THE AUTHOR
FRANCESCA GINO
Employee engagement is a problem. To fix it, encourage
your workers to break rules and be themselves. We’ll show you who does
it right and how
Troughout our careers, we are taught to
conform — to the status quo, to the opinions and behaviors of others, and to
information that supports our views.
The pressure only grows as we climb the
organizational ladder.
By the time we reach high-level positions, conformity
has been so hammered into us that we perpetuate it in our enterprises.
In a
recent survey I conducted of more than 2,000 employees across a wide range of
industries, nearly half the respondents reported working in organizations where
they regularly feel the need to conform, and more than half said that people in
their organizations do not question the status quo.
The results were similar
when I surveyed high-level executives and midlevel managers. As this data
suggests, organizations consciously or unconsciously urge employees to check a
good chunk of their real selves at the door.
Workers and their organizations
both pay a price: decreased engagement, productivity, and innovation (see the
exhibit “The Perils of Conformity”).
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