Is Employee Engagement Just the Latest Leadership Fad?

Steve, in reading your post, I realized that whether or not Employee Engagement is a rehash of an old issue does not matter. Employee Engagement defines what the issue is. The fact that a new term was created only indicates that the problem has not yet been solved. If it provides a clearer definition of the issue, then it is not a rehash. If it doesn’t, we still don’t care. We are interested in how to address the issue. The more pertinent question is: “Does LLG’s methodology, techniques, and tools provide greater improvement in Employee Engagement than existing methods?”

I've noticed a sharp decline in the number of employee engagement skeptics like this one since about 2005. I find loads of articles published in the early 2000s that call employee engagement "old wine in a new bottle." But I think the term now is quite safe, because the scope and depth of the research accumulated has driven a wedge between EE and it's predecessors. EE won a lot of respect particularly when substantial evidence showed the tight relationship between EE and business performance. Also, I think the rise of organizations like Apple and Google increased interest in understanding how exactly to harness employee potential, because people want to recreate Google's innovative spirit, or synthesize art and science like Apple. Unless you're fortunate enough to have a genius leader like the late Steve Jobs, you really need discretionary effort.


The shift I noticed in the debate over EE's relationship to financial performance looks like this:


In the early 2000s, everybody was calling for more data on the EE business success relationship, even Gallup. Lots of critics pointed to a lack of information regarding causality. Does financial performance drive employee engagement, or vice versa? By 2005, however, many of these doubts vanished from workplace research literature because Towers Watson, Gallup, and a handful of other research institutions amassed substantial evidence of a tight relationship—EE drives performance. Quelle surprise.


And then! In books and articles published late 2000s, many researchers even candidly avoid reopening the EE and performance discussion. Here’s an example from Leigh Branham and Mark Hirschfield in Re-Engage: “Academic and popular literature is filled with studies that explore and provide evidence of the engagement and business success relationship. We trust that most of you who are reading this book are aware of this work […]”

As I read your post Steve, I am reminded that perhaps this age old issue is taking a new urgency in in the 21st Century. As the last century came to a close, to a great extent so did the last vestiges of the industrial age (at least in America, and arguable much of the world). And it is not coincidence that the way employees are viewed and in many ways treated are residual of a time when the tasks performed by people were largely unskilled. It was viewed as completely reasonable to view employees as simply any other resource. Good business practice dictated that you wanted them to be 'managed' like any other resource... as efficiently as possible. Get the greatest possible output, at the lowest possible cost.


As the 1970's ushered in the information age, and we know find ourselves firmly in the age of knowledge (the practical application of information), the tasks performed by people are on an order of complexity never before seen in history. The demands for technical proficiency (Left Brain Thinking), creativity, innovation (Right Brain Thinking), AND Relationship excellence are at all time highs. According to the Brookings Institute, as much as 85% of a company's market value is based on its' Intellectual Capital or intangible assets such as employee knowledge, reputation and human talent. The problem is that as people in general, and employees specifically, are required to perform much more complex skills, involving their minds; to treat them like equipment is not only counterintuitive, it is counter-productive! American business has been woefully slow to realize this fact, but I suppose better late than never.


In the end, it only makes sense that we increase our focus on the tools, skills and behaviors that will best allow us to connect with employees on an emotional and intellectual level to inspire in them a desire to give of their discretionary effort.