by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“People, at best, only utilize 20% of their talents,” Albert Einstein

  Not long before the holiday season got into full swing, some good friends brought two of their children, from different sides of their family, to New York for tasting the city’s festive shows, lights, eating and shopping. But, as is normal with such visits, the burgeoning pre-teens hid away quietly – not to be heard – while the adults excitedly brought all sides up-to-date with their usual friendly chatter.

Quite by chance, this writer snuck out to do some last-minute food shopping. While at the supermarket, he spied some gingerbread-house kits. He brought one home for the two pre-teenagers, who were still on their best behavior in an adjacent bedroom. Their eyes truly lit-up when they saw the package because now they could legitimately use their pent-up creative talents without in any way annoying their parents.

They did a magnificent job within a reasonably short space of time. Their sense of pride at their handiwork was abundant. Even so, since it took additional time to complete the model to their level of satisfaction, they eagerly returned to fine-tune it after each city jaunt; as they came back to home base. This fine-tuning activity occurred without any nudging or pushing by the adults. What happened here?

One thing we can safely observe is that, if we were to fast forward the clock on those two kids by ten years and catch them in their late teens, they probably would sneer at the prospect of building a gingerbread-house. By that time, their curiosity and imaginations would have been squelched to the point of no interest. What would’ve brought about such a change?

Such a reduction in offered imagination is a challenge experienced by so many executives today; who find it difficult to engage their staff creatively – especially among the younger members. Having said that, this writer has had plenty of opportunities to observe staff become creative and engaged; just as they were within their pre-teen years. Such observations confirm that such behavior is inherent in people but it seems to become dormant. It’s hidden away waiting to resurface at the right moment…witness parents with infants or young children and their inclination to revisit noises and behavior that they experienced when they were quite young!

Is it possible, because of the challenges of teenage life and how parents react to it, that the engaged, creative side of teens is turned off? Or is it transformed into aberrant behavior that’s discouraged at every turn? Parents don’t wish to be embarrassed by teenage extremes. Many young people – some estimates say 50% – never mature mentally beyond those tortured teenage years, when they were constantly upbraided by parents and adults.

So we return to the often asked question by executives: “How do I get my people to become more engaged and creative, without turning them off?” This writer’s answer is: through the practice of leadership more so than management. Manage-ment, with its controlling and measured approach, is too reminiscent of teenager-parents. It locks people down so that their creative and engaged switches remain turned off.

On the other hand, leadership with its inspiring people focus has much more chance of releasing those locked-down engagement and creativity valves. Of course, every workplace person is different and the damage inflicted during their teenage years creates its own challenges, even for the best of leaders. In many cases, it takes a lot of humorous corralling and patience to unlock that hidden imagination once again – to bring out that pre-teen engagement and curiosity.

It reminds this writer of a story a colleague once shared,  about an old curmudgeon he had on one of his European teams. The man was always complaining and known as being outright difficult with his colleagues: even though he had a lot of good experience and wisdom. Over time, in one of my colleague’s latter career assignments, he was challenging his team members to meet a number of customer service challenges throughout his European business domain. However, Fritz, always his usual self, was being difficult and unwilling to travel anywhere.

One day Fritz disappeared and my colleague and his home-base team members started looking for him after a day or so. Eventually they tracked him down. Quite by surprise, he had travelled to another European city to join colleagues for dealing with a particular major fix. Fritz did his stuff and returned with his beaming colleagues. What happened?

After all the nudging and leadership challenging, Fritz’s creative and engagement switches were turned on; quite contrary to the typical threats and bribes traditional managers tend to use. He was so proud of himself for helping out and enjoyed handling the difficult customer situation. He probably felt exactly the same way as our two pre-teen guests did when they built their gingerbread-house.

So the moral of this story is: that it’s the right leadership that turns the engagement and imagination switches on.  Sometimes it takes a good deal of patience and leadership  insight, as in Fritz’s case, to make this happen. A combination of efforts may be needed to find the right switch to turn on. Of course, for a variety of reasons, there are those people whose personality has become so depressed, through life’s growing up experiences, that you can never turn their special switches on.

In such instances, you probably need to counsel them over time, on where their greatest interests lie in life, and then, send them on a journey to another more appropriate in-house group where there may be a closer match. Alternatively, you should encourage them to leave and seek a role where they are better suited. You are doing them a favor; for their colleagues, too.

The experience of watching our two young guests avidly erect the gingerbread-house, rather than be self-banished to another corner of the apartment, so as not to be an undue distraction, was a stark reminder of the regular sight of lower-order workplace people being banished to the sidelines because of where they are in the pecking order. Also perhaps because they are not perceived as possessing the creativity or talents to contribute much beyond their current station. Is it conceivable that, if brought from  the shadows to address the right situation, that their engagement and creative switches may well be turned on, also. This is much more likely to occur where they are exposed to leaders more than managers.

Perhaps because many workplace people are over-managed by policies, procedures, compliance and control, their switches rarely get turned-on. Too bad for them and their enterprises.

Maybe a 2016 New Year’s resolution for you to use with your leadership talent,  is to cast around for a number of under-utilized people in your team or organization. Find out what’s most likely to turn their engagement and imagination switches on and then create the right circumstances for that to happen. With luck, you’ll have some highly productive company members and you’ll get some thorny issues addressed. In most cases, their talents are waiting to be tapped by using the right approach, rather than be lost in the shadows.

To learn more about leadership and the switches for creativity and engagement, talk with: