This one is going to be uncomfortable. U.S. employee engagement has dropped from 36% in 2020 to 31% today. Globally, it sits at 21% — a decline that matches what happened during COVID-19 lockdowns. The cost? An estimated $438 billion in lost productivity worldwide. (See also: The Four P’s of Engagement.) Organizations have responded by investing in engagement surveys, wellness […]
A healthcare system leader I work with described her organization’s current state in a way that has stuck with me: “Our numbers look fine. But everything underneath them is cracking.” Turnover is manageable — because people are too exhausted to job search. Patient satisfaction scores are holding — because the remaining staff is working unsustainable hours to compensate. Revenue is […]
I’ve reviewed hundreds of strategic plans in my career. Most of them are good. Some of them are excellent. Very few of them get executed. This isn’t a new observation. But what’s striking is the scale of the gap. PMI surveyed 5,800 professionals globally and found that only half of projects succeed — meaning they deliver value that exceeds the […]
I sat in a quarterly leadership meeting last year where five department heads presented their results. Every single one of them showed green on their dashboards. Then the CEO asked a simple question: “If everything is green, why are our customers leaving?” Silence. This is what happens when every department builds its own measurement system in its own silo. Everyone […]
A few years ago, a client organization came to us with a familiar request: “We need resilience training for our managers.” We asked a few questions. Turns out, their managers were each overseeing 15-20 direct reports, handling two roles due to unfilled positions, attending an average of six hours of meetings per day, and responding to emails until 10 PM […]
I had a conversation last month with a hospital administrator — someone who has led through budget crises, staffing shortages, and a global pandemic. She said something that stayed with me: “I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I’m better at it than I’ve ever been. And it has never been this hard.” She’s not alone. In our work with […]
A senior manager at a mid-sized healthcare organization once described her team’s dysfunction this way: “We have all the right processes on paper. The problem is nobody trusts that anyone will actually do what they say, people are afraid to speak up when something’s wrong, and half our decisions get made on gut feeling and office politics.” She wasn’t describing […]
A few years ago, I was driving to a client meeting, half-listening to TED Radio Hour, when Margaret Heffernan said something that made me pull over and write it down. “Culture is the accumulation of everyone’s actions.” Seven words. I sat with them for a minute. Then I turned off the radio and drove the rest of the way in […]
A few years ago, I was working with a mid-level manager who was, by every external measure, succeeding. Promotions on schedule. Strong performance reviews. A team that consistently hit its numbers. But in a conversation that started as a routine check-in, she said something that stopped me cold: “I don’t know why I keep coming back.” She wasn’t burned out […]
Dan Goodman said it plainly in a recent LinkedIn post: “PIPs suck for everyone.” The employee wrongly being managed out through fabricated documentation. The manager forced to manufacture performance claims to justify a decision already made. The HR professional doing leadership’s dirty work. He’s right about all of it. But here’s where I’ll push back: PIPs don’t suck because they’re […]
