A national consulting agency's recent survey indicates that 40% of employees trust their boss.
Talk about stopping me in my tracks...this means 60% do not. Can you imagine what would happen if 60% of the parents who brought the children to us for treatment didn't "trust" us? Our jobs would be SO much harder. We can ring our hands about why this statistic exists or we all can take the "acknowledge it, own it, change it" approach.
Influenced by the last employee engagement survey and focus groups which were designed to learn more about your feedback, your senior leaders are working on how we can become better leaders, individually and as a team. We realize that to truly change our culture and make lasting improvements we have to “start at the top”.
Ok, stop the eye roll. You know how this works - change is a lot easier when your leaders are working together to address both organizational issues and team issues. And let me tell you, the work is personally hard! Not hard like learning how to talk and walk again, but hard because you have to "own" the things as a leader you bring to the table that affects your team and then find ways to address it to make improvements.
So, full disclosure here - For me my issues are around trust, once someone or something that I have invested in breaks my trust, it is very hard for me to trust again or reinvest in the same way. Usually it happens with the State or Insurance companies but it happens with individuals too. This gets in the way of getting the work done because I am constantly looking for ulterior motives. I wait to be disappointed again or even worse, find ways to work around people or issues. Because I am afraid of being disappointed I simply take the issue away from happening in the first place.And you know what? It takes a lot of energy that is not positive. And it doesn't bring out the best in me.
So what am I doing about this besides acknowledging it to 1200 people? I am taking it in steps. Being authentic with people and telling them when whatever the interaction that happened didn't feel right, or my perception of how it was going to go versus how it went didn’t match up. I am trying to talk through it - not stew in my own head but finding ways to discuss whatever the issue is.
This takes a leap of faith – a shift in my thinking about why something happened and most importantly, it requires trust that together we can move the organization forward in a more successful way than working separately.
All of us on the senior leadership team are working on how we lead individually and as a team - you will see the results of this work play out in many different ways through our employee engagement efforts, in direct response to your valuable input. New communication and feedback vehicles, more training and mentoring opportunities, and more thank you's for the great work done every day, consistently to stay on our journey to be the best we can be.
This work is not about a quick fix or the latest management book fads. Building trust through authentic listening and communication is a cornerstone to a positive culture. It takes time and focused effort to see the results but we are committed to taking this path together.
You will be hearing soon and regularly from Randy Blackmon, our employee engagement and service excellence officer, reviewing again the details of the last survey results, current and upcoming employee engagement efforts and how we are implementing improvements through our Operation Excellence performance model. The Engagement League (I see capes and super powers in our future- no really) have made a strong commitment to keep you better informed year round. Stay tuned.
Not sure if any of this resonates with you but if you have suggestions for me or the team, I would welcome your thoughts and suggestions. I will repost this on the blog so you can share your thoughts with your colleagues.
