Dr. John Demartini is a human behavioural specialist, founder of the Demartini Institute, international best-selling author, educator and business consultant working with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, celebrities and sports personalities. His trademarked methodologies, the Demartini Method and the Demartini Value Determination, are the culmination of 42 years of cross-disciplinary research and study. His work has been incorporated into human development industries across the world.
Here we have Dr. Demartini addressing the issue of employee engagement which was a topic discussed at his keynote speech at Pendulum Summit, Dublin.
Employee engagement will be one of the greatest challenges you will face in your entrepreneurial business career. Disengaged employees can burden and cost your business heavily. Uninspired and uncommitted employees can stunt innovation, weaken customer relationships, lower team performance, and diminish productivity. As a business leader it is wise not to operate within an outdated leadership model and master the art of employee and customer engagement.
Disengaged employees will underlie one of your greatest business management challenges. A century ago autocratic leaders simply issued orders and subordinates obeyed. Now more educated employees ask ‘why’. They want meaning and fulfillment according to their individual highest values. This requires an engaging and relational leadership method – involving purpose, priority, productivity and distributed power. Making productive relationships with employees is ultimately your highest priority because they are your most valuable, value-creating and value-sustaining assets you have. Gallup found businesses with above-average levels of employee engagement reap 147 percent higher earnings per share. When your employee and customer engagement are above average, you will experience a great jump in performance-related business outcomes. As a leader, your employee respect is the most powerful predictor of your employee engagement. When your employees feel respected they become 55% more engaged.
As an engagement focused business leader you will offer more to your shareholders by creating engaged and productive employees and buying customers. When you as a leader are engaged, your words become your actions and you are more likely to re-invest in your employee’s learning, mentoring, team-building, involvement and compensation. These areas express employee value and build appreciation and greater respect and productivity.
To be an engaging leader you will require purpose-filled people; you will emphasize mission/purpose, and your employees will be doing meaningful responsibilities every day. These are the two strongest factors for retaining quality modern employees. When short-term financial goals are substituted for purpose and meaning, employee engagement and commitment diminishes. Employee meaning and purpose is a high job priority. Commitment-worthy purpose means touching your employees and customers in a meaningful way, which in-turn captures their inspiration and delivers a unifying magnetic pull.
A wise question to ask yourself is “where and in what way can you contribute to your employees and customers lives most profoundly?” The primary purpose of your business is not your shareholder value, but rather to serve your employees and customer’s interests. This ends up in the long run being the wisest way to serve your shareholder interests.
As a wise leader your intention is to inspire, engage and empower your employees. This will stimulate and distribute energy and empowerment throughout your organization. It is wise to ask yourself, “How can everyone involved become more powerful?” More powerful people make more powerful business organizations. When you become overpowering and lose touch with your people they stop attending carefully to what your customer think and feel is most important. Increased power-sharing amongst your employees is the key to scaling the human-energy demands for innovating new products, building strong customer relationships, and growing your markets.
Multiplying your power occurs by giving a portion of it away. By allowing yourself to become more communicative and transparent, less exclusive, and controlling and by leading by example you will bring about the greatest performance out of others and build high-performance teams. Indifference is expensive, hostility is unaffordable and trust according to their true highest values is priceless. Congruent and engaged leaders, employees and customers are what pay the greatest dividends.
