Lies, Damned Engagement Scores and Statistics

"There are three kinds of lies", wrote Mark Twain, "lies, damned lies and statistics".

He could just as easily have been talking about engagement scores.

Don't get me wrong, they matter. You, leader, should really care about your team's engagement scores. And the situation is in need of attention: Gallup has just released its global workplace survey and found that just 20% of employees are "engaged". Yikes (still, it used to be worse - in 2009 that was 12%).

The insight, though, is in the workings of the engagement survey. Wheels within wheels and all that. I once worked for an incoming CEO who showed the board a huge increase in engagement six months after his commencement, simply by changing the survey provider. He did the same with NPS, the wily fellow.

And there's engagement with the company vs engagement with the team. Leader, the latter is the one you directly impact. In companies going through trouble, engagement with the company might be low. But engagement with the leader can still be very high - it is a leader's role in these circumstances to serve the team by creating clarity from ambiguity and conjure opportunity in difficulty. It is possible.

Some of the most engaging moments happen in crisis. During the GFC, I was working in an investment bank and our share price plummeted ($93 to $15) but as a junior banker, I'd never felt more alive: we were purposefully finding ways to help our terrified clients and it was thrilling. I realise how embarrassingly nerdy that sounds and I don't care. I loved it.

As a senior leader, I twice experienced the very public departure of the CEO. As ambassadors for the organisations, my peers and I felt this keenly. But we also got to focus on what really mattered: our clients and our people. No one could argue with that. So, relieved of the internal meetings, and having this luxury of focus meant we had never been tighter with our teams and the market. Our people felt this, and appreciated it, which showed up in our engagement at the local leader level.

I've known leaders to stand over their people and watch them fill out engagement surveys. Don't do that. And don't roll out the drinks events just before the survey. Your people are not silly and they should give you a low score for assuming they are.

Engagement surveys aren't everything. But they're not lies either.

Choose a more powerful path.