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The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

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Engagement is like motherhood, patriotism and "people are our most important asset." Everybody signs up for engagement, but you're hard pressed to find two people who agree on what engagement actually is.

I love all the stuff I've read about engagement. But it seems like "pornography" in Potter Stewart's classic comment. We can't define it, but we think we know it when we see it.

Different consulting firms offer different definitions. That makes sense. The firms want to make a bundle from helping clients improve engagement. But they need to do it with a brandable concept, i.e., something different from what other firms are offering.

Most consulting firms measure engagement with a survey. Most of those surveys ask people to self-report on attitudes and intentions. The firms use the answers to "measure" engagement.

But self-reporting is often an awful way to find out what people will really do. Every year, for example, we are treated to the results of surveys that indicate that some large percentage of workers are going to leave their current employer within the next few months or year. And, every year, most of them stay put.

Those are important problems. It's hard to have a meaningful discussion about something where the participants are working with different definitions. It's hard to manage something when we don't have a common measure for it.

But the biggest problem with the engagement fad is an often unspoken assumption. Most of the companies and consulting firms touting engagement assume it will automatically improve profits.

This is just another way of saying that if you make your workers happy, they'll be more productive. It seems more sophisticated because "engagement" sounds so much more scientific than happy, but the causal argument is just as weak.

The fact is that there are companies where engagement "measures" are high and profits are sinking like a stone. At the same time, there are some slave ships out there making pretty good time. The problem is that productivity is left out of the engagement discussion entirely.

When I'm training bosses, I avoid the E word altogether. It only creates confusion and muddled thinking. I suggest concentrating on individual workers' Ability and Willingness to do specific jobs.

The Ability part is pretty straightforward. Ability includes whether a person has the knowledge and skills to do a job. It also includes an assessment of whether they have other needed resources, like budget or staff support or time.

Willingness is a bit trickier. Rather than impose a definition, I ask people to identify a time in their life when it was "great to come to work." Then, working with others, they come up with a list of characteristics of a great working environment. The lists vary a bit from group to group, but most of them include the following.

The group was really productive.
They liked their co-workers.
The work was interesting and meaningful.
Expectations were clear and reasonable.
There was regular and usable feedback.
Everyone was treated fairly. Consequences matched performance.
There was the maximum control possible over work life.

I don't think you can come up with a fancy instrument to measure engagement using those characteristics, but the good news is that you don't have to. Here's my suggestion.

Give your bosses the tools and training to create great working environments. Make that part of their mission and hold them accountable. Make sure you train the front line managers and supervisors who directly touch the working life of the most people.

If you do that you'll get the productivity and profits you want. You'll get it because a lot of the people in your company will enthusiastically pitch in to help get the job done. And you won't have to use the E word. You won't need messy surrogate measures for something that may affect profits. And you'll get those results without paying huge consulting fees.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.