A recent Gallop Survey of 200,000 workers in 150 countries reported that 85% were either “not engaged” with their work or were “actively disengaged.”  So, as this data would indicate, the vast majority of the people are barely showing up for their work.  How many want to be on that team?

Pick a competitive sport team that comes to mind for you as an example.  I’ll choose a football team, where eleven players from one team are on the field at a time.  I envision that my eleven players are about to kick the ball off to the opponent.  If the survey results from above are a clear depiction of my team, 9.35 of 11 don’t care much.

The engaged kicker will dutifully kick the ball to the opponent.  Just one other engaged team member will run down the field at 65% effort with the kicker to attempt to make a defensive stop.  The other 9.35 disengaged players will just go through the motions, rarely making a play.  My team falls far short of any measure of success in this example.  If I am the coach, I should be fired.  But this is okay at work?

We should never be a part of a team or an organization where day after day, a vast majority of the team simply occupy the space and the resources necessary to provide a defined value.  Our limited choice is to positively influence an increased level of engagement with others or to change teams.  Life is much too short to simply occupy space.

 “Employees who are actively disengaged have the opposite effect on their organization’s prosperity and growth. They are more likely to steal from their company, negatively influence their co-workers, miss work days and drive customers away. Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $483 billion to $605 billion each year in lost productivity.”

MITM