How ‘engaged’ is your team?

The best teams produce the best results.  Obvious isn’t it; not simply the best players, but really good players who play well together, play for each other, and are really, properly committed.  Think of the best teams in your favourite sport and it becomes clear.

So what about in business – is it really any different?  There are a couple of differences I suppose:

  • You can’t just pick a different team every week (even if you sometimes feel like it!)
  • As a business grows, the team must grow, both in size and attitude. If the team members we have are keen to grow then that’s fantastic; if not, then we have a challenge to resolve.

Overall though, people are people, and a team will behave like a team (good or not so good).  In business the buzzword is ‘engagement’, which is similar to team spirit in sport.  Engagement describes the level of emotional connection people in your team have to each other, and thus to your business.  That emotional connection is largely what creates team members who actively support each other and who are really, properly committed.  We all know it when we see it – these are the people who bring their energy and enthusiasm to work because they want to, they support each other and do a little bit extra for your customers, every day.

 

Engagement is the emotional connection that people have with their team and their work. It’s important because it drives results.

So can we measure or assess ‘engagement’?  In short, yes.  This issue has been on the agenda for big businesses for such a long time that there are various way to assess it.  We use a simple, well tested and powerful measure which provides a % engagement metric for your team.  (By the way, the average level of ‘engagement’, measured in this way in UK businesses is around 17%.  It’s similar in most European countries and has been measured by Gallup.)  We can easily measure engagement in your team and see your % engagement score.

Once we’ve measure it, how can we improve engagement?

There are three things we can do to push engagement forward.  It is part of the role of leaders in teams to make this happen – or choose to accept the results of not pushing it forward!

 First, boost the level of engagement in your team by releasing the enthusiasm and commitment that’s already there!  The results of an engagement survey will give some clues here; we use a powerful series of team workshops over a three month period to ‘turbo boost’ the enthusiasm that already exists in the team, and create a new level of working relationships between different parts of any business.

Second, recruitment.  Recruit only A-team people, people who will add to the energy and enthusiasm in the team.

Third, lead from the front.  As leader, show an example, consistently.  As Ghandi put it, ‘Be the change that you want to see’.

 

If you’d like to measure and improve engagement in your team please contact me immediately.

We offer a free engagement survey and a free assessment of what to do with the results.