In 1978 when Victoria Station retained Blanchard and Associates to assess our leadership team, I was the new Manager of Financial Planning. After a week of hearing of the consultant spending an hour interviewing everyone who was a manager and up, I realized I was not on the list. No one was sure of the purpose, so immediately rumors surfaced tying performance assessments to the interviews. Even with that potentially negative implication, my first reaction was, “What is wrong with me?”
Inclusion is both a subtle and powerful way of letting people know they count. More importantly, exclusion can have an even stronger negative impact on employees’ connections to an organization and their engagement in the company mission. Today’s video addresses Gallup’s Q7 question: “At work, my opinion seems to count.”
I was finally interviewed and while I do not remember the interview or its outcome, I remember the feeling of exclusion to this day.
In an interview on team building, John Maxwell commented that when he started taking a new person to every business meeting he attended, his team started to grow exponentially. I remember sitting in on an executive committee meeting of Pacific Telesis as a reward for a good analysis. What a boost to my morale!
So survey your team, especially your millennials, and find ways to include them in some previously “pay grade only” meetings as an observer. You won’t regret it!