The Dreaded Sticky Note

This past week I had the privilege of working with a client’s management team in California. We spent some time discussing those things we do that cause disengagement within our teams. We came up with a great list of items (which I’ll share some on this blog over the next month).

I’ve had a few lousy bosses in my career that did a magnificent job of building a culture of disengagement. One of those bosses had a practice of leaving a sticky note in my chair each morning that read, “See me!” There was never anything good when I went to see him, and I grew to despise those sticky notes. To this day I don’t like sticky notes.

The engagement of employees was the last thing on the little mind of this boss, so he probably wouldn’t be concerned that his sticky notes caused disengagement. However, I encounter strong leaders every day that do small, seemingly insignificant things that cause disengagement in their organizations, all the while they are working hard to overcome disengagement. We should keep our eye on the big things that cause disengagement, but we should also look around to see what small things we may be doing to breed disengagement.