Hey, this is Chris with Hacking Your Leadership. On today's discussion on employee engagement. I want to talk about different mission, vision value statements that organizations have and how that leads to an increase or decrease in employee engagement, and
how leaders execute with regards to those statements. I had an opportunity to talk with a person recently who's close to me, and they were kind of reminiscing about a story they had a few years ago when they were in the workforce and talking about how they made a mistake and their boss was kind of sitting
down with them and talking with them about what that mistake was. And one of the things that was that was said during that conversation, after this person, you know, kind of gave this side of the story, the boss
responded with, Okay, let me let me seek knowledge here. And it was a it was a kind of a weird kind of out their response and and come to find out that those were the actual words that they use as part of their you know, mission or values or leadership values statements, and and the person I was speaking to said that it was at that moment that they just immediately kind of shut down and went Okay, this, this conversation is over in my own mind, like nothing, nothing productive is happening here
anymore. And I remember thinking, yeah, that that's that sounds like the person really didn't know what to say, and they were they were using the company values or whatever they are, the mission or vision statement as a crutch
to get through the situation. It kind of led me to this thought process of the that I think in a lot of organizations, leaders do this, and then in a lot of organizations, leaders actually do the thing as opposed to just you know, kind of parroting what the what the line on paper is. Uh, it's a It's a fascinating discussion because obviously this person's engagement
dropped to basically zero from that point forward after this conversation. But I think another leader in a different circumstance could have increased employee engagement given the the same exact values or same exact mission statement. Yeah that it sounds. It made me laugh a little bit because it sounds very much like an AI response. Does that manage like a real person or is that like because it's kind of like you know, computing Chris, Yeah, Chris, I had this situation
earlier and I wanted to kind of bring it to your attention. Thank you, Lorenzo. I am here to hear you out and make sure that we seek to understand your concerns and bring our values of trust and integrity to life. Please continue, right, Yeah, it is. We talk a lot about authenticity obviously on the show and as a leader and that type of thing.
And while I can appreciate the connection to making sure that the leader is aligned with the values or the mission of an organization and saying like this is what I'm supposed to do in this moment, I can appreciate that just saying it out loud just does not seem very authentic or natural, and can immediately do what I guess happened, which is move really the element of like trust
and and kind of realness to the conversation. I think that you know, in those moments, the thing for that leader to do was to simply say like, oh, okay, thank you that you know what, like, let me, let me, let me find out some more about this, then get back with you. Right Like that sounds like a human answer to I'm going to go gain more knowledge versus trying to pull in. It's it's
it's seek knowledge. You have to get it right, seek knowledge. Sorry, I'll take the feedback right now and give myself a lower than expected return on my review this coming season. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. It's like, it's kind of like if you're that robotic or if you feel the need to do that, and you know what, I hear it a lot too sometimes with like like like quotes from like books and authors and things
like that. Somebody will do something and they'll be like a haha, it's this, and you're just like okay, like maybe it was that, but also like there's no like, there's no need to trademark the quote to like book, and then they just let it be the thing. And I think it's a similar case in that. But I think it's it's important as leaders to not just like regurgitate what those words are and then think that it's going to come across as truly being authentic, right, even if it is,
Oh you no, you're you're not wrong. I think a lot of organizations have made a lot of strides over the past, you know, maybe ten or fifteen years in making sure that whatever the words are are ones that are at least more more objective, right, they're less of this kind of ethereal. You know, I can, I can shoehorn whatever decision I want to
make into this mission statement or vision statement. I think a lot of companies have done some really good good work in terms of giving people more tangible, more objective measures of whatever those values are. But but no matter what you do as an organization in terms of getting the verbiage right, it doesn't matter if the leaders who are executing it find more value in saying them as opposed
to actually doing them. And they're only as effective as the level of commitment to them that the leaders have in terms of what can be seen, not
what can be said or regurgitated or written down. But if I can watch my leader actually do these things, not just say that they're doing them, that is what is needed to bring the values to life, And that is what is needed to have me feel engaged as an employee in what I'm being asked to do, which hopefully are the exact same values, because they shouldn't
be different for different positions in an organization. If I'm being asked to do something, the very first thing I'm going to do is look around me to see are my leaders doing this? Also? Are there different rules for different people here or are the things that I'm being held to the same exact standards? From a value standpoint, we have to everybody's different jobs, but from
a value standpoint, is everybody being held to the exact same standard. I want to go over some kind of goals for leaders here in terms of making sure this is happening, make sure your people can see you in a positive light when it comes to this. But first want to get up toward from
one of our sponsors. All Right, if you're a leader and you're trying to make your values of your organization come to life in order to improve employee engagement, the key is going to be that you need to be able to speak to what the values are, but in hindsight, based on a behavior
or a decision that you've already made. And so if you're questioned on something or even if you're just you know, kind of teaching or training your team, a decision that you've made or an action you've taken with a client or a customer or another employee, if you can tie that into a specific value, it's okay to say what that value is, but it can't be in the context of what you're going to do or what you're thinking about doing.
It has to be this is what I did, and this is why I did it, because this is the value of the organization that I'm trying to live. And then you can ask for feedback on whether or not that person perceives that decision as aligning with that value also. But the more you can do this, the more you can show your people that the decisions you make are with those values in mind, they're with the spirit of those in mind. That you're not just kind of, you know, making decisions happenstance or
or you know, taking the expedited route. You're you're looking at those values as a kind of a bumper on your decision making process, and that you know that they have to be viewed in the context of what decision are about to make. Your those have to be considered. Not doing that as a recipe for leading your people to believe that you know, the decisions you make are not in spirit of those values, and then they'll feel like they have
permission to not follow values themselves. Yeah, I think it's a great point, Like you absolutely need to talk about the values the mission, the vision, like any of those types of things. I think it's a critical part of leadership. And we've talked about like the importance of localizing those things for your teams. Like like you you know, you've always said for a long time, like like why does the company exist? Why does that person want
to be there? Like like the idea of aligning with the values of an organization the work, that's important, and so it should definitely be talked about and reflected on, and you know, post a decision or an interaction or something where you really had to live those values. I like what you're talking about, which is like share that and share what it was, and share how that brought that value to life in the moment. It's just that the
language and the authenticity matter the most in the moments as a leader. And if you don't want it to come across, is that the reason the reason why I'm doing this, Chris, is simply because it's a value that we have with the organization versus I'm doing this because it's the right thing. It's a value that I share with the organization, and it aligns. You know, later on we can talk about that. Like those are two different things.
That make people feel two different ways, and those types of conversations and interactions, and that's kind of what we're coming across, is that if you quote a value or a mission thing in the middle of doing it, then it seems as if the only reason why you're doing it is because of that. Now that might not be true, but that's how it comes across.
So just being conscious of that is needed now. Sometimes though, I will say, sometimes stating the value or the mission is your intention, and it's a reminder to people that in the conversation as to what you are referring to and why it's important and why in this moment it might be it might be critical for us to remember that this is a values thing so that we can make the best decision possible. Sometimes there is a reason to do it.
I'm just saying that in the case that we started us off with like that did not seem like the appropriate response from a verbal standpoint to the conversation. But there's definitely sometimes a need to state the values or the mission to make sure that people are are kind of refocusing on the lens that we're going to
look through when we make a decision. Right. I remember when my kids were young, I took them to Sea World and my son, at the age of four, walked out of a gift shop carrying a stuffed animal that he was trailing behind me. I didn't see it, done it now. He didn't know what shoplifting was. He was four years old. He just
saw something and he liked it, but I didn't. I didn't. We didn't bring it back to the store and me sit him down and go, son, we don't take that because it's against the law, you know. I sat him down and said, we don't take this because it doesn't belong to us. Right, So the value is the important part here. The fact that it's written on paper somewhere is secondary. And if that becomes the primary, then you've lost all credibility as a leader to say why a person
should should do this. All you're saying is do this if it aligns with your own values. If it doesn't and it's just the company values, oh, then don't worry about it. Right. It needs to align with your personal values. It needs to be rooted in something different or deeper than just somebody wrote somebody down on paper. Once the fact that it's on paper is a good thing, and it means, hey, you're in the right spot because your personal values align with the values of this organization, so you can
feel good about that. But the reason for doing it is not because somebody told you you had to. It's because you know the feeling you get when you do the right thing versus not doing the right thing. Thank you all for joining us for this conversation on employee engagement and we'll see you next Thursday for another one. Have a great day.