The Transition From Entrepreneur To Leader (Part 2): Multiply Influence by Maximizing Engagement

By Arlin Sorensen, O and Founder of the Heartland Companies which includes HTG Peer Groups

In a previous blog post entitled “The Transition from Entrepreneur to Leader,” I wrote that without a doubt the biggest challenges most small businesses face revolve around people in the key areas of leadership (the people at the top) and employees (the people who do the work).  In this installment I want to write about people and what we as leaders need to do to ensure we maximize engagement for the people on our teams.

The biggest wildcard in running a business is people. It’s never the technology, the marketplace, or any particular solutions we offer. It always comes down to our ability to attract, hire, train, compensate, manage, reward and retain talent. When I look at the things that owners and senior leaders must ‘own’ as their roles, three things come to the top:

1. Own The Culture. Have a clearly defined BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal), mission, vision and core values that are driven to every employee with KPIs (key performance indicators) and metrics that allow the team to know where they fit and how they will be measured.
2. Manage The Talent. Recruit, train, and retain those who will take you to the next level.
3. Build Relationships. Own the key relationships with distribution, vendors and partners, and be focused on helping build and manage these relationships across the company.

Do you see a common theme here? It starts with “P” and ends with “eople.” Employees are core to our business, and we have to make the right investments of time, energy and attention in order to succeed. One of the hottest topics around employees today is engagement. There is data from all sorts of sources, such as Gallup, but they all point to the same results — many employees are not truly engaged in their workplace. The numbers range some, but it is always a majority and in some data it is frighteningly high. 

So what is it anyway, this thing they call employee engagement? It is the relationship between an organization and its employees. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. In other words, they care.

Does it matter? It absolutely does. Engaged employees are those that go above and beyond and are committed to an organization’s mission, vision, and values. They are motivated to contribute to success. They make things happen for the good of all. They don’t just punch a clock and show up for work on time. They truly pour themselves into work and are doing it for the right reasons, not just to receive a paycheck. 94 percent of the world’s most admired companies believe that their efforts to engage their employees have created a competitive advantage. If there is such a thing as secret sauce, effective talent management may just be it!

Attracting talent is a real challenge, particularly in the IT industry today. With that reality, keeping people longer is a key way we can win in the market. Engaged employees are 49 percent less likely to leave their jobs. At the same time they are 18 percent more productive and work in a 35 percent more efficient manner. Bottom line, they stick around and get more done. These facts are all important, but the biggest number leaders should care about is that companies with engaged employees run at twice the net profit of those who don’t have engagement. Employee engagement flows dollars to the bottom line.

Some of you are saying this is a bunch of hog wash. You pay someone to show up and do their job and it doesn’t really matter if they like what they do, where they do it, or with whom they work. But it really does matter, whether we as leaders want to admit it or not. And the reality is that as millennials become a bigger part of the workforce, it will matter more and more. We can’t just ignore employee engagement, close our eyes, and believe that what has worked well for us culturally in the past will continue to be effective. We have to be intentional and have a plan to create more of it.

So where do you start?  Begin by understanding what your current state is. There are many tools available today to get a pulse on your employees. We like a tool called the Engagement Index.  It provides a deep profile report that gives a baseline on where your team is today so you can develop a plan to address the current situation and move to a more engaged culture. It can also help you identify members of the team that may be at risk to leave because they simply are not engaged today. It is empowering information that allows a leadership team to take action and drive engagement deeper.

Once you know your current status, you can assemble your leadership team to build a plan to begin at your current engagement point and go deeper. Let’s be clear about one thing. Like all things related to leadership, this one is no different. Employee engagement begins at the top. One of the key drivers to growing employee engagement in your organization will be the example and role model of the ownership and leadership team. You want engaged employees? It starts with being engaged yourself. You not only need to lead the planning of deeper engagement, you have to be part of the execution and participate fully. Your life needs to be an example of the organization’s mission, vision and values.  It has to leak and pour out of your life.

What else can you do?  Here are some ideas that you should consider beyond being the chief cheerleader and model:

1. Build a comprehensive plan to grow your employee engagement. But don’t create a plan in a vacuum. Ask broadly across your team and get input. The worst outcome will happen when a few leaders go away and build a plan in a silo. Involve those you are trying to engage and make them part of the process and execution. HTG is certified in a process called StratOp which we have found to be an effective tool to help address planning for employee engagement. Israel Lang (ilang@htgpeergroups.com), a certified StratOp facilitator and HTG executive consultant, can answer any questions you have.
2. Define and focus on your culture. There is a distinct difference between culture and employee engagement, but they are closely related and need to be aligned. A culture document is a great way to articulate and define the cultural elements true of your company and the ways those elements are lived out within your team. A culture doc takes the mission, vision, values and other organizational objectives and helps translate that into actionable things that the team can relate to and execute. It provides the specifics to the big picture drivers.
3. Attract the right people. Although we place much emphasis on one’s educational background and skills, people generally succeed or fail because of their character and behavior.  It is far easier to have engaged employees if you find and hire the right people from the start.  As that gets harder and harder, using a professional resource to help find prospects is the right approach. HTG has that person in Robyn Porter (rporter@htgpeergroups.com) who can help you maneuver the marketplace and attract the right applicants. 
4. Hire the right folks. There are many great tools available today to assist in analyzing potential prospects. We like the tool called Judgment Index to help narrow the field of candidates. No tool is a 100 percent guarantee of success, but they certainly can help you dig a bit deeper and uncover some of the potential landmines before you make an offer.
5. Train your managers first.  Let’s face it, employees join great companies but quit bad bosses. Your managers are the front line touch for the majority of your employees. They need to be trained around how to effectively engage those they manage, and have the skillset instilled to be able to listen and connect.
6. Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Successful leaders recognize the power of a robust communication plan, one built on clarity, consistency, and transparency. Once is never enough. You need to use multiple mechanisms to communicate every message over and over until you are certain everyone knows and understands it.
7. Reward the right behavior. Most employees are incredibly motivated by achievement, not money. Your engagement model should be linked to a culture of high performance, and when that is achieved, there should be celebration and reward. You have to invest to drive engagement, but it doesn’t need to be expensive, just intentional!
8. Track progress and let the team know how they are doing. Every person on the team should know exactly where they fit and how their job impacts key areas of the business. Employees are no different than leadership — they both want to work for a “winning” organization. Leaders need to reinforce that desire through KPIs and metrics that inform their employees exactly where they’re going, how they’re performing, and where they fit in.
9. Get feedback direction and often. There are many good tools available today to gather immediate feedback. Large surveys have a place, but maybe more effective are simple one or a few question surveys on a much more regular basis that gives you direct insight into how employees feel and think. 
10. Retain them once you have them. The key to a sustainable engaged group of employees is to keep them on the ship. We often put a lot more effort into hiring than we do retaining. Retention can be increased through clear job descriptions and expectations, regular feedback and reviews, a compensation plan that is aligned to the requirements of the job, clear measures of success, and regular communication with the leadership. It is far less expensive to retain an engaged employee than to acquire a new one.

Transitioning from entrepreneur to leader is a giant step.  Part of that transition requires us to focus more and more time on the people, as they are the secret to building a sustainable organization. For many entrepreneurs, it is a transition that requires some new skills and learning. But once we attain it, we will find that growing our leadership pays dividends. By building an engaged team, we are multiplying our influence and positioning our companies to live out our mission on a broader scale.

Arlin Sorensen serves as the CEO and Founder of the Heartland Companies which includes HTG Peer Groups.  When he is not traveling to speak and consult, he is home on his farm in Iowa with his wife Nancy.  He is a proud “Pop” to four precocious grandchildren who serve as daily reminders of why he is intentionally living to leave a strong legacy of faith and integrity.  He loves making a difference in the lives and businesses of small business owners. You can reach him at asorensen@htgpeergroups.com or on Twitter @asorensen.