Based on solid archeological research, scientists have identified specific behaviors of the original Neanderthals.  These included socializing in small groups and rarely venturing outside that group.  They viewed new people with skepticism and fear.  They lacked the ability to deal with different types of people.

Neanderthals also lacked the ability to innovate.  Their tools changed very little over thousands of years of existence.  They were known as neophobic because they would tend to reject new ideas or avoid trying new things.  Moreover, Neanderthals relied on power, authority, and status to get their way and to maintain control.

If you believe our organizations must adapt to the complexity of the new knowledge economy in order to thrive shouldn’t our leaders evolve beyond the characteristics of Neanderthals?  Furthermore, if you accept employee engagement as a key factor in our ability to adapt, I believe you will want to take note of the following behaviors of the current Neanderthals while asking, “What role can I play to avoid these behaviors myself and what role can I play to provide feedback to who behave like Neanderthals?

Favoritism

They display favoritism toward those they like.  They tend to exhibit a bias toward those who share their view points, their communication styles, and/or their characteristics.  They surround themselves with “YES” people.  Although they claim to have an open door policy and to be open to new ideas, their actions belie those claims.  They subtly favor certain people and certain ideas.

Favoritism often comes from the desire to evaluate individuals and the failure to evaluate and improve the system within which they work.

The inability to anticipate others’ possible emotional reactions

Current Neanderthals often fail in their ability to demonstrate emotional intelligence.  They tend to communicate in ways that ignore others’ possible negative emotional reactions.  They discount the impact on productivity and quality of the emotional state of mind of employees.  They ignore their role as an influencer of a positive emotional environment and how that environment is a key factor in implementing change and performance improvement.

Rely too heavily on their authority for decisions

Neanderthals believe they should be all knowing (omniscient) and all powerful (omnipotent) in order to get results.  Of course they can never possess either of these traits but that does not stop them from pretending.  Instead of pushing decisions to those closest to the “work action” they feel compelled to control results with quick decisions and they often do it with bias and a failure to use relevant data.  They like to “know best” what to do and they tend to believe only their intellect can solve the problems in the organization.  They often ignore the possibility that other might have better information.

Blame others for failures

Neanderthals create an environment that generates failure and then blame the people who make the mistakes.  They rarely appreciate how a system works.  They view the parts of the organization as the cause for failures or mistakes.  They focus on evaluating people and holding them accountable for their individual achievements while they ignore the impact their decisions have on their mistakes people make.

Summary

If you think you might be a Neanderthal or if you know someone who is you can change yourself and you can influence them to change too.  One of the root causes of this behavior is our mind sets.  To change this please read about how to study a system and how to understand systems thinking.  Read about employee engagement.  Study material about complexity and chaos theory.  Begin to realize that the quality of the interactions between the parts of a system is more important than the quality of the individual parts of that system.

If you are willing to study these ideas you will then appreciate how our current way of thinking must evolve beyond the Neanderthal mind set.  You will begin to change your behaviors and that will begin to influence others to change.

We need employee engagement not employee control

Employee engagement is now known to be one of the most important drivers of sustained organizational results.  The results from employee engagement are holistic or optimal.  This means that the improved results are not mitigated by any damage to individual employee well-being (burnout, unhealthy stress, or turnover) or to the system as a whole (reduced quality or damaged customer loyalty).

The typical organizational culture appears to hold a false belief about leaders (or any leader).  Once promoted, this new leaders somehow now is endowed with superior intelligence and judgment just by the very event of the promotion.  This false belief can damage a leader’s ability to listen.

In many organizations leaders are put into a position with assumed (perhaps even demanded) omnipotence and omniscience.  For example, leaders are usually put in a position of judgment about employee behaviors and performance.  They are required to approve changes to procedures and sometimes even policy.  They often steal, or even hoard, decision making responsibility or information and they can ignore input from employees about performance improvement ideas.  Employees who perceive that they have less decision making freedom and less opportunity to express their creativity, and will not be heard will have reduced engagement.

Leaders behave “unconsciously” with the best of intentions.  They are operating as best they can within the limits of our current way of thinking and within the current assumed hierarchical pyramid structure of the organization.  For example, many leaders will claim to have an “open-door” policy yet they will also need to manage people with a fear based policy such as the performance review.

The environment created by the control policies such as the performance review or pay-for-performance creates fear that causes an employee to want to walk past that “open door.”  Because of this, a leader remains unconscious because the environment does not allow a safe exchange of the truth.

We can overcome the unconscious behavior

How can we overcome these unconscious behaviors?  First, we must acknowledge that our thinking needs to change.  We must stop being unconscious about our limited leadership paradigms.  We must embrace the idea that leaders are not omnipotent or omniscient and allow everyone to make mistakes while working as a team to make the whole system better.  We need to think of a leader as a facilitator of improvement and not a judge of people.  Even the role of coach is incorrect because it still suggests that the leader (or coach) has a higher level of knowledge or intelligence.  Often times this is not true, especially when the leader is new to the role.

Second, we must be able and willing to give the “unconscious leader” feedback about his/her behaviors.  As leaders, we must be willing to receive feedback and as peers, or employees we must see that it is safe to give it.  We need a new way of thinking about the leader that starts with this role of facilitator.

Third, we need changes in our policies about people.  We need to replace the current performance review and pay-for-performance which were specifically created to control people and which damage employee engagement.

Finally, as leaders we need to be more observant of the impact we have on others.  This is one of the key competencies of emotional intelligence.  Being aware of the emotional mind set of others is a key skill to knowing how to be a better leader.  I am hopeful my friend at church noticed how I left the bathroom before he finished his monologue.  If he did notice, he can perhaps change his approach next time and that will encourage improved open and honest communication.

We have a major problem with our ability to lead people and to solve our problems. We seem stuck.   OK, I appear to be a “Debbie Downer” but think about it.  Are things getting better, getting worse, or staying the same?  How confident are you we can lead our way out of these tragic situations?  What if everything we have been taught is wrong and that explains why we are stuck?

I am questioning the very foundation of our improvement models i.e. our leadership theory.  I know it is scary but consider please that we may have been misled and continue to be deceived.   For example, how can we be putting so much effort into the most important initiatives and still remain stalled?  Our children are our most important asset and yet we are unable to make significant improvements in schools to boost their learning experiences?

Leadership theory is the model (or paradigm) that helps us to decide how we think about people and problems.  How we think is significant because it leads to the actions we choose to solve the problems.  For example, if you don’t trust people you will create more rules and policies to follow.  Furthermore, you will set up processes to “ding” them when they wander off plan.

A leader’s paradigm creates an impression because it creates an environment that influences certain behaviors.  My mom used to be unpredictable. I never knew when she was in a good mood or a bad mood.  I would “walk on egg shells” until I knew it was safe to “be myself.”  If I knew she had a bad mood, I would be very cautious about what I said.  Her mood and her way of thinking influenced my behaviors.

We need a revolution in the leadership of schools so that students are free to learn and teachers are free to facilitate that learning. We need a revolution in our organizations (one leader at a time) where each of us decides to embrace a paradigm that significantly boosts employee engagement. That shift will improve innovation, productivity, and performance.

I believe Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s theory of Profound Knowledge offers our best hope for our future.   Deming helped us to understand that a system has interdependencies and interactions.  He taught us that the qualities of the interactions in a system are more important than the parts of the system.  He taught us that there will always be variation and we must be able to manage that variation with knowledge of the system.  He helped us to appreciate how to accumulate knowledge.  He helped us to appreciate the differences between people and not treat them as widgets in an assembly line.

Take a moment and answer these questions. They challenge our current paradigm and they might begin to convince you that everything we have been taught is wrong.

• If people are the most important asset why do we insist on creating fear by rating them with performance appraisals and pay for performance?
• If people are emotional beings and employee engagement is an emotional reaction why do so few organizations encourage the respectful expression of emotion in the workplace?
• If grading students is a good idea why do 80% of high school students admit to cheating?

Perhaps we need to study and understand Dr. Deming’s Theory of Profound Knowledge.  Perhaps everything we have learned is wrong.

What problem should we address that will make the most difference for American businesses today?  I want to help organizations dissolve the employee engagement problem.  Engaged employees have an emotional connection to work.  They voluntarily exert extra effort into their work.  They do this without being threatened, bribed or even asked.  To make us more competitive on the global stage we must improve our employee engagement.  Improvement in technology can help but it is not the full answer.  We must tap into every heart and mind of every employee in order to catch up to the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans etc.  Our average engagement in the USA is around 26%.  That is a problem.

If we are to follow Einstein’s advice, we must begin to think differently?  The fastest way to change your thinking is to change your language.  I have a suggestion for my Human Resources Management friends.  Change your name from Human Resource Management Department to Human Potential Leadership Department.

When we look up the word resources in the dictionary we find a source of supply or a means of spending.  This definition suggests a limit or a finite amount.  Human Potential Leadership suggests unlimited supply.  The dictionary clarifies this with the words “possibility and development”.  The greatest sin a leader can commit is not allowing people to achieve their full potential.

There can be three elements within the Human Potential Leadership paradigm:

• Leadership of the Context
• Management of Processes
• Self-management by all the people

Leadership of the context means an environment that allows everyone to reach their full potential.  This environment has freedom and choice and encourages to self-management of employees’ own behavior.  This type of environment naturally rewards (not with money but with learning and intrinsic rewards) self-reliance, problem solving, and learning.  It demands a clear vision, aim and strategy for optimum action and faster decision making.  It avoids dependence on management for everyday decisions that are required to solve everyday type problems.

Management of processes means just that.  Notice I did not mention management of people.  Instead everyone is already naturally involved with managing their own processes and their own interactions within those processes.  This means everyone is clear about their hand offs to internal and external customers.  They know how to use quality improvement tools and they apply the tools every day to improve those hand offs.

Self-management refers to the creation of trust through consistent behavior.  This behavior is in alignment with natural principles and values.  It refers to emotional intelligence.  It means treating everyone with respect in every situation.  It means social responsibility and full transparency without negative consequences.  It means full integrity with everything.

Why would a professional organization that must provide service to its employees feel they are stupid?  Are they?  Certainly not!  Is the HR department flawed?  Have they hired the wrong people?  Certainly not!  This belief (feeling) is a symptom of the quality of leadership at the top.  The senior leaders have failed to include one of the most important things managers need to do a good job, to feel joy in work and to be engaged.  They failed to fully empower employees to manage their own processes.  They are attempting to manage from the top instead of leading from the top.

I have identified seven key initial conditions to create an engaged workforce.  The article can be found at:  http://ezinearticles.com/?The-7-Initial-Conditions-to-Achieve-Employee-Engagement&id=6555104.  I won’t take the time here to repeat all seven.  The empowering of employees to remove their own barriers is usually missing and that is what stops employee engagement in its tracks.  Empowering employees to solve their own problems is only paid lip service and rarely fully implemented.  That is one of the key root causes of the “You can’t fix stupid”
attitude.   If leaders truly trusted employees to study and improve their system interactions, this poor attitude would quickly disappear and would be replaced by joy in work, improved productivity and profitability.  It is the lack of empowerment that causes a feeling of frustration which leads to blaming the very people should be served, the customers.

I want to answer two questions.  First, why do senior leaders only pay lip service to this important responsibility?   Second, how can senior leaders begin to shift this responsibility to the employees?

First, why do senior leaders continue to claim employees have empowerment and yet they still withhold full responsibility?  We have all been taught that the person(s) in authority is all knowing.  It all starts in school where we think the teacher has all the answers because they are the ones who tell us what to study, what questions to ask, how to think, and the answers to all the tests.  They are the ones who grade us.  This naturally follows into our organizations.  It is consistent with managing from the top and not leading from the top.

Also, we have policies that continue to reinforce this idea including the performance review and the pay for performance policies.  The managers grade our performance and control how much we get paid based on how they score us in a performance review.  This role played by our teachers and our managers dies hard.   It is thoroughly ingrained into our brains, reinforced in our language, and supported by our policies.

Second, how can senior leaders begin to make this shift to push responsibility toward employees?  The key lies in making a shift in thinking.  I recommend the study of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.  More than ever we need his Theory of Profound Knowledge.  We can embrace his appreciation for systems thinking, his theory of how knowledge is accumulated, and his theory of psychology.  Profound Knowledge is the most effective way to think about how an organization works.

Leaders can also begin to build trust with each and everyinteraction.  This requires trusting employees first.  It requires the realization that employees really want to do a good job and they want to develop trust and pride.  They are not, in their hearts, looking for shortcuts.  They only
look for shortcuts when they are encouraged by flawed policies.

Senior leaders can begin to build trust by trusting first.  A good way to show trust is to stop the policies of performance reviews and pay for performance.   These can be replaced with policies that reinforce trust and systems thinking.  Building trust and embracing Profound Knowledge is an example of leading from the top (not managing from the top).

Finally, senior leaders can start small and allow a small group of employees to take responsibility for one process at a time.   They can teach them simple and powerful tools such as The Six Thinking Hats by Edward DeBono (www.sixthinkinghats.com).

Senior leaders can read about systems thinking and begin to use the principles to build up trust.  This will begin to eliminate the symptom of “You can’t fix stupid.”

Just as a gardener would create the right conditions for a delicate orchid plant to produce its lovely flowers, it is useful to think of engagement as an outcome of just the right conditions and just the right love and tender care.

Following this logic, we might again ask which comes first employee engagement or cooperation?  Cooperation must come first.  Cooperation
is a condition in the environment that allows optimum productivity, achievement, and engagement.  This begs the question, “How do we create an environment that encourages cooperation?”  Do we just hire cooperative people or are there factors we can control in the environment?  Are there system factors we can create?

I walk my dogs twice a day.  During the winter I take them to the beach.  We have lovely beaches in Southwestern Connecticut.  Dogs are not allowed on the beach in summer.  It is a local ordinance.  It is a shame.  One reason for this is because cleanliness of the beach is compromised by those few owners who fail to clean up after their dogs.  Anyway, in the winter no one really bothers us and there are very few people who utilize the beach because the weather is very often unpleasant.

The other day while walking with the dogs on the beach I noticed an unusual accumulation of “dog dirt” in various places.  Irresponsible owners were walking their dogs and not cleaning up.  Having extra plastic bags with me I began picking up the “extra dirt.”  Needless to say this was an unpleasant job.  I began to get very angry.   Yet, I kept working to clean up.    I was willingly doing a task that was not my responsibility.  Why?  Why was I cooperating with people who were so irresponsible? Why was I so engaged in an unpleasant task?

According to the book “The Evolution of Cooperation” Robert Axelrod explains that there are three conditions that can create cooperation.  Two parties will cooperate naturally if, there is frequent expected future interactions, clearly understood benefits each party will enjoy if they cooperate, and clearly understand negative consequences if they fail to cooperate.

All three elements were in place for me and the dogs.  I wanted to use the beach frequently in the future.  The benefits of going to the beach with the dogs are numerous including the lovely scenery, an opportunity for the dogs to run free and get lots of exercise, a place to walk unencumbered by extra snow to name a few.  The consequences for not picking up the extra dirt (for not cooperating) is someone will complain, an Animal Enforcement Officer might be called in to inspect, I might get a ticket, and I will have to stop coming to the beach with the dogs.

As angry as I was with those irresponsible owners, I was willing to cooperate and clean up after them.  I had a bigger set of reasons to cooperate and my emotional reaction was overridden by other factors, i.e. the factors that create cooperation.

Leaders can do this in their teams.  The factors of cooperation are not enough to keep engagement going.  These are not the only factors that create “the right conditions for a delicate orchid plant to produce its lovely flowers.”  For example, in an organization I would expect to be able to influence the offenders to change their behaviors.  I would expect I would have an opportunity to communicate my anger and someone
would listen.

Without cooperation engagement is difficult to nurture.  If you are a leader keep in mind these factors when you see a lack of cooperation in your team. When anyone of these factors is missing there will be damage to the “delicate balance” that leads to the “delicate flower” of employee engagement.

Human Resources managers have difficulty seeing a world of high performance and optimum accountability without the pay for performance
policies.  They insist that top performers must be paid according to their results.  Most are addicted to this policy and, the sad fact is, it doesn’t work.  Here are three compelling reasons why.

First, pay for performance is a method of control.  Control is the opposite of freedom.  Without freedom people are hesitant to take risk and to be innovative.  Pay for performance damages innovation and creativity.  Furthermore, in his book “Why We Do What We Do”, Edward Deci explains how pay for performance rewards causes people to lose intrinsic interest in the tasks they are being paid to do.  If policies that control behavior damages both innovation and interest in the task can we conclude they can also damage performance?

Second, pay for performance policies ignore factors that come from the system within which people work.  Ignoring system issues prevents innovative and significant performance improvements.  For example, a sales person who makes huge bonuses might be benefiting from his/her specific assigned territory.  Why should he/she continuously make those large bonuses when the client mix is the major contributing
factor?  Furthermore, if the client mix is the major reason for the performance success, why can’t the other sales people develop their territories to match that client mix?  These questions rarely get asked or answered because the sales person will protect their position or risk losing their competitive edge against his/her fellow sales people.

Finally, pay for performance bonuses policies very often encourage unethical behaviors.  These behaviors are difficult to prevent especially when the bonuses are large or when the stakes are large.  There are dozens of examples I could site.  The most disturbing involves our children.  In July 2011, 178 teachers and administrators in Atlanta schools cheated to boost test scores for the students and avoid penalties by the No Child Left Behind policies.

People addicted to alcohol and cocaine continue to use these substances even though they experience the damaging results.  I believe HR professionals do the same with pay for performance policies.  They see the damage yet they don’t make the connection and they don’t change behavior.  It takes courage and persistence to change this policy.  I think it is time we stop this addiction.

We use phases like, “we need to better manage our people; we need to drive improvement, or drive change; we need to manage employee performance every day.” These are all consistent with the Frederick Taylor model which holds that employees need to be managed. Let’s change our paradigm. To begin to do that let’s change our language. Let’s start encouraging and facilitating self-management.

Self-management means helping everyone to focus on the improvement of their interactions. There are two steps to start facilitating self-management. First, we must draw a distinction between interpersonal interactions and system interactions. Interpersonal interactions are one-on-one communications with co-workers and/or customers. System interactions are the bits of information that pass between people in a process. I call these “hand offs.” Discussing issues or having a conflict with another is an interpersonal interaction. A new sales order is a hand off between a sales person and operations. Employees can manage both their interpersonal interactions and they can manage their individual hand offs. They don’t need a manager to help them with either one. They can manage the quality, speed, efficiency, effectiveness of all their interactions. They can take responsibility for their behaviors and for the quality and speed of information they process. Some employees may not be fully ready to manage these on their own. This is where managers can help them by facilitating. They can facilitate by identifying and removing barriers to self-management.

The second step in self-management is to give “Fearless Feedback.” Instead of “working on employee performance” we need to provide immediate, respectful, and accurate feedback. When employees are behaving in ways that damage trust or in ways that prevent learning, they need to know. If they are building trust or learning, they need to be appreciated. It sounds so simple and it is not easy because it requires discipline.

Dr. W Edwards Deming said 94% of the problems are in the system. If this is true we should spend at least 94% of our time on improving the system. When people act out with poor behaviors (those that damage trust and learning) it is because the system created frustrations for them and they over react. In my experience, those behaviors are a “red flag” indicating problems in the system interactions. The key is to deliver and receive fearless feedback at all times. Fearless feedback can create total responsibility to correct both interpersonal interactions and system interactions.

Leaders can begin to facilitate self-management by helping everyone understand the distinction between interpersonal interactions and system interactions and then encouraging respectful feedback on both. It is estimated the average manager spends nearly 30% of their time managing poor performers and correcting their mistakes. Imagine how much more profit could be generated if we freed up this valuable management time. We can do that if we stop trying to manage employees and begin to facilitate self-management. We can change our language first.