Walden 2.0: Daily Employee Engagement Week 5

The Walden 2.010 Project (Week 5)

What percentage contribution towards employee engagement

would you attribute to each of task, role, and organization?

Daily employee engagement. This is a weekly reporting of a one year project monitoring, measuring, and assessing daily employee engagement. You can see the  original project plan, intention, measures and tools by  clicking here.

Week 5. This was a week of highs and lows in engagement. Day 2 and Day 3 were the highest scores I have had all year in engagement and Day 4 and 5 were the lowest.

Assessment and Review. Teaching continues to a major contributor to my own engagement. Social media work on Days 4 and 5 were the lowest days in engagement. I can get quite engaged in the moment in social media work but the overall contribution to engagement is not as strong as my education work.

Conclusions and Recommendations.  I am becoming more keenly aware of the cost of high levels of engagement. I may have a couple of very engaged days but then I seem to compensate with lower days. I will be interested to see if this trend continues during the year.

Employee Engagement Overall Take-away. At the risk of sounding like a Mini Marcus Buckingham I believe it is imperative that we help employees determine their strengths by defining strengths as what engages them. The nature and type of my work has had a huge influence on engagement this past week.

What impact does the type of your work have on your engagement?

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com.

Employee Engagement: Use Story not PowerPoint

Are you using story to create, foster, and enhance employee engagement within your organization.

Robert McKee is a master of story.

He offers a short insightful video look at the power of story to engage.

• Are you relying too much on data data, authority authority
• Are you relying too much on coercion: bribe, bully, coerce?
• Are you making use of story?

Robert provides us with a strong 6 minute powerful “PowerPointless” video on how to use story to engage. He concludes with the comment, “I’d rather hear a fact woven beautifully into a story than look at a pie chart.”

If the video fails to load in this window, click here.

Don’t wait until once upon a time, start making use of story in your employee engagement work today.

Engage Now: Gabrielle Bouliane

I encourage you to take 5 minutes – how seldom on the Internet we will stay anywhere for 5 minutes – but I encourage you to take 5 minutes to watch and listen to Gabrielle Bouliane performing slam poetry on engage now.

Here is the description that accompanies the YouTube video:

The lovely and amazing performance poet Gabrielle Bouliane performs for the audience at the Austin Poetry Slam.

This would be her last public performance.

Gabrielle was diagnosed with Stage Four Cancer shortly before this video was filmed. Our dear sister fought hard, but she ended her fight January 29, 2010. She was surrounded by family and friends, and her passing was in a very quiet, peaceful room full of love and affection. She was so brave.

Please share this video with everyone you know. I am sure it would tickle her to no end to have this video get as viral as a video can be. Tell the world.

Bunny up!

Warning. She uses strong language but this is a a much needed strong message.

If the video fails to open in this window, click here.

Today At Work – Episode 45

Employee Engagement: Major Marshall Mojo

Mojo = Employee Engagement.

Are you ready for major Marshall Goldsmith Mojo?

Marshall’s Mojo. Are you working with Mojo and does your work give you Mojo? Marshall Goldsmith’s latest book is called Mojo. My mental image of Mojo is often something coming from a 7 foot 260 pound NBA player driving to the net so it is intriguing to watch the gentle but tenacious CEO coach with a Buddhist background, Marshall Goldsmith, focus on Mojo.

Mojo and Nojo. Here is a  diagram from one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Business Week posts last year:

Mojo defined.  Marshall Goldsmith explained Mojo in his latest newsletter:

My definition of Mojo spins off from the great value I attach to finding happiness and meaning in life.  Mojo plays a vital role in our pursuit of happiness and meaning because it is about achieving two simple goals: loving what you do and showing it.

These goals govern my operational definition:

Mojo is that positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.

To attain Mojo, we must consider what we can start doing in order to achieve more meaning and happiness in our lives. That’s the payoff of having Mojo. More meaning. More happiness. It’s not just for organization al leaders; it’s for all of us, and it applies to all aspects of our lives because, as our research clearly documents, people with high Mojo at work tend to have high Mojo at home.

Video explanation of Mojo. Watch Marshall offer this 3 minute presentation:

If the video fails to load, click here.

5 Mojo questions:

1. Do you have clarity on what gives you meaning?
2. Do you have clarity on what contributes to your happiness?
3. How are you doing at finding, creating, sustaining and engaging in Mojo endeavors.
4. Are you tapping into your inner spirit that fuels your energy for employee engagement and also returns that energy back to you?
5. What can you do right not to start and extend more Mojo moments?

Next step. Read Marshall’s Mojo book and find your Mojo.

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2012 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com.

22 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource Zingers (#7)

Get engaged. From positive psychology on empowerment at work to a 5 second tea break and from accountability muscle to inclusion, flexibility, and creativity to turn workplaces around. Also, a field guide to change agents and how we see ourselves as stories.

1. Positive psychology view of empowerment at work. http://bit.ly/9xFcs6

2. Great Break. Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes. http://bit.ly/9xF43T

3. How to face your critics from John Baldoni, HBR. http://bit.ly/cz1ANq

4. A transtional/transformational experience to being laid off. Lemonade the movie. http://bit.ly/aTwQv9

5. Walden 2.0. Poetry. Warsaw. Etc. Read David Zinger’s last 20 employee engagement blog posts. http://bit.ly/cfj7x

6. 2010 Employee Engagement Network. 2010 members now in the year 2010. http://bit.ly/rKCXH

7. Elizabeth Perry offers a 5 second tea break by looking at her drawing. http://bit.ly/9EojR9

8. 6 Questions to Increase your Accountability Muscle http://bit.ly/a186AZ

9. 7 questions for influence by Steve Roesler. http://bit.ly/d0wt9I

10. Still Employed…Still Dissatisfied. http://bit.ly/bcudeb

11. Grow your people, grow your business http://bit.ly/9sg5Sx

12. The risks of disengaged employees grow more real… http://bit.ly/bNM1v7

13. 6 Ways to Empower Employees as Brand Advocates Online. http://bit.ly/atT06z

14. Keys to Employee Engagement from Canada’s Best. http://bit.ly/coPDkx

15. America’s Unhappy Workers – Inclusion, Creativity, Flexibility Key to Turning Things Around. http://bit.ly/cp2Wkt

16. Great discussion forum on questioning employee engagement. http://bit.ly/9YRe74

17. This year’s survey also underlines the important role managers have in keeping their team productive and motivated. http://bit.ly/aDVeXc

18. Some keys points about employee engagement surveys. http://bit.ly/9aZ5v3

19. 47 well composed slides on A Field Guide for Change Agents. http://bit.ly/dvk5F9

20. Terrific motivation post from HBR . People tend to think of themselves as stories. http://bit.ly/dyibjU

21. That’s Right. Going from Great to Good. It is good enough for me. http://bit.ly/9QVwcF

22. Employee Engagement. What’s a Leader to do?: http://bit.ly/aA6Yne

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2012 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com.

The Employee Engagement Network: 2 Years and 2000 Members

THE source for employee engagement. I am thrilled at the unanticipated success of The Employee Engagement Network.

A Saturday afternoon experiment. I started this community 2 years ago on January 26th., 2008. It began as a Saturday afternoon experiment. My motive was to learn more about social networks for business and to see if I could gather 50 to 100 people together on the topic of Employee Engagement. I succeeded on both counts!

Our 2000th. member. Bev Mate – a director of competency development for HR in New York – is our 2000th member. Of course she would not be 2000th without the joining of 1999 members before her.

My contributions. I have worked hard to make this a welcoming, connected, informed, and engaged community. My work has ranged from personally welcoming every new member to suggesting, compiling, and creating our free resources. I have learned so much from this community and can only imagine how much I will learn from them this decade.

300 rejections. I have also declined about 300 members who wanted to join but were not really focused on the topic and may have had other motives to join and use the community.

A special thanks to John Junson. This network would not be what it is without the contributions of John Junson. John, is a friend of mine from grade 9 at Bruce Junior High in Winnipeg. John has enhanced the design, created compelling graphics, designed the e-books and book, and also created 2  great work related cartoons every week! Thank you John.

Our contributions. A huge thank you to everyone who has joined and an even bigger thank you to all the members who have made such fine contributions:

• We have created 3 great free ebooks.
• We are publishing a top 10 book.
• We have 113 videos to view related to employee engagement.
• We have 507 forums for open discussions on employee engagement topics.
• We have 556 blog posts.
• We have 26 special interest groups.

Our future. We have a network on employee engagement that has grown to 2000 members, has become a community and is headed towards becoming a strong movement. We are the #1 place to be for employee engagement.

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David Zinger is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2000 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com.

Walden 2.0: Daily Employee Engagement Project Week 3 & 4

The Walden 2.010 Project (Week 3 & 4)

Employees need to monitor and receive daily engagement data.

We cannot withhold employee engagement data from employees

if we expect data to become a measure and a motivator of engagement.

Daily employee engagement. This is a weekly reporting of a one year project monitoring, measuring, and assessing daily employee engagement. You can see the  original project plan, intention, measures and tools by  clicking here.

Challenged in week 3 and 4. Week 3 and 4 became more of a challenge in the daily monitoring of employee engagement. Part of the reason was a trip to Warsaw Poland right in the middle of this time.  I have inserted a screen shot picture of the data for the last two weeks of engagement.

Here are my week 3 and 4 reflections:

Assessment and Review. There was an overall consistency in scores as they begin to average out yet there were daily fluctuations from scores of 94% and 92% for the last two days of week 4 and 54% for the Tuesday of the same week. I was very challenged to conduct daily monitoring and it was easy to let the scoring slide. I believe the lack of engagement in monitoring is a problem that can allow my work engagement to slip. Monitoring is making me more aware of the variability in daily engagement.

Engagement in Teaching. Teaching or education days are the days of highest engagement for me personally.

Conclusions and Recommendations.  It was surprising to see the consistency of average scores but I know the project itself is a great tool to be mindful of engagement. Getting data and reflecting on data about engaged performance is great feedback and motivation to change.

Employee Engagement Overall Take-away. I think the first month of the project indicated how important it is to give employees the data of their own engagement and to offer that data back as quick as possible. Ultimately during this decade, I believe it will be imperative to move away from yearly surveys to real time daily data that is shared with all and makes use of hand held technology.

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David Zinger is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2000 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is available forl education, speaking, and coaching on engagement.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com.

15 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource Zingers (#6)

Read this eclectic group of resources to learn ideas ranging from wicked action for democracy to  appreciating and building a white paper with images.

1. Wicked PDF. How can we use cooperative action & deliberative democracy to make life better? http://bit.ly/dt5jHa

2. How do you engage people not to wear pants on the subway? http://bit.ly/baTlrs

3. Make your model sharper. Rajesh Setty. http://bit.ly/aaUxX3

4. Take Me to Pandora, or The Positive Psychology of Avatar by Louis Alloro http://bit.ly/9UuxX9

5. Engaging Work Dialogues. Another close look at dialogue at work by Jerry Pounds. http://bit.ly/bbghLy

6. Living on the Edge of Incompetence. Another fine post from my friend Scott H. Young. http://bit.ly/94WRPY

7. Values Are The Bedrock of Hard Reality. Rosa Say said it well. http://bit.ly/a3k6HL

8. Dan Oestreich writes magnificently. I appreciated his post ON APPRECIATION. http://bit.ly/a9Zm07

9. Building a White Paper – Images as bricks and text as mortar. Get the picture! http://bit.ly/96mBt9

10. No Hurry, No Worry. Build your Zen habits. http://bit.ly/bcl02M

11. Work-Life Initiatives are the Foundation of Authentic Organizations ~ CV Harquail’s work. http://bit.ly/d2dUzO

12. Why should anyone care about you? Seth Godin interview. Well done by Rick Cecil. http://bit.ly/9k6VTe

13. 3 ways to give the best of yourself by Anita Bruzzese http://bit.ly/dy962R

14. Reconcile Your Relational Accounts. Right on by Steve Roesler. http://bit.ly/9NqjTW

15. 10.6.2 theory: Employee engagement 10% increase -> increase discretionary effort 6%, performance 2%. http://bit.ly/bcGfUv

Student Engagment, Media Engagement, and Learning in this Decade

A terrific slide share presentation by Rodd Lucier: Let’s Ban Chalk.

There are lessons to be learned here for employee engagement. We will need team leaders, architects, P.R. specialists, espionage experts, and C.F.O.s:

Today At Work – Episode 44