How to deliberately create disengaged employees

One of the techniques we often use in workshops is TRIZ which is part of the Liberating Structures suite of tools that help people work together better.

In TRIZ, we ask groups to identify a list of the actions they would take if they wanted to deliberately design something not to work. Then we ask the groups to identify which of the items on their list actually happen in the current system (often there are more happening than not happening) and finally ask them to identify ways to overcome these issues.

When I read this article on “the easiest ways to create disengaged employees”, it felt like a TRIZ exercise. We often bring talented, passionate people into our organisations then immerse them in a working environment that couldn’t disengage them more if we had deliberately tried to do so.

This article is a life-like, sad example of what organisations often do to people. The key thing is the actions we take to stop this happening.