Engage—and Keep—Your Employees

Review of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans

Reviewed by Don Blohowiak, Lead Well Institute, www.LeadWell.com

In working with literally thousands of managers a year, I find very few complaining about employee turn-over. Or its more positively stated corollary, retention of great people.

That doesn't mean that attrition of great associates isn't a problem—just one that most managers overlook or choose to ignore for its embarrassing implications.

What most managers do complain about (ad nauseum) can be summed up in two words: employee motivation. Which, of course, has everything to do with causing the very costly problem of human leakage from the company payroll (as well as most of the frustrations that deny managers restful nights and peaceful days).

And so, it is such a shame that the title of this superbly helpful guide is misleading. Or at least inadequate. Instead of Love 'Em or Lose 'Em, it should declare, more appropriately: "Keep 'Em: Engaged, Motivated to Produce, and on YOUR Payroll!" Clunkier for sure. But much more accurate. If not compelling.

This book by veteran consultants Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans is a handy advisor for pressured, task-based (and, yes, even gruff) managers who are too consumed to always remember—but who know down deep—that people, the engaged and motivated variety, really do make the difference in producing great results.

POINTS OF DISTINCTION

Unlike so many other collections of myriad motivational techniques, this book is:

• Grounded in research (current and original by the authors, as well as contemporary and classic studies by others)
• Flush with very real world examples—many of them likely will seem hauntingly familiar and hit frighteningly close to home (perhaps striking dead-on in your very own solar plexus)
• Aimed squarely at managers who ordinarily reject, refute, and yeah-but all the trite touchy-feely, overly saccharine, and unrealistically techniquey advice about motivating people. (You know, the kind spewed by the legions of naive-to-clueless consultants who manage nothing more than to pen ridiculously over-idealized management books.)
• Packed with rich, diverse, immediately actionable tactics that are practical, low-or-no-cost, and doable. No matter how uninvolved or inept your own boss or HR department, you'll find lots and lots of choices and material from which even the most casual, or cynical, skimming reader can easily draw. (As the authors note in their Preface: "'Love 'Em or Lose 'Em' does not offer a single technique or a large, complex program for keeping good people. Instead, it provides 26 strategies, each of which includes dozens of small, easy-to-implement ideas." True enough.)

Unlike far too many "management cookbooks" (some unreasonably popular), this work distinguishes itself by helping a manager to:

• Assess his or her own management style—not against the standard of an imaginary "perfect leader" but rather in specific dimensions that truly affect employee performance; and
• Accept responsibility for affecting employees' engagement, productivity, and retention. (As the Gallup Organization and others have been harping on lately, it's the individual manager, not the CEO or mythical corporate culture, who really affects the day-to-day work of individual employees.)

This book by Kaye and Jordan-Evans encourages its readers to ask themselves important questions about their OWN needs and assumptions (critical to understanding why one does what one does). And it provides a remarkable treasure trove of questions that a manager can ask employees, in comfortable conversations, to gently unveil their personal interests, wants, and needs impacting their on-the-job motivation and performance. Moreover, it provides plenty of options for managers to deploy tactics that leverage those vital insights into productivity-changing actions.

PICKING NITS

A hidden gem in the book is its Quick-Start Guide. It provides a valuable overview of the book, and is itself full of practical tactics. But it is unnecessarily and inexplicably inconspicuous. Hidden really. Buried between the last chapter and the Notes and other end matter.

Likewise, a useful self-assessment that guides the reader to the themes most helpful to a specific reader resides in the last chapter.

Despite these curious editorial decisions, my advice is to buy two copies of this book. One for you and one for the least people-oriented boss you know. Then, read the book. Backwards and selectively. Begin with the Quick-Start Guide on page 243, and then take the "Retention Probability Index" assessment on pages 237 & 238.

Oh, be sure to take (with a deep breath and earnest commitment to brutal honesty) the Jerk Boss self-assessment on pages 91-93. To get full value from this uniquely helpful book, it's good to know what you're really up against.

Buy this helpful guide here.

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