An Engaging Culture
We all hear a lot about engagement. It is all over LinkedIn. We talk about it in business schools. Managers talk about it in meetings. Employees talk about it amongst themselves, oftentimes without even realizing that is what they are talking about. So what is engagement in relation to the workplace?
A quick google search tells us that employee engagement is the emotional commitment and enthusiasm employees have toward their work and their organization, leading to increased motivation, productivity, and a willingness to go above and beyond. I dislike this definition for a few reasons. This is a one sided definition that explains the perfect employee. This definition does not include the role the organization has in fostering such emotional commitment and enthusiasm. Also, people can be engaged with their work without necessarily being enthusiastic about doing so. That falls more into the category of employee satisfaction. The two terms are closely related but not interchangeable.
Motivation in relation to employee engagement is somewhat tricky. Every decision, behavior, and habit we demonstrate in our lives is backed by a motive, some form of motivation. The idea most people have about motivation is that it is a form of enthusiastic drive toward a task or goal. Remove the enthusiasm and you have a more accurate description of what motivation really is. I will agree though that an engaged employee is more self-motivated to perform their role and responsibilities without needing constant encouragement from managers. They also tend to be more productive with their time and effort.
Though I agree that fully engaged employees are more likely to “go above and beyond” than a less engaged employee, I dislike this addition because it sets an unrealistic expectation of employees. When employers have the expectation that the measure of their employees’ engagement is predicated on the employee’s willingness to perform above and beyond their position’s specific standards and responsibilities, this can create an assumption that employees are not fully engaged when they are simply meeting the expectations set for them. It can also lead to managers expecting their employees to do more than what they are explicitly paid to do to prove their commitment to the organization.
What I propose is a different perception of employee engagement. Employee engagement can be viewed as an employee's commitment or buy-in of the company’s culture. To accurately gauge this, the cultural standards and expectations need to be made clear to everyone within the organization, and everyone needs to be held accountable to those standards and expectations regardless of their position, title, or level within the organization’s structure. So how do you define your company’s culture?
To better understand what culture is, I’d like to turn to “Above the Line” by Urban Meyer, which is one of my favorite sources on the topic of organizational culture. “Culture is what we believe, how we behave, and the experience that our behavior produces for each other.” “Strategy determines scheme and technique. Culture determines attitude and effort.” (Meyer, 2015, pg.63)
Culture is very much the collective mindset of the individuals within the organization. “Above the Line” can be considered a mindset itself. One that is intentional, focused, open to growth, and based on extreme personal accountability. The idea is that “the line” is created by the standards and expectations set and communicated clearly with the organization’s culture. Behavior that meets or exceeds those standards and expectations is above the line. Behavior that doesn’t meet the standards is below the line. That mindset lends itself to the culture of the organization when there is engagement by every level of the organization, meaning everyone is consistently engaging above the line behaviors.
People experience culture through behavior, and behavior produces results, good or bad. A person’s mindset has a powerful influence on their behavior. In the same way, company culture has a powerful influence on the behaviors of the collective. Understanding how your company’s culture is influencing the outcomes it achieves, whether good or bad, starts with defining it.
Meyer presents the culture blueprint as a way to define the organization's culture. As an example he provides the OSU Football Culture Blueprint within the book. The figure below shows the blueprint Meyer used with his team. The culture blueprint provides a model to help cultivate a strong culture. There are three stages to cultivating culture: Define, Design, and Implement.
Define
Whether you have deliberately cultivated a specific culture or not, there is an existing culture in your organization, unless of course you are just getting started. Defining it can be difficult, but it is necessary in order to understand how it is affecting your organization. Leaders must be conscious about the current state of the culture in their organization to know if it is contributing to positive, neutral or negative outcomes. Leaders need to understand that culture, like an individual’s mindset, is fluid and changes over time to adapt to present circumstances, and as such requires regular evaluation to ensure it is leading to desired results.
One of the least talked about aspects of company culture is when a company has cultivated a toxic culture resulting in employees displaying toxic or undesirable behaviors in the workplace. The fact of this matter is that the employees are actually fully engaged in the company’s culture, it just isn’t the culture the company, or leaders of the company rather, want to accept accountability for having created. This is why I disagree with the one sided definition of employee engagement expressed earlier. It doesn’t account for the leader’s influence on engagement, or hold them accountable for the culture they have created.
What we are looking for in the define stage is the culture that is actually being experienced within the organization, not what you hope for it to be. Defining company culture requires an objective look at what is actually happening in the organization. You have to remove your own thoughts and feelings as the leader to see things for what they are. This is the only way to get an accurate picture of the company’s culture and the level to which employees are engaged with it.
Defining your current culture is often easiest by working backward with the culture blueprint. What are the results or outcomes experienced currently? What behaviors, or lack of, are leading to these results? What are the beliefs individually and collectively that are motivating the engagement of the negative behaviors, or deterring positive behaviors? Look for both positive and negative outcomes. If your goal is to improve company culture, it helps to understand what is currently working to lean into those strengths rather than focusing just on negatives. You also can’t blind yourself to the uncomfortable truth of the negatives.
Something for every leader to understand about employee engagement is that you have to engage your employees for them to be engaged with the company, its culture, or with you as their leader. I’m not talking about generic surveys, pizza parties, or the occasional surface level conversation. I’m talking about meaningful dialogue. I’m talking about being conscious about what message your decisions and behaviors portray to your employees, and being more deliberate about your decisions and behaviors to ensure the right message is being sent.
This is an important consideration because it is necessary to engage employees at all levels of the organization to clearly define the existing culture, find where the misalignment between levels starts, and to discover what beliefs need to be changed or altered in the design stage. Leaders should be engaging their direct reports frequently anyway. I would recommend having a 45-60 minute 1-on-1 at least once a month. Discuss performance, engagement, satisfaction, strengths, weaknesses, development plans, and even life outside of work during these meetings. This isn’t just an opportunity for the leader to evaluate and lecture though. It is an opportunity to listen.
One of the leading reasons for poor engagement in the organizations I have worked for is that leaders don’t engage their employees in a meaningful way often enough. When they do, it is typically a one sided conversation. Asking the right questions and listening to the answer without judgement or rebuttal is the only way to accurately define the culture. Remember, the goal is to discover what culture is being experienced, not defend what you think it is or should be.
One issue employers have with this step is that they often don’t get accurate feedback from employees because they have not cultivated trust with their employees. Employees have a lot to lose for being honest in many organizations. They could be seen as a complainer, not a team player, entitled or ungrateful, and risk being fired or pushed out of the organization when they disagree with their leader’s narrative. I have seen it many times. I have experienced it myself. In other cases, they don’t feel like wasting their breath when past experience shows that their feedback is ignored with no change implemented to address the concerns they raised. How can you expect your employees to give you honesty when you punish them for it, or flat out ignore the real problems they bring to your attention?
As a leader it is important to check your ego. Accept bad news as well as the good. When defining the existing culture, what you want is the truth, not a puff piece. Welcome honesty. Really try to understand the other person’s perspective objectively. Show your people the respect they deserve by hearing them out.
Design
Designing a culture can be tricky. You can’t be so broad that it has no meaning or relevance, and you can’t be so specific that it only applies to certain teams, departments, or structural levels. A unified culture has to be all inclusive. A culture is not effective if it is not unified.
What are some beliefs that can connect with everyone? In what way can you frame that belief to be relevant to your organization? How can aligning everyone behind this belief affect their behavior? What results would come from that effect? Answering these questions is, in a broad sense, how you design a culture. Using the culture blueprint, experiment with different ideas. Designing a strong culture is not likely to be a one and done office meeting with the executive team. It may very well take some trial and error to develop over time.
It is important to consider the possibility that you get it wrong. When you begin to implement the cultural components you’ve designed, you may find that the beliefs and behaviors you implement are not producing the intended results. Most leaders jump to the conclusion that employees are not engaged, and are not doing what is expected of them when they don’t see the results they want. The truth could be that you have simply asked them to do the wrong things.
When I took over a sales manager position for a solar company several years ago, I began to implement standards of behavior to influence positive sales results. My message to my team was clear. My expectation was for them to practice the behaviors I trained them to engage. If they engage these behaviors properly, but don’t get the intended results, then I have enforced the wrong behaviors. My team trusted my judgement, and I trusted my team to execute the behaviors as trained. If and when certain behaviors did not lead to the intended results, it was on me to change the standard. I did, and we got to the desired results.
Laying out your desired culture with the culture blueprint makes the standards of behavior and expectations of outcomes clear for everyone in the organization. The reason it is so important to clearly define the culture you design is that if employees and managers are unclear of the standards and expectations, how can you hope to hold them accountable to those standards or expectations? When designing cultural components, make the standards and expectations obvious so that you can make them enforceable. Conversely, enforce the cultural standards and expectations to make those standards and expectations obvious.
When outlining the culture blueprint, communicate in a way that is easily understood and interpreted. Don’t use language that leaves much room for interpretation. If employees are unclear of the standards or expectations due to ambiguous language, you are setting them up for failure. The culture will fall apart quickly in the implementation stage.
Be careful not to overload your blueprint. When designing a culture with the culture blueprint, it helps not to create an extensive list of beliefs with correlating behaviors and outcomes. The OSU football blueprint was only 3 lines and it helped them win a national championship. More is not necessarily better. You may find it useful to have more than three, and that's fine. If you are at 10 or more lines, you may consider consolidating and prioritizing.
The culture should be designed to align with the organization’s purpose and the goals set out to achieve. Each component should be applicable to what the organization does. In a very general sense, a company’s purpose is to deliver their value proposition to customers. How does each belief, standard, and expectation align with delivering that value proposition? If it doesn’t, then it may not be appropriate to include in your blueprint.
Implement
Implementing culture starts with communication and training. The blueprint should be presented to employees and thoroughly explained. The behavioral standards and expectations of outcomes should be communicated to everyone at every level in a way they can easily understand what is expected of them. Any necessary training should be conducted before even thinking about holding anyone accountable to the presented standards and expectations.
An organization I worked for changed software platforms for different tools multiple times, each time rolling out the changes without any training. We were held to the standard of proficiency with said tools but we weren’t taught how to use them. What this caused was a month or two long learning curve. There was a loss in productivity and an increase in quality errors during that time which set everyone back. All because they didn’t want to pull us out of the field for even half a day to develop the proficiency expected of us. What it cost us over the 1-2 months far exceeded the cost of a half day training.
Once the standards and expectations have been clearly communicated and employees are well trained, you can move onto enforcement. The culture you have designed is worthless if you cannot enforce the behaviors outlined in it. Your people have to be engaged in the culture for it to have any effect on results.
Enforcing culture requires exemplified leadership (leading by example) and accountability at all levels. Leaders set the example via their displayed behavior. They set the standards by consistently meeting or exceeding behavioral standards set with the company’s culture blueprint. They set expectations by demonstrating the connection between “how we behave” and “outcome we achieve” with empirical evidence. Does the behavior actually lead to the results expected? Prove it. It is not necessarily about doing the job for them to prove the organization’s behavioral standards lead to expected results, but evidence of some kind needs to be provided for subordinates to be motivated to engage.
Getting employees motivated to engage in the desired culture is about creating the conditions that allow them to be motivated. You can inspire motivation through influence and by creating an environment that is conducive to driving motivation toward the behaviors your culture demands. Motivation comes from within. People do things for their own reasons. If you are a leader with great communication skills, you may be able to use your influence effectively to spark inspiration in your people. If not, you may focus more on creating the appropriate conditions.
Using influence can be as simple as making the connection between the cultural standards and expectations to a greater “why” or goal that serves the employee. It is not about snake oil tactics to manipulate your people. It is often just about being honest with them to foster trust. When they trust you, they are more open to listening to you. Your influence grows with trust. You lose trust very quickly with snake oil.
Creating the right conditions to motivate employees toward the behaviors you wish to see out of them can be explained with the Reinforcement Theory of motivation which is largely attributed to B.F. Skinner. In a general sense, the theory states that motivation toward or away from certain behavior is predicated on the learned outcome of that behavior. Creating the conditions for employees to be motivated toward certain behaviors and away from others can be an act of regulating the reinforcement that drives motivation. In simple terms, reward positive behavior and punish poor behavior.
Too many times have I seen employees not be reprimanded for deliberately doing the wrong things while employees doing the right things receive no recognition or appreciation. I don’t know a single person who has not experienced this to some degree. How do you expect your employees to be motivated to engage in the behaviors outlined by the standards within the organization’s culture blueprint if there is no reinforcement to do so? Nothing bad happens when they don’t. Nothing good happens when they do. What motivation exists to enforce the culture?
The reinforcement theory presents 4 interventions to create the conditions necessary for your employees to be motivated toward the behavior you expect of them. Positive reinforcement is offering a positive reward for positive behavior. (Buy lunch) Negative reinforcement is removing negative outcomes once the desired behavior is demonstrated. (Stop nagging) Extinction is removing any positive rewards associated with negative behaviors. It is common for the wrong behaviors to be rewarded. I saw this a lot in sales. Punishment is presenting negative consequences as a result of negative behaviors.
It is the duty of leadership to use these interventions appropriately to create the conditions that motivate employees to engage in the culture they design, and deter employees from behaviors that are not aligned with that culture. It is the leader’s duty to be the example. It is the leader’s duty to hold people accountable to behaviors through reinforcement.
Failure to enforce cultural standards and expectations can have very negative consequences. What you end up with is a carefully designed culture that isn’t being engaged. I have found that within the many organizations I have been part of, there is a significant difference between the culture leadership has designed, and the culture that is actually experienced and engaged by employees.
In every case I experienced like this, it was a result of not holding lower and mid levels of management accountable for engaging in the culture themselves. The example they set is not in alignment with the organization’s culture. This results in the culture experienced by employees being out of alignment with what was intended for them. The employees are more likely to align with the behavior of their direct manager before they align with that of a manager 2 or more levels above them. What is created is an unintended culture misaligned with the standards and expectations set by the organization with correlating results representative of the unintended culture rather than the one deliberately designed.
In this scenario, there is a problem with implementation. Someone in the chain of command is missing the mark and needs to be held accountable for their behavior and that of those below them. It doesn’t even have to be a direct manager. If a leader is not engaged in the culture, meaning they are not making decisions or engaging behaviors in alignment with the standards and expectations set by the company’s culture, their subordinates are soon to follow that lead.
Continuous Improvement Toward Strong Culture
The framework presented for cultivating organizational culture is not meant to be linear. It is a continuous cycle for leaders to evaluate, improve, and enforce culture. Again, culture can be fluid. Beliefs and behaviors that produce positive results today might not produce the same results a year from now. It is the duty of leaders to keep an open mindset so as to accept the need for change and innovation. Some beliefs may be constant, whereas some may need to be altered or changed entirely.
Remember, when designing a culture you may be engaging in some trial and error before you land on components that truly produce the desired results. This framework offers structure to your efforts. Even after you have landed on a solid design and have successfully implemented the standards and expectations it outlines, it is important to periodically evaluate the culture as expressed in the define stage. Again, there can easily be a disconnect between the culture you think your organization has and the one that is actually experienced by its employees.
If you find there is perfect alignment, then all is well. If not, you may need to go back to the drawing board or perhaps adjust enforcement tactics. You won’t know until you engage employees and observe their behaviors and correlating outcomes.
Cultivating a strong culture within your organization isn’t just about generating positive results on spreadsheets. It is about cultivating a strong, healthy, productive relationship between employees and their leaders. One based on mutual trust, respect, and understanding. Leaders and those they lead need to be able to trust, respect, and understand each other to produce great results. This positive relationship encourages engagement and improves workplace satisfaction for both parties. It is how you garner commitment to the organization, its objectives, and its purpose from employees at every level of the organization.
Getting employees engaged with the culture you design is imperative to success. What good is a strong culture if no one in the organization is engaged with it? According to an article by Gallup, only 31% of US employees are actively engaged, which is the lowest it’s been in a decade. Imagine you carefully design a culture around a handful of beliefs and correlating behaviors but only 31% of your employees are engaged with it. How effective would that culture really be?
The article also states that 17% of employees are actively disengaged. What this means is that employees are performing at a bare minimum level at best, and consistently behave below the line. This kind of behavior undermines the success of the team or organization. The higher the disengaged individual is in the organizational structure, the more damage their behavior inflicts.
This leaves an astounding 52% of employees somewhere in the middle, likely producing bare minimum or mediocre results. These are the average workers who simply want to do their job, get paid, and go home. They tend to have more of a neutral experience in the workplace, not a horrible job but they don’t love being there. The job is what it is. People have a higher impact on engagement and satisfaction. Part of culture being the collective attitude of the individuals throughout the organization, having the vast majority of your workforce being in this neutral state produces neutral results. These people are just getting by, and so are your results.
Of the 12 elements Gallup measured, the three that saw the most decline in recent years are clarity of expectations, feeling someone at work cares about them as a person, and someone encouraging their development. Only 46% of employees reported they “strongly agree” that they know what is expected of them at work. Only 39% of employees felt strongly that someone at work cares about them as a person. Lastly, only 30% “strongly agree” that someone at work encourages their development.
This is why it is so important to develop a culture that serves everyone’s interests. Your culture should satisfy these desires of your employees. Creating a culture blueprint makes the expectation clear. “Power of the unit” in the OSU football blueprint encourages comradery, trust, and respect between team members. “Competitive Excellence” encourages continued development, and commitment to improving individual and team performance. “Relentless Effort” further expresses expectations of everyone on the team with the focus on all out effort for the 4-6 second duration of each and every play of the game. This belief in effort was translated into everything they did.
Some other prominent employee concerns for employers to address are flexibility and home-work life balance, recognition, work environment, interesting and challenging work, employee development and advancement opportunity, employee purpose and meaning, and the significance of being heard. In essence, employees want a workplace culture that appreciates and positively influences the wellbeing of its employees. All of these concerns are directly influenced by the leadership of the organization, from CEO to the front line managers.
Gallup offers several stats indicating the negative effects of poor engagement and the positive effects of high levels of engagement on the organization. Poor engagement increases absenteeism, turnover, shrinkage (theft), safety accidents, and quality defects. All of which cost your organization money, with some factors costing the health, safety, and wellbeing of your people.
Conversely, high levels of engagement improve productivity, profitability, customer loyalty and engagement, and organizational citizenship (commitment and participation). It is also fair to say that high levels of engagement also decrease the factors previously mentioned that increase with poor engagement. It takes time, effort, and money to develop a strong culture that encourages high levels of engagement throughout the organization. Leaders are forced into a more difficult path that requires more skill as opposed to the industrialist methods we’re all used to. But there is more to gain, especially in the long term, with making this investment than what it costs.
There is an estimated global cost of $8.8 trillion annually from poor engagement levels, which is equivalent to 9% of global GDP. The estimated cost in the US alone is $450-$550 billion annually due to lost productivity, increased turnover, absenteeism, and decreased profitability. Overall, poor employee engagement leads to lower productivity, higher turnover, lower profitability, and a negative impact on morale. What is poor engagement costing your organization? Generally, the lower the engagement level within the organization, the higher the price tag.
Getting employees engaged really starts with cultivating a strong culture to begin with. You have to engage your employees to get accurate feedback of the current state of the experienced culture, understand their needs and concerns, and make them feel included in the process. You have to instill the right beliefs, behavioral standards, and realistic expectations. You have to communicate and train employees for them to understand what it means for them to be engaged and how it serves their interest to do so. You have to influence and enforce their engagement in a dignified manner, showing them their due respect and trust. Miss any of these steps, and you are likely to struggle getting them engaged.
If your organization is failing to meet its highest potential, there could very well be an engagement problem. An engagement problem is a culture problem. That culture problem is a leadership problem. Leaders must take responsibility for setting the example and holding others accountable to the standards and expectations presented by the culture they design. Leaders must design and implement the standards and expectations with mutual trust, respect, and understanding to get the needed buy-in from their employees.
Cultivate a culture worth engaging, practice what you preach, and employees will follow your lead.
References:
Gallup. (2021, October 26). Gallup’s Q12 employee engagement survey - gallup. Gallup.com. https://www.gallup.com/q12-employee-engagement-survey/
Harter, J. (2025, March 25). U.S. employee engagement sinks to 10-year low. Gallup.com. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/654911/employee-engagement-sinks-year-low.aspx?cid=other-eml-mtg-mip-mck&hlkid=1e882a85a1b34018aabf2eb9f9c7273f&hctky=16110485&hdpid=4153091c-e58b-49af-bed8-b36b4ca3b456
Meyer, U. (2015). Above the line. Penguin Publishing Group.