The False Promise of RTO and How to Actually Increase Engagement

This article explains how most leaders wind up with rear-view management, how managers use presence as a substitute for knowledge, and how to actually increase engagement.

Which country has the most businesses that have been around for more than 100 years?

The answer is Japan. By a long shot. According to some estimates, they have over 40,000 businesses spanning more than a century, accounting for more than half of all businesses worldwide that have eclipsed the centennial mark.

One of those companies? Nintendo. That’s right. The company now associated with video games started out in 1889 selling trading cards. They still make such cards in the form of Pokémon cards and the like, but they’ve learned to adapt.

How did they do this?

By creating a vision around the idea of play.

The word “play” should be easily associated with the brand, whether it’s from the running mats that came with the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo Wii and the Wii Sports concept that got people to move, or even global phenomenon that hit in 2016 with the mobile game Pokémon Go.

Nintendo spends its time looking forward to where they want to go and stays true to their purpose. This is what separates lasting companies and those that are hoping an enforceable return to office (RTO) policy will fix their revenue woes.

Rear-View Management

When do companies find out about revenue woes?

Usually it’s from the monthly, quarterly, or annual report that tells you how the company did. This is “rear-view (mirror) management.” These reports often consist of key performance indicators (KPIs) and other such metrics that report on the results.

And I get it. “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” or so the saying goes (read more here on the topic). But if all you do is manage by the numbers, you overlook two very important things:

• The numbers

• Why the numbers matter

The numbers, of course, are a result of the people, processes, and tools that produce them. Ultimately, the numbers should be used as indicators for the health of the thing you’re trying to do. They are called, after all, key performance indicators.

But what do people do when things go poorly?

They double-down on the numbers. “Numbers don’t lie!” screams the CFO, totally panicked about the next quarterly report. “We’ve got to get our call volume up!” the Chief Sales Officer cries for the 10th time this week. “The beatings will continue until morale improves!” berates the COO, a little too smugly.

Yes, people have the knowledge of what happened, but they usually stop there and forget to ask why it’s happening, let alone why they’re doing what they are doing. This doubling-down solidifies rear-view management. This lagging-style of management is leading people to a similar conclusion:

It must be the lack of physical presence.

And, because it’s a conclusion many other companies are making, people adopt the group think and feel it’s the right conclusion.

Out comes the policy:

“Everyone must be in the office at least 4 days a week.”

But what is this really?

Presence as a Substitution for Knowledge

They believe that, because people are physically back in the building, the numbers will change.

Physical presence is, however, is little more than comfort for management that doesn’t know what’s going on with its business.

Ouch.

Maybe that’s not the nicest of sentences, but it is intended to be kind. Where niceness focuses on surface-level manners and may treat the symptoms, kindness goes deeper and focuses on healing the root issue.

It may feel nice to blindly say, “sending people back to the office is the right call,” but perhaps the kinder thing to ask is,

“What proactive measurements show having people in the office will improve our business?”

And that’s where most people fail.

They don’t have anything that measures the proactive.

They have all the reactive measurements that show them where they’ve been. They believe that the sole (or at least largest) changed variable is physical presence.

But what most people are afraid to discover is that putting people back in office chairs may not fix the problem. And, if it doesn’t address the issues they want changed, they still believe it was the necessary first step.

Wise business changes need three things:

• The item or area affected

• The variable you’re changing

• The outcome impacted

And, while you can measure this with reactive measures and rear-view management, you will do better when you do this with your proactive measurements.

Businesses that don’t have proactive measures believe physical presence is an adequate substitute for real knowledge.

But there is a better way.

How to Actually Increase Engagement

Keep your current company metrics. You need to know how revenue was, how much product was moved, how many support calls were incurred, etc.

Add leading measures.

The Framework calls these Units per Group. These Units are the routine loops of work people do day in and day out. They are how people think about their work. They are the action people take that end up producing the results.

Most front-line workers don’t think about their day in terms of, “What’s the P&L of the company?” They think in terms of, “I have these 4 or 5 routine things I do, and I have to get through 12 of them today.”

When put in terms of how people think about their day, leading measures give you knowledge of what moves your rear-view metrics.

These individual metrics show you what your company metrics will be.

When you put metrics in terms of how people think about their day, they feel heard. You start speaking their language. People who feel heard feel more valued and will produce better results.

Second, measurements in terms of how people think about their day create connection to the measures you want to see changed. To reiterate, keep your KPIs and other company level metrics. When you take an extra ounce of care to show, “Here’s how your actions directly move the needle left or right,” you create connectivity from the top-most strategic thinker to the front-most doer. This helps people connect meaning to their work.

I bring back the question:

“What proactive measurements show having people in the office will improve your business?”

Is it, “haircuts dropped to zero when the barbers stopped coming into work”? Or is it, “The boss manages by walking around and feels uneasy when he sees people aren’t in their office”? One of these is a clear measurement (number of haircuts) impacted. Another is feeling.

Feelings are important, but feelings don’t translate to others the same way measurements framed in how those others think of their day translate.

Do you have measurements that show, “When 80% of the team is in person, the number of customer tickets resolved goes up”? This would be a great way to get your team committed to achieving the goal: keeping customers satisfied.

Just as Nintendo has survived for over 100 years by keeping “play” the main goal, make sure the business changes you implement impact what you want to happen.

This is but one component of how The Healthy Company Framework works and keeps your business better prepared than your competition. We’d love to help you become an expert at healing your business from the inside out.

What are you using return to office mandates for? To increase collaboration? Or a cheap substitute for the real knowledge of how your business is actually doing?