Boosting Employee Engagement with the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel

In today's dynamic workplace, employee engagement has emerged as a critical factor for organizational success and profitability. Although engagement numbers had been climbing, recent findings from Gallup's State of the Global Workforce report highlight a concerning trend: employee engagement remains stagnant and alarmingly low, at 23% in the US.

Gallup defines employee engagement as the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace. Employee engagement helps you measure and manage employees' perspectives on the crucial elements of your workplace environment. It also has a huge impact on business, as noted below.

Managers are uniquely positioned to influence and improve this scenario. Managers have a large impact on employee engagement, accounting for 70% of variance in employee engagement. Sadly, many managers are also disengaged, with only 3 in 10 managers currently feeling engaged.

With all that said, the work landscape seems pretty bleak at the moment. However, we have a very powerful tool at our disposal, the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel. The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel outlines the competencies and skills needed in a more agile world of work, providing managers with a map they can use to grow their skills and help create sustainable value. By adopting this framework, managers can foster a culture of continuous development, autonomy, and engagement among employees. (And maybe even find a way for themselves to be more engaged!)

I started coaching because I had some pretty rough employee experiences. My initial goal as a coach was to help teams and individuals find their way to a decent work life, at the very least, and perhaps an excellent work life at best.

I am sure we have all heard some horror stories. Here’s one that was certainly heart-wrenching.

I am passionate about sharing my story and ideas with the Agile Community through meetups and conferences. In a corporate announcement, there was a direction to help improve the marketing and brand recognition of the company to make it more of a household name. I saw this as an opportunity to bridge my passion with company needs. I asked my manager about sponsoring me to speak at a conference, covering flight, hotel, and time. In return, I would use the brand logo, talk about the brand, and use it as a potential recruiting tool.

After laying out the desire and opportunity, the response from the manager was, “Why would I want to do that?” I was instantly crushed by the tone and terseness of the reaction. The manager wasn’t supportive, didn’t offer other solutions, and didn’t seem to care about me. -Disenfranchised Employee

Managers have a huge impact on their employees. How they behave towards their employees has a huge impact on whether or not their employees are engaged. However, managers are caught in between upper management making demands of them and their team members, and from their employees, sometimes asking for more than they can give. We have all heard stories of upper management asking for more and the employees pushing back, saying we are already working overtime all the time. I am not at all surprised they are not engaged; that sounds like a pressure cooker of an environment to be in.

Managers need all the tools that they can get their hands on, to not only improve their own work life but to also help their teams get a leg up.

The Importance of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is more than just job satisfaction; it's about creating an environment where employees are emotionally invested in their work and aligned with the organization's goals. Engaged employees are more productive, innovative, and committed, leading to higher levels of performance and retention. Conversely, disengaged employees can negatively impact team morale and overall organizational performance. The reality is, performance isn’t just good for the employees, it’s good for the bottom line as well. Roughly 9 billion dollars a year are left on the table by a lack of engaged employees and managers.

The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel: A Manager’s Tool for Engagement

The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel is a comprehensive framework designed to develop and enhance coaching capabilities within an Agile context. But make no mistake, you don’t have to be “Agile Coach” to use it. It focuses on nine key competency areas, many that managers can leverage to drive engagement and foster a supportive and productive work environment. Here are some ways we can think about how to use the Wheel as a leader or manager:

1. Self Mastery

Emotional Intelligence: Just like Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters, whom we traditionally see using the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel, Managers and Leaders also need to have good or great self-mastery. We can start by knowing ourselves. What this means is understanding our triggers, things that may set us off-center, and having good recovery paths. We must also find balance in our professional and personal lives. When managers demonstrate emotional resilience and balance, it fosters a sense of security and trust among employees, which is crucial for engagement.

2. Coaching

Manager as a Coach: Managers who adopt a coaching mindset can significantly impact employee engagement. Managers can use coaching as a way to connect and engage with employees. Managers can use Powerful Questions and other coaching techniques to help employees find their own solutions to the problems they face and allow them to feel more empowered.?

3. Facilitating

Empowering Teams by Being a Neutral Facilitator: You can help your team members by making sure that you are a neutral facilitator when called on to assist with facilitation. By staying neutral and helping the team stay on topic and focused, you can help them solve problems and challenges more quickly because when team members feel heard and respected they are more likely to engage fully with their work.

4. Leading

Role Modeling: As a leader, one of the most important parts of leading is “showing the way it’s done, right.” By role modeling the behaviors you want to see in your team, you are helping the team see what good and right looks like. Being a good role model is not an easy thing to do; you have to be in “right relationship” with yourself first.

Visionary: Being visionary is not always easy and sometimes takes some very deep thinking to figure out the vision you would like for your team and your employees, in some cases for your entire company. But as Brené Brown says, clarity is kindness. By providing a clear vision of what you want for your team, you are setting them up for success because this alignment towards common goals enhances engagement with them.

Leading for Growth: Leading for growth can mean both leading your team for growth and maturity and using your skills to create the next batch of leaders for your team and company.

5. Guided Learning

Promoting Learning: Encouraging a culture of continuous learning and development is vital for engagement. We can promote learning by using a learning mindset, again by role modeling and creating growth opportunities for yourself and sharing your areas of growth. You can also teach and mentor your employees.

6. Transforming

Organizational Change: Let’s face it, change is hard. It’s hard for leaders and managers, as well as our employees. Make sure that any changes are truly required for growth and that they are slow and steady.

7. Serving

Serving Mindset: When we approach our employees and even other leaders, if we approach them from the mindset of service and humbleness, you are more likely to get better results. Serving can include serving the team and serving the business. When we look at this from this perspective, what service can you provide that will have a positive impact?

8. Technical Acumen

Understanding Technology: In today's technology-driven world, understanding the tools and technologies relevant to your team is crucial. You do not need to be the expert in the room, but knowing the pain points and what helps the team is very important. The Growth Wheel encourages leaders and managers to stay informed about technological advancements, ensuring they can support their teams effectively.

9. Agile

Agile Mindset: While your team may not be “officially agile”, your mindset should be! Agile is a mindset supported by four values and 12 principles that help us build great teams. Being Agile means being able to experiment and learn from our mistakes. Just because you're using one framework or another, or even if you are using waterfall, the Agile mindset is still a great place to start from!

The State of the Global Workforce report underscores the urgent need for improved employee engagement. Managers have the power to make a significant difference by adopting coaching practices that foster a positive and supportive work environment. The Agile Coaching Growth Wheel offers a practical and effective framework to guide efforts, ensuring that we create an engaged, motivated, and high-performing workforce.

By embracing and leveraging the Growth Wheel, managers can transform themselves and drive meaningful engagement with their team, ultimately contributing to the success and sustainability of their organizations.

-Samantha Sieverling, Agile Coach Logic20/20, Inc.