved, but they shouldn’t ‘own’ the result or the follow-up. In many cases, HR holds on to engagement too firmly so this is also something to be aware of. Engagement is measured at the individual level and reported at the group or team level. Anything to enhance engagement needs to start at the individual level and be discussed at the team level.

5) Recognise that engagement as a construct existed long before Gallup or any other organisation reverse engineered questions to measure it. You don’t need a survey to identify if people are feeling a bit ordinary about things. Open your ears, walk the floors, talk to people. The process of listening changes how people feel, as long as it’s done genuinely. If the survey has become a routined tick-the-box exercise, it’s time to find another way to identify the truth.