Shining a Light into the Deep, Dark Place of Employee Disengagement

Every organization has them—those employees who assume the worst about the company or their boss and loudly verbalize their assumptions about the “real” motives behind new organizational policies or disagreement with the new direction of the company.  These employees very quickly imagine the worst possible ramifications of what might happen to them or their work in the face of organizational change.  They let their minds wander to a deep, dark place of possible negative outcomes rather than seeking to understand and support the organization’s change initiative.

Based on the current mood in my organization, our deep, dark place seems pretty crowded.  

You can get a peek into that deep, dark place in many places in my organization.  On the Graffiti Wall—an anonymous comment board that fills quickly with negative or disparaging comments.  The annual Employee Engagement Survey, which shows a continuing downward trend of mistrust and disengagement.  The annual Ombudsman reports that highlight the top five workforce complaints over the past year.  In responses to the Director’s on-line blog posts and questions asked at organizational Town Halls.  These portals into our organizational culture reveal a significant amount of fear and mistrust among our workforce in the face of several significant changes in our organization’s business practices and mission focus.  

To be fair, I believe some of this negativity falls into a “culture of contrarianism” that exists in our workforce rather than true discontent.  Many defend their negative commentary by reminding us, “I’m an analyst, what do you expect?”  Or, “Courage is one of our leader competencies, so I’m just going to say it….” But regardless of the motive, this negativity often paves the way for a deeper, darker kind of commentary that is normally not verbalized publicly in an organization.  And any positive narrative is quickly eclipsed by the overwhelming negative response.  And predictably, in the face of public, organized resistance and falling public approval ratings, our senior leaders often start to question their conviction. Eventually someone in a position of authority—and it only takes one in the decision chain—decides that we need to study the problem further, slow down implementation, or compromise on the original goals and objectives.  As an organization attempting to be more agile in the face of significant changes in our industry and our value proposition, our Agency cannot afford to question its commitment to the change initiatives that it has undertaken.  Every delayed decision, and each leader who chooses to opt-out of managing change, increases the likelihood that we will fall short of achieving our ambitious goals.  

Fortunately, there is a way to guide the discussion toward positivity.  In an article entitled, “How to Respond to Negativity,” (Harvard Business Review, Sep 2012) CEO Peter Bregman identifies three ways to address negative personalities in the workplace:

1.    Understand how they feel, and validate it

2.    Find a place to agree with them

3.    Find out what they are positive about, and reinforce it

My experience as a senior executive suggests that this approach, which is really about practicing empathy, is very effective at calming fears and creating an environment for true dialogue.  For example, when I was implementing a new promotion process that shifted focus from a small hiring panel selecting the best-qualified candidate for a single promotional opportunity to using a corporate promotion panel to select the best candidates to serve at the next level, I encountered a large number of people who were concerned about the fairness of the new process.  In responding, I very often started out by reminding them of the well-known flaws in the old system that only considered individuals with skill in a single job, which severely limited the pool of qualified applicants.  Or how a three-person hiring panel made up of members of the hiring unit perpetuated unconscious bias that could result in selection of a less-qualified but better-known candidate.  Acknowledging their feelings and identifying common areas of agreement did not necessarily alleviate their fears about the new process, but it did start the conversation with agreement that they did not really trust the old process either. They were then more willing to consider the benefits of the new system and focus on the positive aspects of the new approach that they did agree with.

Trust and fear are strong emotions, and logic alone cannot compel our workforce to be positive about large-scale organizational change.  But I believe we can (and must) work deliberately to create a culture of trust and positivity if we are to achieve the ambitious goals we have set out.  One of our Agency’s greatest strengths is its ability to organize at the grass-roots level and leverage activist employees in implementing ideas at the local-level.  We should seek out these leaders and encourage them to serve as beacons of light for those teammates who want our organization to succeed, but who find themselves lost in the dark place of uncertainty that they find themselves today.  

Originally published July 11, 2016