how seeing things employees’ way builds performance · the research included an interview with...
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Ideas for Leaders #353
How Seeing Things Employees’ Way
Builds Performance
Key Concept
By adopting an employee-centred attitude to the way you lead, your staff will
not only achieve the best for themselves and their own goals, but they will
also deliver the best for your business. It requires a move away from the
controlling orientation of traditional leadership and towards a more
communicative process, in which you try to understand the strengths, fears,
and aspirations of employees, and manage them accordingly.
Idea Summary
If you could eavesdrop on your employees’ conversations, what do you think
they would be saying about you? Or if you look back over your own career,
considering the good and the bad bosses, how would you describe them?
‘Inspirational’, ‘empathic’, ‘open to new ideas’, or ‘controlling’, ‘autocratic’, and
‘micromanaging’?
Whatever the answers, there is no escaping the fact that bad leadership
exists, but why? Perhaps it is the system that is to blame – we are so busy
doing our jobs, and so results-driven, that we simply don’t have the time to
deal with others. Perhaps we are too egocentric, looking inwards to our own
desire for control and for ‘getting on’, rather than outwards to the people we
lead?
Recent research suggests that by flipping the lens and taking an employee-
centred perspective, leaders can reap the rewards of a happy and engaged
workforce, a more productive organization, and a less self-centred self.
The research included an interview with Stephen Martin, CEO of construction
company Clugston, who took part in the Channel 4 programme, Undercover
Boss, in which business leaders go ‘undercover’ to find out how their own
companies really tick.
Martin’s experience of his company from the viewpoint of the workforce was
both insightful and, at times, disappointing. He realized how poorly he had
understood some of his employees’ concerns, and he was surprised at how
certain initiatives had gone awry, often because of poor communication.
Going undercover prompted him to make some important changes in how he
ran the company and how he communicated with employees across the
group.
Business Application
If going ‘undercover’ is not a realistic option, here are some alternative ways
you can tap into the mindsets of your employees, and find out about the day-
Authors
Birkenshaw, Julian
Institutions
London Business School
Source
Business Strategy Review
Idea conceived
November 2013
Idea posted
April 2014
DOI number
Subject
Governance
Culture Change Management
Employee Engagement
Career Development
Emotional Intelligence
to-day realities of your business:
‘Skip-level’ meetings, during which senior executives can talk on a regular basis with employees
two levels below in the hierarchy;
‘Brown bag’ lunches, which serve a similar purpose in an informal setting;
Web-enabled chat and discussion forums, which are particularly suitable for large companies,
where meeting all employees is unrealistic. Whether you are answering questions posed by
employees via the intranet, or using private social networks to exchange ideas, use technology
to give your employees a virtual connection to the top;
Front-line work, a simple way to cut through the hierarchy. Whether you end up dealing directly
with customers, or working alongside employees at shop-floor level, it not only helps you see
what day-to-day issues exist, but it also makes you look more human;
Reverse mentoring, in which a junior but tech-savvy employee tutors an older manager in the
latest technological developments affecting the business.
Whether your employees want more responsibility, a chance to develop
certain skills, or recognition for a job well done, leaders need to use
techniques like these to try and understand their desires.
Structuring opportunities around the skills and motivations of employees may
be more costly and time-consuming initially, but it will be far more fruitful in the
long term than fitting employees around the jobs.
Once you have worked out what motivates your employees, and tailored
opportunities that combine those motivations with their own skills, you need to
manage the experience for them. Essentially, this is about keeping their
energy and enthusiasm levels up by maintaining a high-quality work
experience, involving them in projects which excite and motivate them, and
giving them the chance to let off steam when issues arise.
Managing the employee experience is inextricably linked to understanding the
employee mindset – if you don’t know what they want, how can you give them
what they want?
Further Reading
What your employees really think. Julian Birkenshaw. London Business
School Business Strategy Review (November 2013).
Further Relevant Resources
Julian Birkenshaw’s profile at London Business School
London Business School’s Executive Education profile at IEDP
© Copyright IEDP Ideas for Leaders 2014
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