Category Archives: Stakeholder Engagement

What I learned from Adam Cohen about leadership excellence and organisational success

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At the Ottawa Folk Festival last weekend, I learned an unexpected lesson in organisational success from Adam Cohen.

It took me a few days to analyze what I had observed. I couldn’t determine if it was the wonderful musical experience, the fantastic music, Adam Cohen’s skill as performer or the exuberance of being out for an evening without kids that was energizing me. But it suddenly dawned on me. I had just witnessed exactly what I hope every person working in their job can have the opportunity to experience: flow and optimization.

The Experience

On stage, I saw the most tangible experience of a high functioning team that I have ever seen. I can’t prove it quantitatively, but I saw what a successful organisation looks like. I could see Adam playing a strong, charismatic leadership role, but with zero grandstanding.  His leadership was earned leadership, not forced. He was continually checking in with his band. I saw him caring for the experience of everyone that was participating in the event. His band, the audience, the sound crew – everyone was playing a vital role.  It was so much more than the music. Adam’s care and intentionality was so evident in the energy he projected, and that energy was clearly reciprocated. I could see respect and pride in each of the band member’s faces. His gratefulness to his audience was bouncing back to him, feeding the band. I saw every member of the band looking like they were the happiest people on the planet to be up there doing their job on the stage.  I felt that enthusiasm ripple through the crowd, like a wave. It was like a kitchen party with my closest friends, instead of a crowd of hundreds of strangers.

The lesson

And that is the magic that can happen when a group of people with shared purpose, brilliant cohesion,fluid leadership, and focused intent gets together. It is powerful. I realized that this has inspired me and reawakened my interest about organisational health and excellence in a very tangible way. I believe that this experience is exactly what I want to help others recreate within their organisational systems. I believe it is possible to create this kind of energy in any organisation and any environment.

Why can’t all organisations be like this? Shifting belief.

The main barrier I see is that often organisational leaders don’t believe that it is possible to create this energizing and optimal situation. They don’t believe that staff and workers could ever get this excited while working. They can’t even imagine it, and that stops them. I know, because part of my rational mind mocks my own belief. Consequently, people accept mediocrity. This limiting belief system means they stop trying, or stop trying very hard.  But the truth is, I think people desperately want to have this experience. Who wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning excited and energized to go to work? Luckily for us, there are plenty of tools to grow and inspire this kind of energy in organisation, and you don’t need to know all the answers. What you do need to do is shift toward believing it is possible.

And it is easy to look at someone like Adam, and say to yourself “no way, I can’t do that”. Yes, he has exceptional innate leadership qualities. Yes, he has charisma. Yes, he has wisdom. Yes, his dad clearly rubbed off on him.  But I believe what he has developed more of is philosophy. I could see his philosophy in the way he smiled encouragement to the sound crew. At the way he honoured his team. At his humbleness and appreciation to the crowd. In the way he engaged.  And philosophy is something that can be learned by anyone. A person with a rock solid philosophy always acts authentically in keeping with their beliefs. What Adam created, and how he behaved, was a consequence of what he believed.

Honouring keadership

Today is Leonard Cohen week at CBC, I want to say thank you Leonard Cohen, for producing Adam, and for the influence he may have had.  Thank you Adam, for your dedication and philosophy, and for showing me, and the world, what can happen when you combine passion, care and intentionality for the betterment of the whole. He proved that a high functioning organisation is possible.

PS. Get the album. It is fantastic!

Shift your thinking: Engage employees as internal stakeholders

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ycs4What’s a stakeholder, anyway?

A client recently told me he disliked the word “stakeholder.” Every time it came up, he pictured himself standing beside a barbeque grill, fork in hand, a juicy “steak” dangling from it. The word clearly suffers from ambiguity.

However, at its root, this vision of a stakeholder isn’t far from the truth.  Picture instead a land surveyor, decked out in work boots, hard hat, and tromping through the forest with a bag of stakes and a mallet to drive them into the ground. The stakeholder’s role is clearly to put those stakes in the ground, thereby making decisions and identifying the boundaries and ownership of the land.

The reality is stakeholders are powerful. They can have tremendous influence, impact decisions, and affect the future. The same is true in organizations. But, we need more people to view their employees as stakeholders. This simple reframing, this change in language, can make a huge difference.

Consider this: Websters defines an “employee” as “a person hired by another or by a business firm to work for wages or salary.” Employees are defined by the service they provide and to some extent by their dependency to the employer. Viewing employees as internal stakeholders gives them a stake in the company – it opens up the door of engagement on a more authentic and deeper level.

Meaningful employee engagement

One of the paradoxes of employee engagement is that some employers appear to engage, but do it at a very basic, sometimes superficial way. Their motive is primarily to keep employees generally happy and to encourage them to stay with the organization. That’s all fine and good, but activities in this vein miss a fundamental opportunity – for employees to truly have a stake in the company, to participate in decision-making, and to use their influence to help create a more vibrant, sustainable, and resilient organization.

When stakeholders participate in decision-making, when “they” become part of the “we,” both individuals and the organization as a whole benefit. From my experience, here are just a few of the benefits:

  • Trust
  • Resiliency
  • Inventive decision-making
  • Buy-in
  • Consistency
  • Openness
  • Team building
  • Positive energy

Four ways to meaningfully engage employees

1. Signal a change calling employees “stakeholders.” Or at least make the mental switch from thinking of employees as servants and dependents to thinking of them as active players in your organization’s success.

2. Ask internal stakeholders for help. Yes, this takes courage, but it is a sign of true leadership. Internal stakeholders who feel their perspective is valued will rise to the challenge of helping a company to innovate and thrive.

3. Create a stakeholder engagement framework. Get away from merely communicating one-way messages to employees and instead explore communication that invites broader, more inclusive engagement over time.

4. Realize internal stakeholder engagement, at its core, is about involving people in the decision-making process – and about being clear about how stakeholders can participate at that level. This doesn’t necessary mean people make decisions, but it is always about meaningful involvement in the process.

Shift your mindset today. Begin thinking of and referring to your employees as stakeholders – and treating them as such. Empower them to engage in the decision-making process and reap the collective rewards.