Gallup Management Journal conducted their second annual employee engagement survey in 2001 with some very surprising results. According to the survey 55% of respondents were “not engaged” with a further 19% being “actively disengaged.” That is to say that the company would be better off if that 19% didn’t turn up for work at all! Only 26% of all those surveyed were said to be “engaged.” In other words only 26% of employees were greatly interested, occupied and involved in their work or their employer.

What is surprising about that statistic is not that there are disengaged people in the workplace but rather that there are so many. It means that we are not just failing our people but that we are failing them on a massive scale. While the issue of disengagement is obviously very complicated there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that a key contributor to the problem is our communication. Communication is the primary way in which organisations and leaders try to create engagement. Every day leaders try to engage their people in visions, missions, strategies, values, objectives and goals through communication. If Gallup is right, however, most employees remain disengaged despite the constant communication they receive courtesy of their leaders.

So what is going wrong?

In 2002 management guru Tom Peters' company conducted a survey of 1104 business professionals and found that 86% of their executives felt that they were great communicators. Interestingly, only 17% of their direct reports felt that those same executives were effective communicators. This is not exactly a new finding. Even as far back as 1986, 246 senior executives from the USA’s largest companies were asked by Lou Harris & Associates to evaluate how effective they thought they were in communicating the vision to the organization. 93% considered themselves either very effective or somewhat effective.

The research continued by interviewing frontline supervisors and managers from the same companies asking, “How effective are your senior executives at communicating the company’s vision?” Only 29% of respondents considered them either very effective or somewhat effective and the vast majority of those were in the ‘somewhat’ category.

In numerous small studies that we have conducted we have consistently found similar results – an inevitable communication leadership gap.

Isn’t that alarming...
29% of employees consider their executives effective communicators.
26% of employees consider themselves engaged.
...surely there’s a pattern emerging here?

There is a direct correlation between disengaged workers and the communication ability of leaders. In fact, from the evidence available it would appear that the communication leadership gap that results in disengaged people is roughly the size of the Grand Canyon.

The message is clear. The reason so many of our employees are disengaged is because as leaders our self-assessment of our communication ability is woefully off base. Our efforts to connect with our people and engage them are totally inadequate. Yet, at the same time, as leaders, we remain convinced of our superior communication skills and seemingly see no need to try and improve.

The biggest problem with communication in the business world is the illusion that it has occurred. Whether through arrogance or ignorance leaders and organisations have failed to communicate effectively. The result is an increasingly disengaged workforce that is neither involved nor interested in their work. If we want to fix that then, as leaders, we need to accept that our communication may not be as effective as we thought. Communication, as always, remains the most important area to address.

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