The Tao of Loyalty

Tao is a school of Chinese philosophy which says that life is full of contradictions(yin and yang) and when one understands these contradictions, one is better able to manage life.

Tao of Loyalty- a tool or philosophy that allows an organization to understand and measure the physiological as well as behavioural loyalty of its employees at any point of time.

Got hold of this book in HCL library.The book is quite interesting with writer trying to quantify and measure loyalty and bringing up some BCG matrix type 2x2 matrix to segment employees and suggesting appropriate action to be taken based on the quadrant the employees are in.

The book starts of with referring to people as the 5th P of marketing and then defining employee loyalty on 2 different scales emotional and behavioural. Now whats the difference in the two.

Emotional Loyalty (EL)- Positive disposition that an employee has towards the organization, the "feel good" element or how psychologically wedded the employee is to the organization.

Behavioral Loyalty(BL)- Stated future behaviour of the employee where behaviour relates to action or reaction to an object or event.

To further illustrate the point writer uses this example, If an employee says "I have always treated my company's problem as my own", then the statement would relate to behaviour, as it is statement of action. However, if the employee says. "I feel my company problems are my own", then the statement would relate to feeling(emotion).

The 2X2 matrix based on emotional and behavioural loyalty classifies employees as accessible(EL high BL low), truly loyal(both EL, BL high), high risk(both EL, BL low) and trapped (EL low BL high). Then there are characteristics defined for each segment of employees. Next 11 factors are defined which impact loyalty and then writer refers the ubiquitous managerial grid, which has two scales again- task and people. The 10 factors are put in two baskets of task(Job satisfaction, Role Clarity, Job resources, Accomplishment and Vision Buy in) and people(Appreciation, Valued, Fairness, Trust and Care & Concern) and Communication being the 11th factor linking the two baskets. High scores on task factors set an employee up to improve productivity levels whereas high scores on people factor means that employee is working in a nurturing environment that sets him up for future productivity. Communication factor becomes the base (starting point) in building loyalty in organization and is the foundation on which Task and People factors can be built. Then each of the 11 factors have been evaluated to the level they impact the loyalty of an employee,correlation has been used to judge the same. There is reference of three important roles in the organization that impact the task and people factors are Leader (CEO), HR and the immediate supervisor. The same have been explained as to what should there role be in shaping up a truly loyal workforce. The author cautiously points out in the end that there may be other factors which he has not explored.

Some thoughts:

Huum now based on the reading i think I would fall in the Trapped category(High BL, low EL) in present organization as of now. Also reminds me of the Simplicity book I read sometime back where the authors point out that there is no big thing in having vision...its more or less not of much use.....just an excuse for top executives to go out in some exotic location , relax and come back and do business as usual....happens to be one of the quotes at beginning of chapter on the same topic and this tao book showing vision buy-in as having a significant positive impact on employee loyalty. People might have different views of looking at it and based on there personal experience might have very contradictory views. As per me I fail to see myself too inspired by the vision of the company. Good work to do is more inspiring :) and appreciation in form of just thanks is more motivational. The business primary objective is to be profitable. Doing business primarily treating employee as just a resource to be used would not sustain it for long especially in a competitive environment, but then running business with major focus on making sure employees are satisfied also seems to be too rosy picture. The time and cost factor come into play.One doubt I usually have when people respond to surveys is how smart or how long do they think before answering the questions in the survey and whether they answer based on what is in real or what they ideally feel should be done. How true are they to themselves while answering or they cant make judgements or they tailor their judgements ?? some random thoughts.......