Imagine that your role in a major city government organization did not involve sitting behind a big desk working with the mayor’s office at city hall. Instead, your job is to manage physical facilities from a broom closet, or handle furniture moves from a warehouse along the Hudson River. You’re with the Department of Finance for the City of New York, but your job isn’t to allocate tax payer funds across precincts. Your job is to disperse paper toilet rolls across bathrooms.
Such was the case for group that was awkwardly tacked on to a city finance department. The parent organization collected more taxes than any other municipality in the world. But you wouldn’t know it walking into their world. They struggled with a number of challenges:
- They were dismissed by upper management. Not only did the team’s welfare not matter to the rest of the organization, but complaints about the warehouse from the rest of the agency were open and loud.
- They were poorly resourced and budgeted for. For example, part of the warehouse was flooded at certain times of the year from the rise of tide along the river.
- The organization experienced budget cut after budget cut, followed by organizational changes that left them with one hand tied behind their backs.
- Employee engagement surveys were conducted, but nothing came of the results, which continually dipped year to year.
- Workers received little recognition for the work they were doing.
As a result, morale was at a huge low. Most people felt chewed up and spit out. They wanted to align themselves with the bigger mission of the organization. But how? What was that mission? Cleaning toilets? Moving trash?
Imagining a better vision of the kind of service her team would deliver, the manager contemplated the experience of what it’s like to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Clearly, the site management would never be able to offer a facility as impressive as the Waldorf. But they could offer service that was equally impressive. They may not be able to provide million-dollar rooms, but they could provide million-dollar service.
This leader had to engage her employees around this notion. That required the warehouse taking ownership of their experience. As a team, they were taught to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. With support, they developed their own vision statement, built a scorecard and dashboard for improving service, and invested time in customer service training and development.
In time, not only did employee engagement scores rise, but completion of work orders on a timely basis went from an abysmal 28 percent to 98 percent. This increase came from a lot of hard work and a focus on serving others. The manager who led the team through these challenges was nominated by her peers for her leadership and courage to tackle this difficult area. It was a testament that great success can truly come from any corner of the organization.
Curiously, Gallup notes that organizations of less than 25 employees are far more engaging (41 percent) compared to organizations of 5,000 or more employees (29 percent). If this is so, try thinking of your organization as a bunch of small businesses, where you hold each department accountable to determine their fate by figuring out how to deliver the results you seek to achieve. How can senior leaders empower supervisors and team leaders to create that culture? How do you ensure that you don’t have silos of engaged teams but, instead, a unified larger organization?
Organizations need to move more toward intrapreneurship. This is about creating a culture where the following occur:
- Engagement strategies are framed by leadership and informed by the experiences of staff members and frontline supervisors.
- Employees are trusted and empowered to take the organization where it needs to go.
- A culture of learning is developed where people not only learn from their mistakes but also build on them.
- Leadership builds on people’s strengths, rather than on their weaknesses.
- Supervisors are expected to coach and develop their employees rather than just oversee their work.
To facilitate intrapreneurship, leaders need to allow teams and individuals to clarify their own mission and to determine how to drive the results that matter to the organization. In doing so, they will find a more engaged workforce; and with that engagement in place, they will be set to deliver greater results to the public they serve.
