Employee Engagement | Full Sail Leadership Academy

Education and Experiential Learning is the Key

New workers learn their role in an organization best when they feel it is safe to admit they do not understand something completely. They ask questions to clarify their ambiguity. These same workers learn from mistakes when they are coached with care and concern versus condemnation and coercion.

I have been a crew member on racing boats where the skipper and first mate belittled new crew members for mistakes and questions. When the new crew members held their questions or acted timidly due to fear of failing, accidents and dangerous situations usually followed close behind. Their fear and timidity put the other crew member’s lives at risk.

The investigation into the crash of Asiana Flight 214 in July 2013 concluded: “Among the other issues raised by the investigation are some that long have concerned aviation officials, including hesitancy by some pilots to abort a landing when things go awry or to challenge a captain’s actions.”

Three people died in this crash and 200 people were seriously injured.

In 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill occurred due to “a failure to share critical information from their onshore staff, as well as reports from their drilling partner” according to US Coast Guard reports. Sadly, eleven men lost their lives due to this communication failure and almost five million barrels of oil were discharged in the Gulf of Mexico.

Several years ago, I worked for a former three-star Army general. We were having a discussion of a potential move that would take me from managing a territory to working on the corporate staff marketing team. I was asked to name who would be key players on my potential staff and who may need to move on.

Knowing the General had his own opinion, I asked: “Sir, how candid can I be?”.

I will never forget his response when he said “In the military, we have a motto that says ‘lack of candor can kill'” I was then told that total candor is what he expected. This experience would turn out to be one of my best experiences in learning. Second only to the lessons learned while sailing.

The Teams on Course Model Prevails

In December of 2014, the $6 million dollar racing yacht “Vestas Wind” crashed onto a shoal in the Indian Ocean while traveling at a speed of 22 knots (25mph). The crew failed to check “old fashioned” paper charts and simply relied on what they saw on their chart plotter. Most importantly the navigator failed to communicate his lack of checking all the details until after the accident. They knew the mission but failed to share information.

Often sharing information falls apart when there is a lack of trust and respect.

The Full Sail Model

The Full Sail model teaches that shared language flows first from understanding and believing in the vision and mission.

Furthermore, it teaches that shared language must be rehearsed and continually practiced to build trust and respect. Once learners absorb these concepts in the classroom, they have the opportunity to anchor the learning by putting the concepts into practice while sailing.

Let’s start a dialog about the communication issues that may be holding you back from creating a psychologically safe workplace. Improving how your team views their ability to share ideas, opinions, or questions can have an impact on profitability and productivity. Contact me today!

3 min read

According to the Gallup organization, companies with greater employee engagement are 21% more profitable that those with lower employee engagement. Unfortunately, across the nation, 70-75% of all workers are disengaged from their work. Today, only 15% of all workers when surveyed score as completely engaged in their work. This article will address the costs of disengagement and will offer solutions to improve engagement.

Growing profits begins with identifying the costs

We can all wring our hands and complain about disengaged employees. We may even have a sense that their disengagement may be costing us in lack of productivity. It’s another story when we begin to measure the cost. Two studies (1) were recently discussed at a Franklin Covey facilitators workshop which revealed that for every $10,000 of employee salary, $3,400 was lost to disengaged workers. Put another way, 34% of all wages are lost through disengagement.

Following this logic, if a company’s average salary was $60,000 per year, each disengaged workers’ disengagement costs the company $20,400. If this is a better than average company and only 60% of the workforce is disengaged (versus Gallup’s 70-75%), a company with 100 employees, the bottom-line impact on the company is a loss of $1,224,000!

Values, Vision and Voice is only a starting point

Many organizations talk about their vision, and some even post their values on posters throughout the office. “I have an open-door policy”, has been uttered by mid- level managers and C- Suite executives alike, but when it is time for their staff to take advantage of the policy, it takes three weeks to get on the executive’s calendar. When the meeting happens, the exec is checking their text messages and emails. “Your opinion matters around here”, quickly becomes a trite saying without much belief among the staff.

Employee beliefs, trust and feelings become jaded when they see values compromised and vision clouded.

When the open-door policy seems like the “closed-door” policy, employees begin to feel isolated and engagement plummets. As engagement plummets, turnover increases and costs of recruitment and training the new staff begin to add up. This can be avoided by going beyond communicating about values, vision and voice and working on building a culture of connection and conviction.

Tom Peters had it right

Early in my business career, Tom Peters was the management guru to listen to. This was at the same time that hair bands ruled the radio and Top Gun, Back to the Future and The Breakfast Club ruled the big screen. I remember watching my VHS videotape during a training session as Peters screamed the virtues of MBWA. MBWA is an acronym for Managing By Wandering Around. Peters would go on to say that this managing by wandering around was just the start, much like values, vision and voice are the start. “Management is about arranging and telling, while leadership is about nurturing and enhancing” he was often quoted to say.

It is in the nurturing and enhancing that engagement grows and deepens.

Nurturing and enhancing is the way to build a connection between the employee and the organization. In turn, it is how seemingly sterile or aspirational values and vision become transformational, enduring convictions. The effort of nurturing and enhancing creates an affinity between the executive and employee and models how the relationships between staff should flow.

Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” ~ Mary Kay Ash

Validation… The Missing “V”

As true leaders nurture and enhance, they are also doing something very important, if not vital in the workplace. True leaders offer a form of validation to the people that they lead and serve alongside with. Employees want to feel like they are an important part of the team. They want to feel like their work matters to the organization and that their opinions matter to the people in leadership as well as their fellow teammates. Employees also want to feel a connection to people that they serve with on the team. It’s no accident that employees that respond in the affirmative that “I have a best friend in my place of work” have longer tenure and that they stay engaged in the important matters of the company.

Sailing to greater profits

There’s no better place to learn the importance of employee engagement and how to build greater team connections than on the deck of a sailboat. The lessons gained from sailing can help unify your team as well as open up the dialog about what is slowing down the progress to the vision, mission, shared language, trust and respect that are vital to success.

Let’s schedule a time for your team to get out on the water to grow together, relax together and create a breakthrough together. Who knows, it might just lead to greater productivity and profitability.

Psychological Safety At Work and At Sea