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Hey, this is christ with acking
your leadership. On today's discussion on employee

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engagement, we're gonna be over a
third of these new rules for employee engagement,

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as spoken about by Tracy Brower in
the New Rules for Increasing Engagement at

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Work article from Forbes. We started
this series two thursdays ago talking about proximity.

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Last week we talked about presence and
attention, and on this week we're

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going to talk about performance. You
know, I think there's a lot of

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discussion about performance because the employees who
perform well typically are more engaged, because

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it's really difficult to perform at a
high level if you are not engaged.

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But it's shortsighted to think that that's
all it is. Meaning there are employees

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who are actively disengaged or they have
a lack of engagement, and they will

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still perform for you because of different
reasons. Either they don't want to lose

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their job, or they're afraid of
what the outcomes will be if they aren't

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performing. And so I want to
be clear on this. This isn't just

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about oh, you know, if
you have high performance, you have high

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engagement. But if you have high
performance, it is a it's a good

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thing in terms of you know,
uh, you know, kind of a

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gut check for employee engagement. And
I think that the leaders who do what

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they can to make sure that people
are engaged in the work that they're doing

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in a way that drives performance,
I think that's the right way to go.

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Yeah, I agree. I think
that there's an element of this where

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especially over time, like like long
long term high performance, uh, it

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is typically driven through an element of
kind of a great culture and high levels

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of engagement. For sure. I
think we've talked about this before where you

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can have short spikes of performance and
it be it's engagement, but it's not

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positive engagement, right. You know, they're they're engaged because maybe they're they're

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feeling like their you know, careers
are you know, potentially being threatened or

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those types of things, but like
you cannot sustain that over long period of

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time. But it's absolutely one of
those types of things where it's a good

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indicator, especially over time. It's
interesting because I think it's also like low

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performance as well to a degree,
tends to get associated with disengagement, and

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so it's like if it's a low
performance, they're disengaged, well, not

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necessarily the same type of thing as
like, well, maybe they haven't been

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trained correctly, maybe they haven't been
spent spent enough time doing the task over

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and over again to gain confidence and
that type of thing. But that's why,

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from a leadership standpoint, the ability
to step in and to have the

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dialogue conversations, to be able to
observe the behaviors, be able to understand

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the motivations behind the person's performance is
really more of a way to truly understand

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engagement and be able to adjust strategies
or just connections or just conversations to then

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be able to raise engagement and then
raise performance. That's exactly right. The

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employees who have the highest level of
engagement, there's also a mix of you

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know, they're they're put in place
to use skills they have that you know

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their work is aligned with, but
that they also are in situations where they

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are stretched a little bit too.
No one wants to feel like they're stretched

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all the time because that will lead
to burnout very quickly. You can't operate

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that level all the time. You
have to have wins that are associated with

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being able to you know, the
correct application of the skills that you already

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have into wins and so it's it's
majority of that, but with challenges that

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stretch you. And so it's like
in sports, if high school football team

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was constantly playing against NFL teams,
Yeah, it's going to stretch them,

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but they're not going to be in
a position to ever showcase the skills that

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they've learned and the effort they've been
putting in because they're going to get creamed

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every single time. And so you
have to have this this kind of mix

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of you know, being able to
showcase your skills because the work is aligned

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with things you know how to do
in a way that lets you show that

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you can operate at a high level
a perform at a high level, but

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then also some opportunities to you know, be up against some things that are

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more challenging where you might not necessarily
have the clear cut win. You might

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have something where it's you know,
kind of a half win or the win

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is a learning as opposed to the
outcome you're looking for, and you take

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that away and show that you can
retain that knowledge for next time. So

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it's it's a mix. Nobody wants
to feel like their job is so easy

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that it never challenges them anymore unless
you are looking to be out of that

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job already and you're just looking to
get away as a little as possible.

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But if it's a job that you
generally enjoy and you're not looking to leave,

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it's really difficult to remain highly engaged
if the job is just almost you

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know, autopilot for you, like
you just you know, kind of put

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the blinders on and you move through
the day. That can get very boring

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very quickly, and most people I
know would start disengaging after a certain amount

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of time. With that, I
want to go over some of the things

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that leaders can do to raise employee
engagement using performance But first I want to

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give it word from our sponsors.
All Right, if you're a leader of

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PEP and you're trying to increase employee
engagement through the use of performance metrics,

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what you want to do is make
sure that your people have kind of a

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healthy mix of things that they can
they do throughout the day that showcase the

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skills they have and that they enjoy
doing, but also things that kind of

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stretch them a little bit. And
so it's important you meet with each of

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them to find out what it is
they love doing about their job what it

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is they don't like doing about their
job, so that you can kind of

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funnel the things they like doing more
into their lane and try to take away

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some of the things that they don't
like doing as much. And it's not

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always possible to get it exactly right, but any effort that you can show

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from a leader standpoint that you're taking
steps to do this, that you're trying

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to get them doing things throughout their
day that are more aligned with what they

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believe they're good at, while also
keeping the challenges coming. You'll increase employ

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engagement that way, because they'll know
that you have their back in terms of,

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you know, kind of filling their
day with the things they enjoy as

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opposed to, you know, the
grunt work or the work they don't enjoy

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doing, and they would write be
you know, doing the things they want

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to do instead. When you start
doing these things with your employees, what

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you'll notice is that this kind of
a cycle of performance and engagement feeds itself

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because highly engaged employees typically perform better, and then when you're performing better,

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you're able to kind of celebrate the
wins internally, which leads to greater engagement.

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And so it becomes this virtuous cycle
that feeds itself, and if you

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can get your employees into them,
I think you can get some some serious

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wins. As a leader, I
immediately think of all the things that are

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part of a job where you're like, that doesn't bring me a whole bunch

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of either joy or there are things
that like you just don't enjoy doing,

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like I put it to you that
way, like the stuff stuff on my

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calendar, m just like I really
don't want to do that, but I'm

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gonna do that because it's a part
of my role. But then there are

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things that really do bring you joy
and that you that you have a passion

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for, that you would like to
do more of, that fill your cup.

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And the thing that I appreciate most
is like, that's most of where

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I spend my time. And so
like the things that you have to do,

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you know, becomes just a small
part of the or a small part

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of the week, and they're easy
to kind of get through because you will

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know and understand that most of the
time that you get as a leader of

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people and a leader of leaders,
you get to do. And then there

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are things that really bring you joy. That's The power of the conversation and

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connection with your people in these spaces
is to start to understand what are those

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things on both sides, What are
the things that they might be really good

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at but they actually don't enjoy doing, And then what are the things that

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they really enjoy doing they have a
passion for, they have a talent for

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that you're able to then help them
to do that more often or apply that

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in different types of ways. When
you start to get to that point,

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then you start to see a good
uptick in performance and a really big upticket

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engagement. And I love kind of
what you talked about is like this virtuous

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cycle is like, once you get
into that space, then those things that

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I was mentioning earlier around like,
ah, these are the parts of the

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job I really don't like to do. You quickly forget about those or you

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work through them quickly you realize it's
just a part of your role that you

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have to get stuff done, and
you don't spend any time in that space

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because you're so engaged excited for spending
the time where you want to, and

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you're getting the outcomes and the performance
that allow you to have more bandwidth to

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do more of that type of stuff
right and over the It doesn't just matter

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from us from like a monthly or
annual standpoint. This applies to your entire

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career. And so if you were
in tune with this, then the higher

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performance will drive getting steps in your
career, you know, more and more

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promotions, and if you enjoy the
work that you are doing in the new

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roles that you're taking on, then
it continues to work itself. And you

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know, the people I know who
do all this correctly and then and they

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end up unhappy are the only the
ones who took on roles and assignments that

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they thought they were supposed to do
even though they genuinely didn't want to do

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it. And if you asked them
in hindsight they didn't want that role.

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They just thought that was the next
step, so they took it on and

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it led to them, you know, kind of a kind of a career

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change at some point in their life. But if you're if you're aware of

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the things that you enjoy doing when
you're making these decisions, and you are,

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and you start going for roles in
your career that align with those things,

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then you can make this cycle work
through your entire career, and eventually

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you get to a point where the
vast, vast majority of what you do

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every day is something you enjoy doing, and it's just kind of peppered in

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with things that you don't enjoy doing
as much. But the higher up you

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move within an organization or within your
career, typically the more control you have

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over your time and the more you
can, you know, delegate things that

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can be used as learning opportunities for
your people as opposed to taking all that

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that work for yourself and letting you
focus on where you want to where you

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really want to be, which is
leading people. If that's kind of the

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Tortu're caring. Thank you all for
joining us on this episode. Join us

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next week for another one. We'll
talk about the next new rule for employee

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engagement. Have a great day,