Blog — David Zinger - Employee Engagement Speaker

A 21-Point Employee Engagement Manifesto

Posted on November 4, 2014 // Leave a Comment

If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything

Have you taken a stand on employee engagement? I wrote this manifesto to declare my beliefs and practices for employee engagement. I invite you to read it, to reflect upon the statements, to act upon the statements that make sense to you, and to determine your own stand on employee engagement.

Here is the beginning of the manifesto:

Our current practices and approaches to employee engagement are failing. They are failing to achieve organizational results and most employees fail to experience the benefits of their own engagement. These failures may result in widespread abandonment of employee engagement. This is intolerable and unacceptable as engagement has the potential to create excellent experiences of working for individuals fused with organizations capable of creating robust results. Let’s work together to ensure we avoid the loss from a failure to engage!

Read this new 21-point manifesto outlining my core beliefs, principles, and actions to improve employee engagement and work. Notice that each item is a verb directed towards action. These are strong declarations. You will discover where I stand on the major elements of engagement because “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” If you or your organization align with some of these statements I welcome and invite you to work with me.

Simplify employee engagement into an 8 word definition: good work done well with others every day.

Change engagement by changing behaviors and actions. We change attitudes, emotions and culture by changing behavior.

Make employee engagement actions and behaviors simple, small, strategic, significant, and sustainable.

Rewrite the grammar of engagement from the noun of engagement to the verb of engage.

To read the other 17 declarations view the slides below:

Zinger’s Employee Engagement Manifesto from David Zinger

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: 21 points on employee engagement, behaviors for engagement, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, David Zinger manifesto, Employee Engagement, employee engagement actions, employee engagement manifesto

Learn 12 Secrets to Becoming a Thought Leader

Posted on November 19, 2013 // 19 Comments

Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I am.

(Reading Time: 5 Minutes)

Learn how to be a thought leader from David Zinger’s employee engagement thought leadership. Do you want to be a thought leader? This post outlines a quirky 12 step process to thought leadership.

What’s in a name? I have been referred to as a thought leader in employee engagement and was conferred engagement Guru status by the UK’s Engage for Success movement. I never knew that a business and workplace movement in the UK could confer guru status. I believe that if you think you are a thought leader or a guru in all likelihood you are neither of these things. I don’t think I am a thought leader, just a fifty-nine year old guy living on the Canadian prairies in Winnipeg who developed an abiding passion for the various permutations and combinations of engagement in leadership, management, work, and living.

Here are 12 idiosyncratic steps if you are interested in being thought of as a though leader:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. – Walt Whitman

Develop a mild to medium obsession with a topic. I admit that I am obsessed with engagement and what it means. I can’t resist reading a book or blog about engagement. I check tweets on engagement about five times a day. I think about engagement all the time. Psychologists suggest we have about two thousand 14-second daydreams each day. A fair number of my daydreams involve engagement.

Be willing to go anywhere to learn about your specialty. I have gone from military bases in Winnipeg to distilleries in Manitoba to learn about engagement. I have walked the tunnels of uranium mines in Northern Saskatchewan and spent time scurrying though a platinum smelter in South Africa in search of engagement. I got a real buzz of engagement by using computers over three summers to interact with honeybees in their hives to learn about social engagement. If you want to buzz off for a few moments click on the title of my free eBook: Waggle: 39 Ways to Improve Human Organizations, Work, and Engagement. Thought leaders need to go anywhere to learn from anyone (even another species) about engagement.

Your best thoughts always begin with ignorance. Everything I have learned about engagement has come from my ignorance. To me, ignorance simply means not knowing. Stupidity is thinking you know when you don’t. It is okay to be ignorant just don’t be stupid about it. Just because we start with ignorance doesn’t mean that we stay there.

You are only half right but don’t let your brains fall out. I believe that half of what I say is right on, evidence-based, and state of the art while half of what I say is wrong. The conundrum is that I don’t know the difference. Concepts, ideas, and practices need to be played out and what works for one person, team, or organization may not work for another. Jacob Needleman, the philosopher offered the following advice, “it’s good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”

It is more important to write than be right. E. M. Forester once wrote, “how do I know what I think until I see what I write.” Writing has proven to be a good way to think. I have written over 2500 blog posts, 3 books, and 10000 tweets. I read to learn but I also write to learn. A thought leader can seldom go wrong by writing.

You can think on our own but you are never alone. Thought leadership does not exist in isolation or a vacuum. I founded and host a 6100 member community on employee engagement. I have devoted countless hours over the past 6 years to this community and it has been worth every second. We are now firmly embedded in the era of social thinking supplanting solo thinking.

You can never know enough, or retain enough, to stop being a student. I am enthralled by learning and learn from everyone I encounter. I default on being a student. I study rather than read. Currently, I am studying, Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. I can’t help myself as I make notes and draw little diagrams in the margin, I argue with certain statements and put giant check marks beside other statement, and the white pages of the book are streaked with contrails of yellow highlighter.

Build a pyramid so that your thoughts will outlast you. I never intended to build a pyramid but I ended up building a 10 block pyramid of engagement. I am a visual thinker and created images for the key elements of engagement. Before I knew it the blocks took the shape of a pyramid. Partially as a tribute to the great UCLA’s basketball coach John Wooden’s pyramid of success and partially because the pyramid structure created a strong, almost intuitive, visual representation of the tactical and practical requirements of full engagement. It may be premature to declare this but I believe the pyramid of engagement may be my magnum opus, or it could be the manifestation of regression to when I was three years old and totally engaged in playing with wooden alphabet blocks.

Embrace contradictions and change your mind. My mind has been changed often in engagement. I have more questions than answers. My thoughts lead me more than I lead my thoughts. I have always loved the line by Walt Whitman at the start of these 12 steps: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

To find enlightenment be a lamp. A much wiser one than I, the Buddha, said “be a lamp unto yourself.” We must shine a light on own thinking and approaches. We can go around the globe in search of engagement and fail to realize that it resides in our own hands, head, and heart.

Waggle while you work. My honeybees taught me to waggle. Waggles are their dance-like movements to communicate with their community about sources of pollen and even the location of a new home. I trust my thoughts will help others find and nourish their own engagement work. I place countless links in my tweets and updates on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter feeds.

Think, pray, laugh. I have kept everything in perspective by following the Chinese beatitude: Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, they shall never cease to be entertained. I also maintain my serenity with the modified serenity prayer I learned about 30 years ago: God grant me the laughter to see the past with perspective, face the future with hope, and celebrate today without taking myself too seriously. Thought leaders who laugh, last. Enjoy Assorted Zingers: Poems and Cartoons to Take a Bite Out of Work.

Alfred Adler was a thought leader for psychological thinking. He didn’t follow Sigmund Freud’s path or someone else’s path, he created his own. Supposedly after presenting his latest theories and thinking on psychology in front of very large audiences he would conclude his presentation with this statement of heartfelt uncertainty, “things could also be quite otherwise.” As we journey forward in engagement towards 2020, let’s never forget that, things could also be quite otherwise.

The map is not the territory. ~ Alfred Korzybski

David Zinger has been led around by his thoughts on employee engagement for the past 7 years. He is an employee engagement speaker from the Canadian prairies who believes we must be on the same level with everyone else and that pyramids are for blocks not for people.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, 12 steps, B2013, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, Employee Engagement, Pyramid of Employee Engagement, Rosetta Stone, thought leader, thought leadership

Employee Engagement: How to Make a Small, Simple, Significant, Strategic and Sustainable Difference

Posted on January 29, 2015 // Leave a Comment

The 4 Enablers of Employee Engagement Made Simple

My passion and pursuit of employee engagement has taken over 14,000 hours yet resulted in me striving to make employee engagement small and simple. For example, my definition of engagement is just 8 words: good work done well with others every day. Although this is a simple definition of engagement, it does not mean that it is easy, yet I do believe it is attainable. This simple yet elegant definition avoids a lot of the excess jargon floating around employee engagement — which is itself a part of that jargon.

I admire the work of the Engage for Success Movement in the UK. I consider David MacLeod to be a friend and I am enriched by everyone who has been involved in the movement. One element that stood out for me from their work was using the term enablers rather than drivers or levers. It seemed real, kind, and more engaging.

Here is a short explanation of the four enablers from the Engage for Success Site:

Although there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach and no master model for successful employee engagement there were four common themes that emerged from the extensive research captured in the Engaging For Success report to government (also known as the MacLeod Report). Taken together, they include many of the key elements that go to make successful employee engagement.

These four enablers of engagement have proved to be useful lenses which can help organisations assess the effectiveness of their approaches.

Visible, empowering leadership providing a strong strategic narrative about the organisation, where it’s come from and where it’s going.

Engaging managers who focus their people and give them scope, treat their people as individuals and coach and stretch their people.

There is employee voice throughout the organisations, for reinforcing and challenging views, between functions and externally, employees are seen as central to the solution.

There is organisational integrity – the values on the wall are reflected in day to day behaviours. There is no ‘say –do’ gap.

To me that simply means good story, good managers, good voice, and good ethics. Surely that is within reach in every organization. I am not revising the four enablers rather offering a simple image and 8 words to make it memorable and then actionable.

I don’t need a great story or great managers or great voice or even great ethics. To me, good is good enough. In the next post I will outline a few good behaviors and actions that contribute to good story, managers, voice, and ethics.

Engage along with me, the best is yet to be.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who is working around the globe to make work, work!

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, David MacLeod, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, Employee Engagement, four enablers of employee engagement, simple employee engagement, small employee engagement, strategic employee engagement, sustainable employee engagement

The Employee Engagement Network is 7 Years Old Today

Posted on January 26, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Seven Years of Employee Engagement with David Zinger

It started 7 years ago on a very cold Saturday in Winnipeg. I wanted a few people to network with on the topic of employee engagement. Today is our seventh anniversary!

We have gone from 1 to 6515 members and have a member in just about every country in the world.

We have gone through many changes but I am proud that we are still such an excellent resource for anyone interested in employee engagement. I can’t wait to see what the next 7 years brings to the field of engagement. I am honored to have founded and host such a terrific engagement resource.

Visit us by clicking on the image below or the following link: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert. He founded and hosts the 6515 member Employee Engagement Network.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: 7 years of employee engagement, David Zinger employee engagement, Employee Engagement Network. Seventh Anniversary, expert, speaker

Employee Engagement and Engaged Well-Being: Does Work Make You Well?

Posted on January 22, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. ― Studs Terkel.

I believe engaged work and well-being is the pathway of life-work infusion. Ensure that life infuses your work and that your work infuses your life so that you are able to thrive and sustain both your work and well-being. We need to see work and life more holistically and abandon the antiquated thinking of separation and balance.

I believe the pathway to this is less than 10 blocks away. Use the pyramid of engagement for both work and well-being so that you achieve results, master performance, experience progress, build relationships, recognize others and self-recognize, make the most of moments, use your strengths in the service of others and yourself everyday, create meaning in your life and work, work so that work makes you well, and that at the end of the day you experience your overall life and working life more as an energy gain than an energy drain.

If work is not making you well than start building your personal and work pyramid of engagement today.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert focused on both employee engagement and engaged well-being to achieve full and authentic life-work infusion.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, Employee Engagement, engaged well-being, quotation, Studs Terket, work, work can make you well

7 Employee Engagement Questions to Keep Your Work Fresh Every Day of the Week

Posted on January 13, 2015 // 2 Comments

Questions are the new answers to increase and improve employee engagement

Enjoy my latest slide presentation on 7 daily questions for employee engagement.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, 7 questions, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, questions and employee engagement

Employee Engagement: What’s Your Purpose?

Posted on January 6, 2015 // Leave a Comment

Reading time = 27 seconds

Zinger Engagement Purpose Statement

Transform information, questions, and conversation into thoughtful action, thereby assisting organizations and individuals to fully engage in achieving meaningful results while building robust relationships.

As I thought about my purpose in being involved in employee engagement the above statement felt both true and desirable.

Do you have an employee engagement purpose?

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert devoted to the topic and ensuring engagement occurs for the benefit of all.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, engagement purpose statement, meaningful results, robust relationships

See For Yourself: Be Experimental with Employee Engagement in 2015

Posted on December 30, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Experiment with Employee Engagement in 2015

Reading time: 2 minutes and 18 seconds

I encourage you to make 2015 a year of experimentation for employee engagement. Help your leaders, managers, and employees become more scientific in their adoption and work with engaging approaches.

Let’s move from the dated and proverbial best case to test case. Develop testable hypotheses about what can make a difference in improving engagement for an individual, a team, a department, or even the organization. Run short experiments to test out your ideas and either fail fast or scale quickly.

I am reading Karen Maezen Miller little book on zen (hand wash cold: care instructions for an ordinary life) and I appreciate her pithy summation of the Buddha’s teaching as: See for yourself. Don’t get me wrong here, I am not asking you to become a Buddhist, I am asking you to start seeing for yourself as opposed to waiting for directives from a consulting company.

In the December 2014 Harvard Business Review magazine Stefan Thomke and Jim Manzi wrote an article on The Discipline of Business Experimentation. Thomke and Manzi wrote about experimentation on a larger and more innovative scale for organizations but much of what they wrote would apply to small scale experiments in employee engagement:

In an ideal experiment the tester separates an independent variable (the presumed cause) from a dependent variable (the observed effect) while holding all other potential causes constant, and then manipulates the former to study changes in the latter. The manipulation, followed by careful observation and analysis, yields insight into the relationships between cause and effect, which ideally can be applied to and tested in other settings.

Here is a page from my Employee Engagement Masterclass to help you “see for yourself” and experiment with employee engagement. This is part of a workbook that was used in masterclasses on employee engagement in Singapore and Dubai in 2014:

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert devoted to helping organizations and individuals become more experimental with employee engagement in 2015.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: Canada, controlled studies in engagement, David Zinger employee engagement speaker and expert, Dubai, employee engagement experiment, employee engagement masterclass, employee engagement workshop, experimental employee engagement, HBR, scientific approaches to employee engagement, see for yourself, Singapore

Employee Engagement Gratitude From David Zinger

Posted on December 23, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Thank you and all the best in employee engagement in 2015

Harry Wyatt Snow Falling

This is a picture taken from my office window yesterday.

It has been a pleasure to travel around the world in 2014 working on employee engagement and it is a a treasure to be home. I am so grateful for how much I learned about employee engagement this year from people in Singapore, Dubai, St. John’s Newfoundland, Washington DC, and so many other locations. I also learned so much from all of you who are talking about employee engagement online.

All the best as we move forwards and towards 2015.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: Employee Engagement, employee engagement expert, employee engagement speaker, employee engagement Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

Are you with it? The Top 1 Post of Employee Engagement for 2014

Posted on December 22, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Stop the clutter of Top 10’s and find the focus of Top 1!

It is that time of year when so many sites are letting you know about their top 10 posts of 2014. In my mind, that is nine posts too many. We need more simplicity and less clutter of content marketing.

So, instead of 10 posts here is a link to my favorite post of 2014: Get with it: Are you ready for Employee Engagement 2015? It take under two minutes to read but can sustain your engagement efforts for all of 2015.

What are you waiting for? Get with it.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert striving do get simpler and use less to do more.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger, employee engagement best article of 2014, employee engagement coach, employee engagement expert, employee engagement speaker, top blog post on employee engagement

An Employee Engagement Journey Lesson from Dubai and the UAE

Posted on December 16, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Employee Engagement Conference and Master Class Reflections

I recently travelled to Dubai for an employee engagement conference. I offered the opening keynote and provided a five hour master class after the conference. My thanks to Ramy Bayyour from Informa for the invitation and the conference.

There are quite a number of things that stood out for me and over a series of posts I will outline some key lessons.

The employee engagement journey. It was a long trip from Winnipeg Canada to Dubai UAE and return. Fittingly, the first thing that really stood out for me is the employee engagement journey metaphor for organizations and individuals. Masoud Golshani-Shirazi Vice Presiden HR from Aujan Coca-Cola Beverages Company referred to the journey directly during his holistic presentation onf employee engagement. I was impressed by the progress and resilience Aujan has had in its workforce and the idea of engagement being a work journey for employees to join with the organization.

Masoud Golshani-Shirazi

Masoud shared with us the wisdom of his grandmother who declared, “if you want to get to know someone travel with them.” Thank you Masoud, it was good to hear about the journey of engagement and the wisdom of your grandmother.

Here are my 4 points as I thought about the employee engagement journey:

Understand that different tools and pathways are required at different steps along the journey – surveys are not good nor bad, it is what we do with them that make all the difference.
The engagement journey does not have a final destination, it evolves as we keep moving forward or even stumble with setbacks.
Encourage employees to fully participate in planning and embarking on the journey, employees are not just along for the ride.
Journeys are about movement and ensure your engagement work does not become static.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who keeps journeying around the globe to learn more about engagement and help all of us as we journey together for increased, fuller, and more authentic employee engagement.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger, employee engagement conference, employee engagement Dubai, employee engagement expert, employee engagement master class, employee engagement middle east, employee engagement speaker, employee engagement UAE, Informa, Masoud Golshani-Shirazi, Ramy Bayyour

Employee Engagement: How to Make Your Day by Finding Your UP

Posted on November 26, 2014 // Leave a Comment

What’s your UP?

Enjoy David’s latest slide presentation on finding your UP:

Here is a link to the slideshare if it does not appear in this window.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who feel very up about work and well-being.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: Canadian, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, employee engagement perspectives, Find Your Up, images for employee engagement, Make Your Day, slides

Employee Engagement: The Free Iatrogenic Disengagement E-Book

Posted on November 20, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Employee Engagement: Let’s guard against creating disengagement in our efforts to improve employee engagement.

(Reading & Viewing Time = 2 minutes and 41 seconds)

Iatrogenic disengagement is the disengagement caused by trying to measure or increase engagement. It is often unintentional and frequently goes unnoticed. I am offering you two resources to help stop iatrogenic disengagement where you work. The first is a one minute video on the topic. The other resources if a slide presentation that can also be downloaded as an e-book. Use these resourses to increase awareness and stimulate conversation about iatrogenic disengagement where you work.

A video introduction:

Iatrogenic Disengagement from David Zinger on Vimeo.

The slides (e-book) resource.

If you prefer a PDF e-book version, click on this title or the image of the cover at the start of this article: Iatrogenic Disengagement e-book

David Zinger is a global employee engagement speaker and expert.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, employee disengagement, Employee Engagement, iatrogenic disengagement

Employee Engagement: What’s Your Verb?

Posted on November 18, 2014 // Leave a Comment

7 Ways to Make Use of the 37 Verbs of Employee Engagement

Reading and Viewing Time: 1 minute, 22 seconds.

Below is a visual slide show with 37 verbs for employee engagement.

Here are 7 ways you can use this slideshow:

Scan the slides for 37 seconds of inspiration to start your day.
Pass on the slides to a coworker to make their day.
Download the slides to use in advance of an employee engagement presentation.
Show the slides to a training group and have them generate their own verbs.
Create a personalized deck of your own engagement verbs.
View if on your smartphone or tablet while waiting for a meeting to begin.
Answer the question: what’s your verb?

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who brings engagement alive through behaviors and actions. His 3 word theme for 2014/2015 is the repetition of the verb engage.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, 37 verbs of employee engagement, David Zinger, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, Employee Engagement, engagement, slides for employee engagement, verb of engage

Employee Engagement Gamification For Work and Well-being Made Simple

Posted on November 13, 2014 // 1 Comment

Are you game for a simple approach to improve engagement with work and well-being? 10 Lessons for Gamification.

Based on David Zinger’s personal experience this post offers you a simple and lean approach to using gamification for engagement. Although it is an experiment with just one person it offers some tangible evidence of how gamification can improve both work and well-being and how an experiment can help us improve the process of gamification. The post also offers you a glimpse into gamification based on a real experience and offers you a pathway to gamification that can be conducted at almost zero cost and does not require a training course to implement.

Reading Time: 4 minutes and 55 seconds

At times, I have struggled to start major projects. At times, I find that either my work or well-being begins to wane. At times, I wonder what I have accomplished. At times, I wonder if drudgery (as I define it) can be used to enhance well-being. At times, I wonder if my childhood love of pinball has any relevance for my work and well-being. This lead me to the conclusion that the time was right to personally experiment with the gamification of work and well-being. I believe we should never ask anyone to do what we are not prepared to do ourselves and I know I had advocated for the place of gamification in work and well-being.

It is interesting to me that although I am self-employed I can be disengaged. We often fail to see the disengagement of the self-employed when we believe organizations are responsible for engagement. There were also times that I let my efforts towards personal well-being languish. I needed some structural help with my work and well-being and decided that the gamification of these two key elements of my life could be helpful. I have been amazed at just how helpful this has been.

I am more productive.
I have eliminated most procrastination around big projects.
I enjoy my work more.
I found well-being in doing housework and Costco shopping, two activities I previously loathed.
I have triggered additional social contribution/donations.

Overall, I learned that games are so much more than just a trivial pursuit.

During 2014, I have been conducting a one year experiment on the gamification of work and well-being. In fact, some of the work goes back to 2012 with an elaborate approach to planning, monitoring, and measuring my work and well-being. Although many people play games as diversions from work I was more interested in applying the principle of games to be help me immerse more fully into both my work and well-being.

I continue to use a gamified approach to my work and well-being but I have greatly simplified the process and procedures.

Two factors were at play in the evolutionary simplicity. The first was my overall approach to employee engagement and work being based on the principles of: small, simple, significant, sustainable, and strategic. I must practice what I teach. I realized that my game was too elaborate and time consuming and needed to be simpler and smaller to be sustainable.

I believe that in our “crazybusy” lives that small is the new significant. Jane McGonigal, one of the world’s leading experts on gamification, states that, overall, games have four traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. Everything else is extra.

The second influence was the publication of my May cover story for ASTD’s Training and Development Magazine: Game On: A Primer on Gamification for Managers. In that article I shared a gamification approach used by Charles M Schwab from over 100 years ago (gamification is a lot older and simpler than many people think!)

Charles M. Schwab, the American steel magnate, in the early 1900s wrote about the practice of gamification in Succeeding With What You Have. He recounted the following story.

Schwab was concerned about production in one of his steel mills and asked the day foreman for the production number, or “heats” produced, by the day shift. It was six, so Schwab grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote a large number six on the floor. The night shift saw the number and asked about the meaning of it. Upon hearing that Schwab had put down six for the productivity of the day shift, the night shift competed hard and, based on their productivity, they erased the number before morning and put down seven.

The day shift, getting into the “game,” completed 10 heats and very quickly this mill, formerly the poorest producer, was turning out more than any other mill in the plant. With minimal application of a goal, rules, feedback system, and voluntary participation, the “game” greatly enhanced the productivity of this workforce more than a century ago. Who would have thought that Schwab was an early work-gamification designer even if he never used the word?

I realized how lean and simple gamification could really be. Just because there are lots of bells and whistles or huge epic massive multi-player online quests does not mean you need these things to have a good game. Gamification for work and well-being must be designed with the purpose you have in mind. Here were my 6 purposes:

to bring a concrete daily focus to work and well-being
to improve and get better with both my work and well-being
to approach my work and well-being from a playful perspective and blur the lines between work and play
to apply gamification to monitor and heighten the experience of progress while diminishing the disengagement of setbacks
to ensure engaged work and well-being was triggered multiple times every day
to have my results be bigger than myself by triggering a social contribution based on points accumulated through play

It was time for me to remove and reduce the extraneous bells and whistles in my game and thereby strengthen its focus, power, and purpose. The next two images show the evolution of the game from what it was to what it is. A short description about the game is above each image.

Version 1: This is the initial version of the game. The game board was a fresh PowerPoint slide created each day. It had lots of colors and moving parts. There were goals, points, bonus points, and a hive like structure. I filled in the hive cells with every 24 minutes of work or wellbeing once achieved (yellow for work and green for well-being). I thought it might make a nice mobile app but I began to wonder if it could not be a lot simpler. In addition, the Pomodoro technique that I discovered the third year into my experiment has already built apps that can be used for this purpose. Sometimes I seemed to be spending more time on the game dynamics than time on meaningful work and well-being.

Version 2: Below is a scanned page from my current gamification of work and well-being. In some ways, it hardly looks like a game at all yet it elegantly fulfills my 6 purposes. The game board is a physical notebook, completed by hand and and I experienced a power and trigger in having a very tangible game book that I can carry around. I reduced the time periods of work and well-being from 24 minutes to 15 minute increments – this makes it easier to start each period, knowing I only have to go for 15 minutes (I have learned how much can be done with just 15 minutes — it still amazes me). I also experienced how refreshing a nap of just 15 minutes could be. Each 15 minute period awards 15 points which translates to a social donation of one cent a point. Yes, this is not a large amount of money but I found if the amount was 10 cents a point it did not work as well as one cent a point. For example, on Thursday October 30 I donated $100.40 to the Red Cross to support Ebola work based on work and well-being points accumulated over the past two months.

Sample Page from Work and Well-being Gamification Experiment

Here are 10 lessons learned from a year a gamification. I trust these could be helpful to you if you are thinking of gamifying your work or well-being:

Just start, because in the starting the learning begins
Games don’t have to be complex to be powerful
Games can be more than escape, they can immerse you into your own work and well-being
Experience is still one of the greatest teachers and don’t be afraid to change or modify things as you go along
Always think about the purpose or the intent of the game and don’t let the game divert you from your purpose
Never overlook the power of elegant simplicity
Take ownership of your game design because you will then get exactly what you want and need
Games can be a terrific mechanism to help us navigate through setbacks and progress or our real life game of snakes and ladders
Gamification can contribute to social responsibility and contribution
My gamification was used to create this post. It took seven 15-minute periods and it will contribute $1.05 towards a social contribution.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who believes we must practice what we teach. His love of pinball at sixteen is paying dividends in his gamification of work and well-being at 60.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: #employeeengagement, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, gamification, lean engagement, well-being, wellbeing, work

Employee Engagement and the Verb of Engage

Posted on October 28, 2014 // Leave a Comment

I am currently crafting a 21-point manifesto for employee engagement.

I trust I will have it completed in the next 2 weeks and look forward to sharing this document and engaging with people based on a strong action statement of what I believe is required to move employee engagement forward for the next 15 years. Here is a list of the verbs that begin each statement:

simplify
change
make
rewrite
diminish
monitor
recognize
offer
substitute
awaken
ensure
reframe
integrate
mobilize
energize
enable
learn
commit
elevate
build
forge

Look for this action manifesto within the next two weeks then engage along with me because the best is yet to be.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Employee Engagement Speaker // Tagged: #employeeengagement, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, Employee Engagement, employee engagement manifesto, the verb of engage

Zinger’s 8 Word Behavioral Definition of Employee Engagement

Posted on October 14, 2014 // 7 Comments

A shorter more simple definition of employee engagement

It has taken me about 8 years and 10,000 hours to get to a definition of employee engagement that is both simple and elegant. I am discouraged with emotional and attitudinal surveys as I have become increasingly behavioral in my views of work and engagement. My definition puts engagement in the hands of each employee — I can choose to do this everyday while also being enabled and encouraged by my leaders, managers, and organization.

We are each responsible for our own engagement as we are accountable to each other for the impact we have on making engagement easy or difficult for others.

I define employee engagement in 8 words as:

Good work done well with others every day.

Good work means consistent quality and good is also a pathway to great while great is a by product of good. Good can be good enough. Good is sustainable while also being fused with gumption and grit rather than the hype and hyperbole of the continual and debilitating pursuit of great. Putting work in the definition means the focus of engagement is less about liking an organization or having a good attitude and more about our tasks, project, and specific work. Without work in the definition employee engagement is practically meaningless. Of course, sometimes our work extends beyond task and requires us to work on building robust relationships focused on achieving results.

Done well means we perform well and that good work can make us well.

With others acknowledges our connections and even a solo performer has inputs and interactions with other. We need to stop thinking that we work for someone or an organization, rather we work with someone or with an organization. We are joined and not subservient. We are all “social workers” these days.

Every day refers to enduring and sustainable work. Engagement is not a biannual survey it is something we focus on every day, and we can change engagement for the better any and every day.

So let’s keep it simple and ensure employee engagement is good work done well with others every day.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and global expert who does his best to engage fully with work every day while helping others ensure employee engagement is not so much mumbo jumbo but an enriching experience of the time we spend working.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger, definition of employee engagement, Employee Engagement, employee engagement speaker, simple, work

Employee Engagement: Gratitude and Thanksgiving

Posted on October 13, 2014 // Leave a Comment

Today is Thanksgiving day in Canada. There are so many people I am thankful for in my development in employee engagement. I offer this post to both acknowledge these people and to encourage you to think about who helped you be where you are. It is almost impossible not to be engaged when we approach our work with a strong sense of gratitude for the other people in our life who make our work possible.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Here are just a few of the people that contributed to my development:

Susan Gerlach is my wife. We have grown together, produced 3 children and she is not only a terrific sounding board for my work she offers insightful and critical input. She also flies around the world with me as I speak and teach on employee engagement. Without her accompaniment, my work might be just a job and not a journey.

Jack Zinger, Katharine Zinger, and Luke Zinger are my three children and they have each helped me with projects. They also give me insight and perspective on work for young people in their 20’s.

John Junson is a pal going back to junior high. He is a brilliant designer and cartoonist. He brings humor and perspective to my work. He encourages new initiatives and my websites, books and work would not be what they are without John. I look forward to his fresh weekly cartoon on work.

Peter Dyck has been a client, a mentor and a friend for many years now. He has taught me to flock with eagles! His belief in my work has been a great launching pad for my orbit into engagement. Peter is married to Aganetha Dyck, and her art work with bees, has helped me to think differently inside the hive.

Peter Hart has transformed from a connection into a friend and we wrote People Artistry together. He is a people artist who has taught me about the nobility of recognition and engagement. His support means much to me.

David MacLeod has done fantastic work in the UK on employee engagement. He hosted both my wife and myself in his home and his caring and work has been inspirational about employee engagement.

Gail Pischak and Jean-Francois Hivon connected with me originally to become very “Crucial” in my work and teaching Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, and The Influencer. I learned a lot from each of them and learned a lot from teaching these courses. Gail keeps the rocks alive in my work and Jean-Francois added juice to what I do.

Geoff Ronaldson invited me to South Africa to present on employee engagement. He was a fantastic host and gave me a view of engagement in platinum smelters on the other side of the world.

Siddhesh Bhobe was a connection in Pune India. His work on gamification and his wonderful hosting is inspirational. He gave me an inside look at the challenges of engagement in the IT sector in India.

Lisa Haneberg, Rosa Say, Steve Roesler, and Phil Gerbyshak have all been blogging on management, leadership and work long before most people knew what it was and I have been enriched by my association with each of them.

Scott H. Young is a young blogger who I have known just out of high school and he embodies his work about learning on steroids. He fuses learning with both business and blogging in truly creative and helpful ways.

The 6400 members of the Employee Engagement Network. Each person who has joined, supported or contributed to the Employee Engagement Network has strengthened my views of engagement.

There are so many others and I will be thinking much about them and my gratitude today. Who are you thankful for?

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker, educator, and expert. Who is both thankful and indebted to so many people who have contributed to his development and perspective on work.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David MacLeod, David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, gratitude, John Junson, Lisa Haneberg, Peter Hart, Phil Gerbyshak, Rosa Say, Scott H. Young, Siddhesh Bhobe, Steve Roesler, Thanksgiving

Disrupting the Dinosaur: RFID Will Make Your Employee Engagement Survey Prehistoric

Posted on October 7, 2014 // Leave a Comment

An employee engagement survey interception

The future is upon us in employee engagement, it will just take a little time to catch up to it. Of course anybody who wears a Fitbit or other fitness device or goes out and purchases the new Apple watch knows the ability to get real time data and to monitor, motivate, and change your own fitness and sleep behavior.

Will we even bother with archaic employee engagement surveys by 2020, or maybe even 2017? You know, those attitudinal assessments that take a long time to complete, a long time to assess, suffer from low response rates, and by the time all the data is in you need to launch your next biannual survey. Oh, did I mention that employees seldom ever see their own data!

Of course, you also farm out all your data to a consultancy while your ability to make changes based on the survey are long past by the time you get around to it.

There is a lot of work being done on real time measures of work and relationships. I am impressed by the work of Sandy Pentland on sociometers.

Just to see what is coming to a workplace near you within the next five years, here is a 1 minute and 41 second video on next generation statistics used to understand NFL players better. In real time you can understand performance variables such as speed, fatigue, power, fitness, and safety.

Imagine the real time measures that could be used in your workplace to improve engagement, performance, safety, and wellbeing. Imagine employees themselves having a real time dashboard where they can make adjustments in moments not months.

You don’t have to imagine it, it is already upon us and will continue to grow and develop. It is time to start the second half of employee engagement with a more transparent, useful, and real time method of monitoring, measuring, and managing engagement and performance.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who wears a Samsung android watch as a crude tool for fitness, performance, and wellbeing measures.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, employee engagement surveys, future of employee engagement, NFL, RFID, sociometers

Employee Engagement and Well Being: Work Life Infusion

Posted on October 2, 2014 // 2 Comments

Let’s reverse the order and topple the precarious work/life balance with life work infusion.

Work/Life balance has toppled. We failed by putting work first in the equation. Mobile technology has infiltrated home and family time. Balance seemed like an ideal state to achieve yet the blance we sought was never static and often quite precarious.

I am now focusing my efforts on life work infusion. I believe work can make use well. I know that life can infuse energy, meaning, and perspective into work while work can infuse connection, contribution, and results into life. This is just the tip of the life and work infusion iceberg. I am very interested in your infusions:

What does life outside of your work infuse into your work?

What does work infuse into your life outside of work?

David Zinger is a global employee engagement speaker and expert who believes work can make us well.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement // Tagged: David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker, life-work infusion, work and wellbeing, work-life infusion, work/life balance