If You're Going to Make 2024 a Different Year, You're Going to Need a Different Approach

Gallup recently released an article with a checklist for addressing workforce engagement in 2024. It seems that despite the investments in coaching, training, wellness, and engagement initiatives companies continue to pour into, we're still not "getting there" in terms of increasing engagement and creating higher performance. In some cases, we're even setting new/tying low records.

Here are some of the stats that stood out for me this morning reading the latest (my input for each marked with "AC"):

• 44% of our global workforce still reports they are stressed (AC: ties to energy leadership and engagement);
• 30% of managers strongly agree they're kept informed about what's going on (AC: ties to communication skills and the mindset of leaders);
• 48% of managers strongly agree they currently have the skills needed to be exceptional at their job (AC: ties to development, leadership pipelines, recognition, and presence to what's needed NOW);
• 28% strongly agree that they feel connected to their organization's mission and purpose (AC: ties to presence, communication, and leveraging each person's "Essential You").

Add to these numbers the fact that last year, 60% of employees said their job was the biggest factor influencing their mental health, 69% said their manager/leader had more impact on their mental health than their doctor or therapist, and 81% would prioritize good mental health over a high-paying job.

I could go on. There are many more data points to support the facts that people want to be seen, healthy, appreciated, engaged, clearly communicated with, feeling on purpose, and more.

Here are a few silver linings in all of this that our team consistently finds with our clients:

1. Awareness is KEY. Once you have awareness, you are at choice about how to address it. Without awareness, we struggle and suffer; with awareness, we can choose. (Our firm believes we are at a choice point globally to do things differently here.)
2. These statistics and data points are related and impact each other significantly — they are interconnected. (i.e., change one, change the others.)
3. We can do something about these issues. Case in point, more engaged employees reported lower stress levels. (We can increase engagement and reduce stress — we just need to do it differently. Hint: It's not about engagement, it's deeper.)
4. Having a negative impact on employees' mental health and shifting it to something more positive and inspiring is possible through coaching and training. (It just may be different than the coaching and training organizations have adopted as the "right kind" to this point, and it will require a different kind of commitment and focus from leaders.)

Solving for this, for real and sustainably in 2024...

All of the skills shared by Gallup to increase engagement are important:

listening, improving communication, developing managers, coaching to prevent burnout, creating a community of accountability, recognition and appreciation for work, continuous check-ins and conversations, feedback ("80% of employees who say they have received meaningful feedback in the past week are fully engaged..."), etc.

But they're not different from what organizational development programs have been doing for years (or the skills our firm is continuously asked to address). Organizations keep focusing on doing the skills and hoping for quick fixes. Yet, we're still not there... So what gives?

It all comes down to the intentions, energy, and presence of the individual "doing" the skills.

I'll explain:

Leadership skills are all essential, but they must be done with the right "Intentional Energetic Presence? " (IEP); they must be done with a clear intent, with clean and responsible energy, and with authentic presence; they must be done so that the person doing them can show up authentically and present, without getting exhausted, and in a way that the person "receiving" the skill can feel truly seen, cared for, and connected with.

Engagement is about energy. Leadership is about energy. It's all about energy and how we show up doing whatever we're doing. The energy of the leader and the workforce will propel or diminish the levels of engagement and results in any organization.

You can DO a skill all day long. You can invest gazillions in training and initiatives to improve your leadership and workforce skill sets. But if you do not have the right IEP, you're at best, leaving a ton of positive impact and possibility on the table and, at worst, doing more harm than good.

Just think of the leader who gives you the best feedback — technically — of your life; however, you can feel the judgment, irritation, lack of presence, busyness, exhaustion, distracted energy, or maybe a little bit of all of the above. That feedback will not be received. The energy under that feedback, the intentions, the presence of the leader will make the difference of how the receiver receives it, uses it, and moves forward more effectively or not.

At Active Choices, Inc. , we've taught the IEP Method? to organizations, teams, and executives for years. Almost every time with the feedback that IEP is what unlocks the true ROI of other training initiatives as their leaders and workforce start to show up better as they "do" the skills.

Years ago, we made the choice to always start with the IEP work BEFORE going into hard-core leadership skills (ie. conflict navigation, feedback, relationship design, effective meetings, creating intentional impact, strategy, even "energy management", etc.) because we found that with IEP, we could shorten the length of any other training, reducing financial costs, time, wasted energy, and pain for our clients. Over the years, we've found IEP to be the ultimate "power skill" (formerly known as soft skills) that supports all the other power skills and strengthens all the other hard skills.

But it has to be trained and coached right; it's not about cheerleader energy, or forced, or toxic positivity. It's not about faking it or band-aiding issues. It's about doing the work right, intentionally, and effectively so that it sustains, creates impact, and we're all able to show up together better.

This year we'll be running a quarterly IEP Method? Fundamentals , our basic live training course (virtually and open enrollment), to give our people an opportunity to experience the work and decide if they'd like to go deeper into more leadership skills training. Our Positive Energy Workplace Initiative? Platform and Programs provide a robust training experience designed to meet clients where they're at. This year we'll be focusing extra on collaboration, effective feedback, leadership presence, conflict navigation, proactive relationship design, innovation, and more... but the IEP Fundamentals is the first step because it will make everything else better and we'll go further faster.

Next steps if you'd like to try a different approach:

1. If you'd like to join us for our next open-enrollment event on January 25th and 26th (two half-days virtually 11-3 pm ET each day), you can learn more and register here . Note: For the January session, we're extending access to the full platform after the training for three months (instead of one) as an extra New Year's bonus.
2. If live training is not for you and you'd prefer to do something with your team in a self-paced manner, take a look at our Introduction to the IEP Method? on-demand course, or the IEP Foundations Membership/Course if you'd like a hybrid of self-paced AND ACI supported. Both of those programs can be found here .
3. Finally, if you'd like to book a session for your organization privately or talk about other ways we can support you, please contact me directly (DM is good) or on our site , and we'll explore the best path forward.

May 2024 be the year that you crack the code for genuinely energizing and engaging your people, taking extremely great care of yourself simultaneously, and creating a high(er) performing workforce so we can have even more of the impact we want to have.

Active Choices, Inc. is a boutique consulting, coaching, and training firm devoted to creating sustainable and authentic Positive Energy Workplaces since 2002. Anese Cavanaugh is the author of Contagious Culture (McGraw-Hill, 2015), Contagious You (McGraw-Hill, 2019), and The Leader You Will Be: An Invitation (ACI, 2018).

#leadership #culturechange #culture #tranformation #positiveenergyworkplace #positiveenergyworkplaceinitiative #resilience #training #contagiousculture