Get True Engagement with Change of Language
The interwebs, Twitter and print media has been chock-full of articles surrounding the coming “tsunami” of top employee talent fleeing companies. The gist is that once the economy improves (and some say it’s happening now) there will be a huge wave of top talent leaving companies looking for greener pastures. Whether that happens or not the thing that grabbed me was the language used in all the articles. Some examples include:
“How do we get employees to stay?”
“We need to create programs that make employees stay.”
“How do we get employees to see the big picture of all we do for them?”
“What can we do to stop employees from leaving?”
What I read in all those sentences was “control.”
Most, if not all, of the articles I’m reading discuss how a company can control the behavior of their employees. Getting, making, locking in, you name it – all control words. From a management perspective using these words means you believe you can control behavior.
You can’t. You can influence behavior in a positive way, or a negative way. The important thing to remember is that asking questions using the control words gives you one set of answers. Asking questions in the non-control way gives you different ones.
Change the Language
How different the approach is – and the possible solutions – when you say these things instead…
“How do I create a business where employees want to stay?”
“What do my employees need to get their job done?”
“How can I help my employees do better work?”
Seeing a theme here?
The difference is in where you place the control. Once you think that employees have control over their destiny your point of view switches from “making them do something” to, providing the “environment where they want to do something.”
Companies that take the first tack – “making” employees do something either by creating decision criteria that is impossible to ignore (big bonuses or conversely big penalties) for leaving will lose in the long run. Employees will pick up on the subtleties of the language. Don’t think they won’t feel the difference in an organization that creates environments employees want to stay in versus environments that make them stay.
One approach is about designing a prison – the other is about designing a paradise.
Photo of no swearing sign by Alice Chaos . Licensed under CC.
