Engagement - intrinsic or imposed?
How the "employee engagement" industry perverted a positive intention
“The industry focus is on how leaders can get people to work harder and with more energy on behalf of their organizations, with less focus on whether people are bringing their best, cherished selves into that work. I think that the power of the ideas about personal engagement gets lost in that reimagined focus.” — William Kahn 1
When William Kahn came up with the notion of engagement at work, his intention was to encourage organisations to create conditions in which people can be more intrinsically motivated in the context of their work roles.
Unfortunately, the idea got co-opted by the “employee engagement” industry as a way of squeezing more out of people for less…
The eight minute Future-Fit Culture Frequently Asked Questions video below explores the territory around engagement, and quotes Kahn’s perspective more fully as follows:
“I very deliberately focused on “personal” engagement—the harnessing of the person in the context of role performances. This refers to the thoughts, feelings, and energies of who people are when they are at their best selves. The focus, frankly, is on whether people can express their selves in the context of their work roles, which enables them to grow and evolve even as they are performing well.
The shift in the industry to “employee” engagement is, in many ways, a reversal of that idea, and of my intention. The industry focus is on how leaders can get people to work harder and with more energy on behalf of their organizations, with less focus on whether people are bringing their best, cherished selves into that work. I think that the power of the ideas about personal engagement gets lost in that reimagined focus.” 2
Future-Fit Culture Frequently Asked Questions on Employee Engagement (8 minutes):
The above video cites a previous article (see below) addressing Ryan and Deci’s Self Determination Theory and the different forms of extrinsically motivated compliance that frequently displace the intrinsically motivated commitment required to bring to life a future-fit culture of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness:
The 2017 interview by David Zinger in which William Kahn describes how his original ideas on “personal engagement” got reversed by the “employee engagement” industry, achieving the exact opposite of what he intended.
Ibid.