CHAPTER | TWO
Drucker on Engagement
Some years ago, the author of a highly successful business book asked me whether I was interested in co-authoring a book he was working on about engagement. He wanted to tap into my experience as an Air Force general and use a play on words regarding the “rules of engagement” in the book's title.
“Rules of Engagement” has been adopted frequently as a term to describe the regulations under which a particular conflict is to be conducted. In the old days, there were prenegotiated “rules of warfare,” such as those codified under the Hague Convention beginning in 1899. These rules required, among other tenets, that prisoners of war not be mistreated, that someone waving a white flag must be allowed to surrender, and that noncombatants or civilians not be intentionally targeted. However, the complexities of modern combat, politics, and the introduction of advanced technology such as aircraft, both piloted and pilotless, and missiles made new policies advisable. As a result, one side or the other might impose even more stringent rules on its own armies.
Thus, in the Vietnam War, U.S. pilots were prohibited from firing into a village from which they were being fired on, except under very specific circumstances—something that would have been considered ridiculous by the “Greatest Generation” who fought World War II. For people whose lives were at risk, this engagement rule seemed not very appreciative of the danger they faced and the fact that this was serious stuff. In any case, I decided that my being a retired general was insufficient reason to co-author a book. However, the experience served to confirm that the word engagement can have more than its surface meaning.
Business Engagement Is Also Serious Stuff
Use of the term “engagement” in business is fairly recent, only dating to business literature from the 1990s, when Frank L. Schmidt, then a senior scientist with the Gallup Organization, began to study the topic. He applied his unique statistical methodology and published his results in the academic literature, using this terminology.1
Whatever it was called, Drucker recognized its importance long before it was identified, and he showed how managers could develop it in their workforce. There was no doubt that to contribute significantly to the goals set by the manager, a fully engaged worker was required. The goal and outcome could not be merely performance; they had to be outstanding performance. The difference between performance and outstanding performance is like that between sports participation and an Olympic athlete. It is the difference between amateur acting and an acting performance that approaches Oscar quality.
Drucker said that to attain this level of output, the manager must create what he called “a responsible worker.” Drucker expected an awful lot from the “responsible worker.” The term “engaged worker” seems to be a better description. An engaged worker is one who is committed to contributing to the organization and is willing to exert extraordinary effort in accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organizational goals. It's no small thing. Every study of engaged employees shows magnitudes of difference in performance between those who are engaged and those who are not.
Satisfaction Does Not Create an Engaged Worker
At one time or another, almost every organization conducts surveys to determine what has been described as “employee satisfaction.” I once spoke on leadership to a large fifty-year-old organization and learned that this organization was in the midst of one of these satisfaction studies. Are these surveys useful? Maybe. They do represent an opportunity for employees to vent their irritants. They give leaders a feel for the major concerns in their organizations at that particular time. They may provide guidance for management decisions. However, as Drucker noted, they have their limitations.
“Employee satisfaction” is not easily defined and cannot be usefully quantified. For example, one cannot say that the fact that 75 percent of employees are satisfied is good, bad, or irrelevant. Even if a preponderance of workers agrees that this organization is a good place to work, that doesn't say much. I have seen satisfaction/dissatisfaction studies misused and so worded as to result in desired responses that then lead to predetermined courses of action.
Drucker's biggest criticism was that “satisfaction” or “dissatisfaction” responses simply aren't adequate and do not result in employee engagement. Even if compensation were an issue, a manager could buy personal responsibility with financial rewards only in a limited way or for a fixed period of time. Therefore, satisfaction alone cannot have a positive impact on generating real personal responsibility or creating an engaged employee. Drucker concluded that even a worker's dissatisfaction with some aspect of his work was far more likely to accomplish this, should he be empowered to initiate action to improve the situation and it caused him to do so. Drucker not only called satisfaction inadequate, he christened it “passive acquiescence.”2 That's also when he came up with the term “responsible worker.” Peter expected a lot.
Drucker's Four Paths to an Engaged Worker
If satisfaction isn't key to creating the engaged worker, what is? Although I have seen dozens of methods that promise to result in engaged employees, Drucker found only four, and he stressed that these weren't alternative approaches, but that all four must be used simultaneously to achieve the desired results. These were:3
- Aiming for careful placement and promotion
- Demanding high standards of performance
- Providing workers with information
- Encouraging workers to acquire managerial vision
Let's take a look at each of these.
Aiming for Careful Placement and Promotion
A systematic, serious, and continual effort to put people in the right jobs is a prerequisite for worker engagement, according to Drucker. Frequently, promotions are made with little discussion or any attempt at soliciting the opinion of other managers. Drucker very much admired the promotion system in the U.S. military, with its formal evaluations emphasizing performance, review, and fairness, and its promotion by a board rather than a single individual. In many cases, promotion made the selectee eligible for further assignment, which was also based on accumulated experience and performance over time. I think he saw this as akin to the system of management by objectives that he developed and taught.
Demanding High Standards of Performance
Adequate performance is generally associated with easy, low-demand work. For engagement, workers need to be challenged with much more. They need high standards of performance that will challenge their abilities. When I was his student, University of Chicago professor Thomas Whistler once described what happened to one of his most brilliant and capable doctoral students. The student had taken his first job after receiving his doctorate at a major corporation, but it was in a relatively low position. This gifted student apparently failed to perform to expectations and, recognizing this himself, he resigned. The former student then went to another corporation where he immediately did so well that within six months he was elevated to the position of vice president.
“The problem,” Professor Whistler said, “was not that the first job was too big, but that it was too small. The mistake my former student made was to accept that job in the first place. My student had this amount of ability [Whistler raised his hand far above his head] and that first job required this amount [Whistler lowered his hand to about his knee level].” This runs counter to saying that there are no small jobs, just small people. Professor Whistler's former student did a poor job when unchallenged by the job that was too small, but rose to accomplish the most difficult, sometimes even impossible, tasks imaginable when properly challenged. Most of us are like this.
Dr. Charles Garfield, a psychologist with degrees in both psychology and mathematics, found this was particularly true of what he called “peak performance individuals.” In working with NASA during the first launch of astronauts to the moon, Dr. Garfield was amazed to discover that many individuals who previously had done only mediocre work, and whom many considered “deadwood,” had suddenly “caught fire” and were doing things neither they nor anyone else had even thought possible. Yet, immediately after the moon landings had been accomplished and the big challenge was over, it was like they “fell back to earth.” Unchallenged, they returned to performing at their previous, only barely adequate levels. They and their superiors treated the whole peak performance and engagement experience as an aberration.4 Too bad. Properly led, they could have continued to be challenged and to do the impossible far into the future. All it took was a little understanding and leadership. The leaders should have not only insisted on continual high standards for these others, but for themselves as well.5
Providing Workers with Information
Workers need high standards, but to reach these high standards they must be provided with all the information available on the matter. This is necessary whether the worker asks for this information or not. Although Drucker didn't go into this, if a worker isn't enthusiastic about acquiring information the leader feels is necessary to do the job, or doesn't know what information he needs, it is the manager's responsibility to explain the importance of that information and explain how to get it. Only with this kind of help can the worker control what he does, measure how he is doing, and guide himself toward reaching the goal and accepting complete responsibility for the task.
Moreover, it is critical the worker knows and understands how what he or she does contributes to the work of the entire organization and how the work of the organization contributes to society. This latter category of information is what many call “the big picture.”6 Information about the “big picture” helps employees acquire managerial vision, the last of the four paths Drucker identified for achieving employee engagement. Unfortunately, many managers attempt to lead by maintaining the ignorance of their subordinates. They keep control by showing their superior knowledge, withholding information or doling it out in small packages at strategic times to demonstrate their cleverness. Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Do you want engaged members of your organization or do you want to be thought of as clever?
Encouraging Workers to Acquire Managerial Vision
Only with managerial vision can the worker feel the pride necessary for peak performance and see his work as contributing to the success of the enterprise. However, there are other important reasons why encouraging workers to gain managerial vision is necessary for peak performance and engagement. For example, the engaged worker must frequently operate without oversight, or even without the possibility of referral to higher authority when the boss is gone. Without managerial vision, the worker operating independently may optimize what he does at the expense of the organization. Moreover, operating at peak performance frequently requires taking risks. Yet a worker takes risks only with self-confidence. This means that worker self-confidence is also essential for engagement; self-confidence is gained through acquiring managerial vision.
Drucker taught us what we must do to attain high performance in our organizations—generate engaged workers—and he gave us the four actions we must take to accomplish this goal.