Here is a brief manifesto for managers during the current state of economic mayhem.

Which way to go?

Expect disengagement. People are concerned for their finances, their jobs, their work and their organizations. You should expect temporary acute spells of  disengagement as people experience fears, worry, and uncertainty. As you see or hear people disengage from work stop and connect with them. Talk about what is going on and most of all: LISTEN.

Include yourself in the points made above. You are human first and a manager second. You will experience your own uncertainties and possible disengagement. You are not Superman or Superwoman and things are not super right now anyway. Be mindful or your own reactions and emotions and stay connected to your own sources of support: peers, friends, coach, etc.

Look for loss and give it voice. This is a significant economic change with a wide variety of personal, social, and economic impacts. Think through what people are losing or possibly losing and ensure that you attend to those loses. William Bridges, the quintessential author on change, once stated that the biggest failure of organizations to manage change was the failure to acknowledge who was losing what because of the change. We move through losses by acknowledgment, acceptance, and authentic actions not by pretending it is business as usual.

Engage fully in your work as a powerful antidote to fear. Engagement in work, even when we don’t feel like it, can give you focus and a feeling  of contribution. You and your organization need full engagement right now and chronic disengagement will only exacerbate the current challenges. We can control our level of engagement and our responses to uncertainty…we cannot control the economy!

Eliminate Pollyanna positive thinking now. I never cared for statements such as, “when life throws you a lemon make lemonade.” When life throws me a lemon I duck. Then I get back up and figure out what to do. This is a time for authentic, and heartfelt leadership that is constructive not naive or blind. There may be a need for tough actions and behaviors that require a lot of courage and gumption on your part.

Practice authentic optimism. Martin Seligman, the former president of the American Psychological Association, taught us that optimists see the glass as half empty. Optimists believe there are bad events. Real optimists are careful when they see a bad event in not believing it will be permanent, pervasive and personal. Yes, there are probably actions you could have taken sooner but you are hardly personally responsible for the economic downturn. The impact may not be as pervasive as you think and if we know one thing about economics is that whether it is going up or going down it is never permanent. When an optimist assess a bad event they tend to see it as temporary, specific, and not their fault. If you are sinking into a financial funk, I recommend you study Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism.

Upturn your resilience to balance the economic downturn. Resiliency is your ability to adaptat to challenging or threatening circumstances. Refine and enhance your problem solving, communication, leadership, self awareness, creativity, interpersonal, social, and emotional skills. As Micheal Jordan said, Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall (or Wall Street) , don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Laugh to last. Don’t lose your sense of humor and ensure when you engage in humor that it is respectful. If you can laugh, you can last.  Charlie Chaplin once said, “life is a tragedy in close up and a comedy in long shot.” Don’t take too long to get a long shot or to see the humor of the situation while still acknowledging the challenges, problems, and obstacles ahead. The gravity of the situation can bring you down but levity can bring you back up.

Adversity has the potential to isolate or create connections. Stay composed and connected, and remember: If it is to be, it is up to we.

Photo Credit: Mayhem by http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianscott/127156608/

]]> http://www.davidzinger.com/managing-economic-mayhem-when-life-throws-you-a-lemonduck-1097/feed/ http://www.davidzinger.com/flextime-an-employee-engagement-rx-589/ http://www.davidzinger.com/flextime-an-employee-engagement-rx-589/#comments Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:09:18 +0000 David Zinger http://www.davidzinger.com/flextime-an-employee-engagement-rx-589/ What time is it Mr. Wolf?

Without time flexibility we may be gobbling up employee’s lives and contributing to their disengagement.

Flextime. How flexible is your time at work? An important ingredient in fostering employee engagement is to offer employees flexible hours of work so they can respond to other important elements in their life and use their time at work most effectively.

According to a recent Globe and Mail article about 70% of companies offer some kind of flextime and flextime has become more common in the last 10 years.

Types of Flextime. Here are some of the types of flextime:

• Daily Flex - Different hours on a daily basis, as long as the number of hours remain the same
• Variable Flex - Standard working hours with occasional flexibility
• Day of the Week Flex - Work extra hour 4 days a week and get an afternoon off.
• Extreme Flex - Work anytime anywhere as long as you get the job done.
• Core flex- Must be at the office for core hours, say 10 to 2 but free to start and finish at different times.

Take time. Take your time to consider the important role of time in employee engagement for all the people in the workplace.

Concerns with flextime. Management-Issues recently ran a short article on flextime. Click here to read, Mixed views on flexible working. Here is a short statement from the article: Managers are among those most likely to ask to work flexibly, despite the fact that a fifth find such working arrangements a hassle to manage because they potentially create division and accusations of favouritism.

The key question. How can we flex time to create benefits for employees, families, the organization, and customers?

Bonus question. Alan Lakein, author of How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life,  was an early time management expert. He offered a lot of tips but my favorite was to keep asking yourself:

What is the best use of my time right now? Don’t just read it, ask it. What is the best use of your time right now? Now go do it.

Photo Credit: Tunnels of Time by http://flickr.com/photos/fdecomite/406635986/

But why go with my answer when we have the author of Improv Wisdom here to share insights and practices. Tom Peters, one of the top management speakers/consultants has included Patricia Madson as one of his cool friends for her thoughts and insights that can help managers!

It is my pleasure and honor to introduce Patricia Ryan Madson to you. Ms. Madson wrote one of my all time favorite books, Improv Wisdom: Don’t prepare, Just Show Up.

Patricia was on the drama faculty of Stanford University since 1977. I encourage you to read through this interview and to use the creative lens of improvisation principles articulated by Patricia to see how you can elicit, foster, and enhance employee engagement in yourself and others.

Patricia can you briefly explain the subtitle of this book (don’t prepare, just show up) it seems so counter intuitive to how most people see work and life.

You are right that the injunction, “Don’t prepare, just show up” flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And, this is precisely why it is useful. The real emphasis of the two phrases is on the “Just Show Up” part. When you think about it, preparing may actually keep us from getting things done. It is not uncommon to spend our lives “getting ready to do stuff” instead of actually taking the plunge.

The key thing, in improvisation is to START THE SHOW. GET THERE. Move your body to the place where it is happening . . . then, the action can begin. When our minds are absorbed in the act of preparing, (in planning ahead, in crossing all our “t’s”, etc) we are not available to the present moment. We are missing out on what is happening right now, right here. And, it is precisely the here and now that is our locus of power. I advise players (and this includes professionals as well as students) to substitute ATTENTION for preparation. Become an expert on THIS MOMENT.

Planning can become an end in itself. Don’t let this rob you of the power that comes from engaging in real time with all your senses. (The second and third maxims in my book give a more thorough explanation. of this advice. )

In the book you have 13 fabulous maxims ranging from say yes to enjoy the ride. Do you personally have a favorite maxim or a maxim that is most helpful to you?

Yes, I think my favorite is maxim 9: “Wake up to the gifts.” It is so easy for my mind is to see the problem, notice the flaw, ruminate on what is wrong with the situation. This maxim is a splash of cold water to remind me to realign my perspective. And, I don’t just mean “positive thinking” . . . I mean that it is important to train the mind to actually see the specific gifts that are present and around us all the time.

If you are like me , I NOTICE (and sometimes curse) the driver who rudely cuts me off in traffic. But, I can go for years without taking notice of all the courteous drivers who obey the laws, stay in their lanes, drive safely and even allow me to merge onto the freeway. When others drive safely, I BENEFIT. So, in some real way, ordinary traffic is a gift to me. When I start looking for the ways in which I benefit from the acts of others I open up a new world of privilege. It is easy to see what is wrong. It sticks out. Can you find a way to notice what is right, who is helping, who is making your path smooth? “Waking up to the gifts” is ultimately about seeing our lives (both at work and at home) from a new perspective–a realistic perspective– which is not egocentric.

There is a book with the wonderful title: Thirsty, Swimming in the

(by David K. Reynolds, an American anthropologist). I see most of us as being in this pickle. We are literally surrounded by the things we are seeking. When we “Wake up to the gifts” we are able to counter the nay-saying mind, the selfish mind, the mind that is only self-interested.

It strikes me that “employee engagement” has as a fundamental goal developing habits of mind and body that increase our awareness of others. Waking up to the gifts invites you every day to notice how much others are doing for you. Look for the specific ways that you benefit from the work of others. Further, when we see the gifts it becomes natural to say “thank you.” Saying thank you a lot is the mark of an attentive manager and employee. (or parent or spouse . . .)

It seems to me that many disengaged employees say no, not just to work but to their organization and maybe even themselves. Is there an authentic way they can begin to say yes to work and engagement?

I’m afraid that you are right in this. Just earning a paycheck may be what some of us are doing. . . rather than “making a contribution” or “doing useful work,” or “making a life”

For the disengaged I’d say: “What have you got to lose? Why not see what happens if you change your attitude instead of just thinking about changing your job? Apathy becomes its own reward. It is all too easy to look outside of ourselves and blame “the company” or “our boss”, “the economy” or even “the times we live in.”

I would suggest “stop finding fault and casting blame” and see what happens if you look at your job to see “what you are receiving from it?” Make a list of all the things you receive from your position being an employee. Include material things (paycheck, benefits, etc.) as well as other kinds of benefits–such as a having a desk and a computer– being part of a support system– having job training– etc. See how long you can make your list of “what you receive from working where you do.” Avoid any sarcasm or negative jibes.

Engagement is about connecting to what you do . . . to your purpose. I tell a story in the book about a waitress who was full of life–full of enthusiasm and pride in what she was doing in a small sandwich shop. She was alive inside her job, taking every opportunity to serve, to do her job well. Her smile will stay with me for a long time. I don’t think it would occur to her to ask that her job “be fulfilling.” Instead she GAVE MEANING to what she was doing. This was inspiring. I think many of those disengaged workers are truly, “Thirsty, swimming in the lake” . . . if they could only wake up to it.

To me, one of the strongest improv maxims is take care of each other. One way I heard it expressed in improvisation is that we are here to make the other person look good. Do you have a recommended activity to help people in the workplace take care of each other?

A great way to “take care of each other” is to acknowledge each other’s work. NOTICE what others are doing and comment on it favorably. I’ve never met a worker who gets enough appreciation. You can never say thank you enough. In addition pay attention to what others are doing, and if there is something YOU can do to support their work or fill in a gap– just do it.

Improvisers do this all the time: they see something that “needs to be done” and they just do it.

Not because it is “in their job description” but simply because it helps the work move along. It needs to be done, and I saw it. Step out of the pigeon hole of “what is my job description?” Work for the greater good of the company, for the welfare of your colleagues, and ultimately at the end of the day, I’d predict that you will find yourself “engaged.”

And, don’t worry about “burnout”. It isn’t work that burns people out . . . it is RESENTING the work you are doing. Do the job well. That the best way I know to create a fulfilling work life.

Patricia your book is loaded with try this exercises to move the reader beyond word consumption to active engagement. What are you trying these days to stay engaged with your current work focus?What a wonderful question. I am trying to be a better partner to my husband. I am attempting to listen more carefully and more honestly when he is talking about a subject that i don’t have a personal interest in. I want to support him instead of turning away to things that interest me. This is a challenge. I don’t always do it well.

Also, now that I am retired I have a lot more discretionary time. I’m pursuing a passion of mine: botanical art. I have included a picture of an apple I just did with colored pencil. And, your readers should know that even with all the “improv wisdom” in my pocket,

Drawing by Patricia Ryan Madson

I am sometimes engaged fully and sometimes I’m not. But when I find myself off the track I have some tools to get me back on course. I really appreciate the chance to chat with your readers. I want to wish everyone good fortune as they face the challenges of daily life. Aren’t we lucky to live in a world where we can help each other become happier at what we do. May you all “enjoy the ride.

*****

To learn more about Patricia Ryan Madson and Improv Wisdom visit her website www.improvwisdom.com I also encourage you to click here to read the interview she did for Tom Peter’s cool friends series.

When we are divided or disconnected how can we expect anything different than disengagement.

To be humble is not to make comparsions. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. ~Dag Hammarskjöld

Photo Credit: this city will squash you by http://flickr.com/photos/mugley/1567333379/

David Zinger

Crucial Conversations can improve employee engagement. When employees feel safe because of mutual respect and mutual purpose they are more likely to engage in work.

I have been fortunate over the past year to teach numerous Crucial Conversations courses.

Crucial Conversations is a great approach to getting results and building relationships when the stakes are high, there are differing opinions, and there are strong emotions.

The method is not designed specifically for employee engagement but I have seen what a strong tool it can be to reach out to disengaged workers and to work with conflicts that may begin to sow the seeds of disengagement if they are not dealt with candidly and respectfully.

There are many tools to work with employee engagement and I believe Crucial Conversations is an exquisite tool in the tool-belt of managers and leaders who foster high levels of employee engagement while getting results and building relationships.

Here are 4 actions you can take right now to improve your results and relationships:

1. Read the book: Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High.
2. Visit the Vitalsmarts website to learn more about Crucial Conversations and the newest book, The Influencer.
3. Subscribe to the Crucial Skills newsletter. This is one of my top 5 newsletters - I always look forward to it appearing in my inbox.
4. Enroll in a Crucial Conversations workshop to really develop your skills.

Photo Credit: Lattice by http://flickr.com/photos/oddwick/1039909856/

* * * * *

Contact David Zinger to learn about how you can leverage employee engagement to produce results that matter for everyone in your workplace.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca ~ Phone 204 254 2103 ~ Website: www.davidzinger.com.

1. lack of control over the job;

2. quantitative or qualitative job overload or under-load;

3. lack of support from managers and colleagues.

What can you do to enhance control, balance load, and buttress support?

Photo Credit: 4-3-2-1 by http://flickr.com/photos/bytepusher/166457814/

The Chronicle beings with the key point for each of the sources listed:

Get The Point:

• Target your most valuable employee with your engagement efforts.
• High levels of employee engagement means higher levels of financial results
• Are you sick or sick from disengagement?
• The moment of truth has arrived in employee engagement.

Employee engagement strongly linked to business success is an article from the Manila Times. Engaged employees are those who have internalized the organization’s business goals, the steps required to achieve those goals and further understand how their contributions drive results, according to James Matti, Managing Consultant of Watson Wyatt Philippines. “They have a strong desire to participate in the company’s success… The Work-Asia study tells us that forward-looking organizations are replacing one-size-fits-all offerings with programs that target their most valuable employees. These efforts enable them to create a more productive and stable workforce.

Engaged Employees Boost Financial Performance is a post from Growing Wealth: Companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more likely to retain their most valued employees  Only 10 percent of employees report that senior management treats them as if they are the most important part of the organization. More than half feel that senior management “treats us as just another part of the organization to be managed” or “as if we don’t matter.”

Bill Catlette wrote about Calling in Sick, Sort Of…part 2. Here is his conclusion to an interesting article on the link between calling in sick and employee engagement: If it’s your job that you’re sick of, for your own sake, do the right thing by finding another job, and leaving. Don’t just “kinda leave.” Got it?

Carolyn Hirschman at Human Resource Executive Online wrote moments of truth. This is a well-written and extensive article to assist you with employee engagement if your focus is customer-service workers: Business minds have long studied “what works” in employee engagement, but it can be an elusive concept to put into practice. In high-turnover customer-service industries, the challenge is even greater to hire, train and recognize the best employees. For HR executives who get it right, the results — from outstanding service to higher sales to better retention — can be substantial.

John Maeda. a professor in MIT’s Meida Lab, is the master of simplicity. He wrote a compelling book, The Laws of Simplicity.

In this article I apply Maeda’s 10 laws and 3 keys of simplicity to employee engagement.

TEN LAWS

1. REDUCE. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. What can you reduce from work and the organization that can enhance employee engagement. Perhaps you can remove constricting policies or physical barriers between people.

2. ORGANIZE. Organization makes a system of many appear fewer. There are many variable influencing employee engagement. Strive to organize them into effective categories. For example I like to organize employee engagement interventions into 3 dimensions: organizational, leadership, and employee.

3. TIME. Savings in time feels like simplicity. Where can time be saved to make work simpler and yet more productive and powerful?

4. LEARN. Learn all you can about employee engagement. Learn what engages you. Learn what experts offer. Mostly in a leadership position, learn from the people closest to engagement - yourself and the employees!

5. DIFFERENCES. Simplicity and complexity need each other. Engagement must be interspersed with periods of disengagement.

6. CONTEXT. What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral. If you want to enhance engagement look to change the context of work or the working environment and watch behavior change because of this “peripheral” change.

7. EMOTION. More emotions are better than less. Emotion is the motion of engagement. Create emotions of caring and satisfaction and belonging. Let employees know they matter.

8. TRUST. In simplicity we trust. Employee engagement must be based on trust and belief. Effective employee engagement is based of mutual purpose and benefit for all.

9. FAILURE. Some things can never be made simple. As you strive to simplify employee engagement keep your eyes open for failure and what can be learned from this.

10. THE ONE. Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful. What obvious drudgery can be removed from work so that the most meaningful of efforts can be added to the employee’s effort and experience.

THREE KEYS

1. AWAY. More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away. Can you keep the less urgent and unimportant disengaging work far away?

2. OPEN. Openness simplifies complexity. Make your organization open to employees. Open book management has been a powerful way to gain engagement from many employees as they become a real business partner in an organization. Can you use the tools of Web 2.0 to create an open environment — open to communication from all levels and equally open to change because of this communication?

3. POWER. Use less, gain more. Empowerment can be a pathway to engagement and reduction of hierarchical power can create more power within employees to power up their own engagement.

I encourage you to read Maeda’s book and focus on how you can design simple employee engagement at your work.

Photo Credit: Simplicity by http://flickr.com/photos/justintosh/576342875/

David Zinger, M.Ed

dzinger@shaw.ca

Peter Vajda has written a detailed and insightful post on employee engagement at Slow Leadership. The key sections include the causes of disengagement, the solutions, and how to “keep the thrill alive.” I encourage you to read the post to learn a lot more from Peter’s insight into employee engagement:

Want to keep employees engaged? Take a conscious and consistent interest in others and they’ll take an interest in you. Translation: they’ll become engaged. Show people they are valued, and have a sense of worth over and above the functions and tasks they perform. And above all, listen.

4 sample questions from the section on keeping the thrill alive are:

• What keeps the thrill alive for you? It is alive, isn’t it? If not, why not?
• Are you proactive in providing feedback and mentoring on a consistent basis, not just when HR says “it’s time” or just when it’s convenient for you?
• Does everyone hold everyone else accountable for their piece of the work as an open policy? If not, why not? Fear? Politics? Confusion?  
• Do you tend to hoard information? If so, why? What would others say? 

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. the sun shines not on us, but in us; the rivers flow not past, but through us. ~ John Muir

Employee engagement is:

Connection to our authentic self.

Connection to our work.

Connection to others.

Connection to family.

Connection to play.

Connection to leaders.

Connection to customers.

Connection to the organization.

Connection to peers.

Connection to meaning.

Connection to emotion.

Connection to thoughts.

Connection to energy.

Connection to now.

Connection to living.

Connection to love.

To disengage is to disconnect.

My hope for you is that employee engagement is a powerful way for you to be fully connected!

Photo Credit: handshake II by http://flickr.com/photos/ooohoooh/1350774047/

David Zinger, M.Ed.

How do you enhance employee retention?

John Eckmire did an excellent job of interviewing and writing about his podcast with Leigh Branham on the 7 reasons employees leave. This was one podcast in a series that will be conducted on the Canadian Management Centre blog. I thought the podcast was well conducted and informative. I appreciated that in addition to the audio portion the post included a detailed interview summary.

Here are a few tidbits from the session:

• Create a feedback rich environment.
• One of the largest “push” factors employees face is the feeling of being undervalued for the contributions they make to a company.
• Given the constraints on time which exist within every organization managers believe that they are too busy doing work to manage people.
• Don’t let two weeks pass by without checking in with each employee - provide frequent feedback.
• Great managers are those who act more like athletic coaches offering “positive neutral feedback” on a continual basis.

Click here to listen to this 18 minute podcast and learn more about the following 7 reasons employees leave:

1. It’s not what they expected
2. Bad person-job fit
3. No feedback and coaching
4. No career growth or learning
5. Feel devalued/unrecognized
6. Feel overworked/stressed out
7. Don’t trust senior leaders

How do you create a breakthrough to achieve fuller employee engagement for yourself and the people you work with? Often we feel stuck or disengaged. We want a breakthrough. But we are not sure how to proceed or even get started.

Lisa Haneberg offers a solution in her book: Two Weeks to a Breakthrough.

Lisa moves beyond simplistic pop psychology or self-management and offers a very practical and explicit method to get fully engaged.

She recommends taking 2 weeks to create the breakthrough and gives you guidance each day on how to proceed. The daily practice is the key to move beyond dreaming of change and breakthroughs to zooming towards your goal.

Each day is configured slightly differently but the practice consists of 3 fundamental components:

1. Share your goal with others
2. Take action that support your goal
3. Make request that will help you move towards your goal

Share-Action-Request makes our breakthrough method public, tangible, and connected. I know one of the first times I tried this method I let the sharing part of the method slip. I thought I could just do it on my own. I now realize how important this was to create what I call an accountability allies - others who will both support and challenge me on my work.

Here is a short outline on the approach if you are a leader striving towards creating more engagement in your workplace:

• You will get specific about what you are trying to achieve.
• You will be talking with many people about your plans and actions to foster fuller employee engagement.
• You will be taking multiple actions to increase engagement.
• You will be requesting help - full employee engagement can not be achieved on your own.
• You can monitor the progress and results.

One thing I love about Two Weeks to a Breakthrough is how short it is. If you did not get the results you hoped for you can start again with a fresh two weeks and use what you learned from the last breakthrough approach to ensure more success.

Fostering high levels of employee engagement will be both a service and a contribution you make to your employees and the organization.

How about it? What are you planning to do for the next 2 weeks? I hope you make a break for full employee engagement.

Get Perking:

1. Read Lisa’s book: Two Weeks to a Breakthrough.
2. Visit and engage in Lisa’s breakthrough blog.
3. Learn from your own experience, apply the method and monitor results.

In about 10 years the number of young people getting into the workplace will no longer be enough to replace retirees.

Tim Cork, a career coach, stated in The Globe and Mail, “if you are fifty-something and you can expect to live into your 80s, you should be thinking of this as half-time and not the beginning of the end.”

 He encourages older workers to think about a new career with these tips:

1. focus on your strengths
2. find your passion
3. network
4. create your brand
5. do your homework
6. take action
7. don’t be discouraged
8. have a support system

I don’t know about you but this would be the same advice I have heard for recent graduates from high school or university.

If you are younger you may be expected to work longer in your life.

Don’t wait for retirement, retire now.

Retire now…

Retire now  does not mean you stop working. It means you work at what interests you and what you care about.

Retire now  means that you take vacations, breaks, and time with your family.

Retire now  means you stop always trying to climb up the career ladder and enjoy being on the rung.

Retire now  means you “stop trying harder and try softer.”

Retire now  means you don’t always have to be connected or respond to each email within 22 seconds.

Retire now  means that you make contributions to society and you fully develop yourself.

Retire now  means you can take full satisfaction in what you have done in your life, even at 22 years of age!

Retire now  means you learn from the past, look forward to the future, but live in the ever changing current now.

Retire now  means that retirement is a part of working not apart from working.

Don’t wait for some magic age such as 50, 60 or 65. Don’t wait for some “retirement package.” Retire now.

David Zinger was lucky enough at 21 years of age, 32 years ago, to have listened carefully to Don, an 80 year-old-fried who said retirement was wasted on the elderly and that people 21 should be retired. David has been retired ever since while still actively working. Retirement is a way of living and working that can successfully reside within an active and full career. 

At the turn of this century, the Campbell Soup Company’s employee engagement was not “mmm mmm good.” In addition, soup sales were stagnant and the stock was slumping. The executive wanted to assess employee engagement but many employees, including managers, did not want to complete the anonymous Gallup employee engagement questionnaire and when the results were in, Gallup told Douglas Conant, the CEO, that it was the worst level of employee engagement they had ever seen.

Douglas Conant now focuses as much on employee engagement as he does on soup, manufacturing facilities, and marketing efforts:

Every day, you’ve got to be making deposits in the emotional bank account of your company. When people do something right, you have to celebrate it, and then you have to celebrate it again. And if they do something wrong, you have to thoughtfully call them on it, because this isn’t a patronizing culture, it’s a performance culture.

Conant believes that lifetime loyalty is a thing of the past, but said that doesn’t worry the young people joining Campbell Soup today right out of college.

They are not looking for a job for life; they want meaningful experiences where they can do something special and contribute. It’s not about security. It’s about making a better world.

Get Perking:

1. Heat up performance and engagement for the benefit of employees and the organization by making the workplace a better place to be.
2. Carefully craft the ingredients in your recipe to create chicken soup for the employee engagement soul? Make the cultural broth of your workplace performance based not patronizing or penalizing.
3. Transform your organization so that employees are slurping up nourishing work and saying, “mmm, mmm, good” rather than cracking under too many demands, lack of meaning and trust, and an increasing sense of disconnection from the work and each other.
4. Click here to read the New Jersey Star-Ledger article that inspired this post.

TIME OUT!

This is the week with July 4th in the United States and Canada Day, on July 1, in Canada. Many people, especially with children, use July to start their summer holidays and students have a long “time out” from school. I hope you have or had a good time on your holiday.

This leads into the post for today - the importance of time out or disengagement to enhance engagement.

Employee engagement is not a 24/7 way of being. Our engagement levels should fluctuate during the day, during the week, and during the year. Our energy levels change, the demands of work increase and decrease, and relationships at work can also fluctuate. Our rest and recovery can fuel our performance and give us a much needed perspective on our direction.

Do you consciously disengage to foster higher levels of engagement?

Much like a time out during a basketball game where the players huddle to get ready for the next few plays we must also consciously disengage from work to strategize for more efficient and effective performance. We need to pause or come to a complete stop to determine our next step.

Get Perking:

1. Take time to savor and smell the coffee.
2. Turn your phone or blackberry off for parts of the day. Do you really need to be available 24/7?
3. Don’t bring work home with you - physically or mentally.
4. Engage in an activity that takes your mind completely off of work — from playing with children to even playing basketball.
5. After every 60 to 90 minutes of work take a few minutes to stand up, stretch, or walk around the office.

Foster more powerful employee engagement by making the effort to also consciously disengage from work. As Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote: you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #16

by David Zinger

Stories engage us and we can foster engagement with stories. This is the final of 6 reviews about the book: Made to Stick. Make your ideas sticky by making them simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional as you communicate your ideas within stories.

Stories are a way to embrace the principles of Made to Stick. They are concrete, they often have both unexpected and emotional elements, they can be simple. You might not even have to create a story. You may just need to take some time to spot the stories that come out of experiences.

Take this quick memory test:

1. What do you remember about the story of the 3 little pigs?
2. What is the plot of the tortoise and the hare?
3. What is your organization’s strategic plan?
4. What percentage of your employees are fully engaged at work?

Chances are you will remember stories better than facts and figures. Do you also remember to use stories to make your ideas stick? Stories are the glue that holds listener to speaker and reader to writer.

The power of story is

it provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act)…a credible idea makes people believe. An emotional idea makes people care…the right stories make people act.

For example the authors cite the use of Jared’s inspirational story as a spokesperson for Subway. His story mobilized people to eat at Subway after Jared lost so much weight from his original 425 pounds after eating only Subway food for a year. It took some perceptive people within the Subway organization to spot the power of this story and to recognize the value and stickiness of the story.

… springboard stories mobilize people to act. Stories focus people on potential solutions. Telling stories with visible goals and barriers shifts the audience into a problem-solving mode.

There are 3 main structures that create effective stories. When you are trying to spot stories to foster engagement look for stories that have the themes of overcoming challenges, making connections or creative development. A really good  story might have all three themes woven into the telling.

To start filming a movie a director may shout: lights, camera, action! Use engagement stories and engaging stories to enlighten, help people get the picture, and create action to move into high levels of employee engagement.

Marcus Buckingham, a leader in the strengths approach to work, has a 6 part DVD series about putting our strengths to work: Trombone Player Wanted. 

Buckingham is a skilled speaker, the strength focus is vital for employee engagement, yet what adds stickiness to the 6 videos is the use of a story involving a young boy who is stuck playing the trombone in the school band yet really wants to be a percussionist. By the end of the final video, the boy has found someone else who loves the trombone to take his place and he is drumming with delight. The story in relationship to strengths development embraced challenge, connection and creativity. The school band subplot demonstrated that it wasn’t easy, it was important, and if a young boy can do this than any of us who are disengaged at work can make moves to foster much richer levels of employee engagement.

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Added bonus to the Monday Morning Percolator:  If you would like to read David Zinger’s 18 page free booklet on the videos with suggestions for action click on the following link to a PDF E-booklet .

Trombone Player Wanted - Free E-Booklet.

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Get Perking:

1. Uncover the stories of your workplace or life that can be shared to mobilize others into engaged action.
2. If you are going to make a major presentation on employee engagement try ditching the PowerPoint slides and hitching your message to 3 or 4 powerful stories that create a real power point of engagement between you and the audience.
3. When you spot a good story develop a method to keep track of it for later use. This can be as simple as creating a document, call it stories, and everytime you encounter an experience that would make a good story put a few key words and perhaps a title in the document to remind you of the story. If you don’t track your stories you can easily lose that you could use. Review the document when you are looking for a good story to make employee engagement sticky and to mobilize actions.

Picture credit: gluey harmony by http://flickr.com/photos/giveawayboy/414806681/

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #15 (Early release)

by David Zinger

If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will. ~ Mother Teresa

Don’t let your employee engagement messages go to the dogs or lull people to sleep.

How do we provide emotional rescue to ensure that people care about an idea? Do we foster empathy in the way we present our ideas? Can we velcro our idea with an idea that people already care about? Can we show others the benefit of our idea not just for who they are but who they could become?

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought. ~ Johann Wolfgang  Van Goethe

Chapter 5 of Made to Stick outlines the emotional component of stickiness. The emotional goal is to make people care because feelings inspire us to act.

Here are are a few points to consider when crafting messages to foster higher levels of engagement:

• Did I communicate empathy for people who may feel disengaged?
• Do I know what people really care about and can I twine this with employee engagement?
• Do employees see the benefit of engagement for themselves now and in the future?

If we take the last point for example. It appears to me that people who are fully engaged at work are also able to fully engage in retirement while people who are disengaged at work and dream of being engaged in life when they retire have a hard time engaging in retirement. There is an old statement that goes retirement is being tired twice: first tired of working, then tired of not working.

Here is a summary from chapter 5 of Made to Stick:

How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities — not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.

Get Perking:

1. Work at leveraging the motion inherent in the emotions of engagement.
2. Care enough to really know who you work with, to know what they care about, and to mesh your caring with the encouragement, empowerment, and tools to be fully engaged yourself at work and to foster high levels of employee engagement.

Winner for Unexpectedness is worth $1.75: Dan Whitmarsh was the winner of the grand sum of $1.75 for triggering the unexpected thought of the Three Musketeers and employee engagement. Employee engagement is one for all and all for one. To demonstrate his sense of one for all, Dan asked my to donate his winnings to the Tim Horton’s send a kid to camp campaign. 

Picture Credit: Jackson Tries to Contain His Excitement By http://flickr.com/photos/itsgreg/106561656/

 

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #14

The key concept from chapter four of  Made to Stick is to make your ideas “edible” by you and the idea being credible.  Employees will bite into employee engagement when they trust the message and the messenger. As a leader you need to establish and leverage trust in the name of employee engagement.

When you make your ideas tangible and concrete they become more real and more believable. A lot of credibility is in the details or story you tell — so do not neglect the vivid and specific “d-tale” of engagement.

Three specific tips in the chapter include:

• Make statistics accessible.
• Find a powerful example
• Get a testable credential.

There are many statistics on employee engagement ranging from overall levels of engagement to the costs of disengagement. Find a way to communicate this to employees in a way that they can readily grasp.

Here is an example taken from a poll of 23,000 employees cited in Stephen Covey’s, The 8th Habit:

1. Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why.
2. Only 20 percent were enthusiastic about their team’s and their organization’s goals; said they have a clear link between their tasks and their team’s organizational goals; and, fully trusted the organization they worked for.
3. Only 15 percept felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals

Stephen Covey made the idea sticky by using this soccer analogy:

If a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent.

With this analogy Covey makes you fully realize the impact of these numbers on teamwork in a specific and credible way.

When you speak about employee engagement find powerful examples that establish credibility. Use a testable credential. Have employees conduct an engagement experiment to see what the impact is for themselves, their performance, and their organization.

Get Perking:

1. Whenever you cite employee engagement statistics find a schema or analogy that the listeners or reader will be able to relate to.
2. Make a testable credential offer to employees about engagement that they can try out to determine their own level of engagement.
3. Use the Sinatra test. In the song “New York, New York,” Frank sings, If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. In employee engagement, this would mean finding a strongly disengaged team or department and igniting their engagement. If you can make employee engagement work with the disgruntled team you can make it work anywhere.

Picture Credit: England away by http://flickr.com/photos/atomicshed/175638710/

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. ~ Heny David Thoreau

In the large pond of workers are you suffering from employee disengagement or hearing your song of engagement? Read my review of the third video of Marcus Buckingham’s Trombone Player Wanted for some guidance on how to leverage your strengths for full engagement.

 Photo Credit: Jordan makes light music by - http://flickr.com/photos/jasoneppink/80772526/

zen perspectives on employee engagement

The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic and, to some extent, even antibiotic - in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea - known to medical science is work.

Thomas Szasz

Well, well, well. If you work well you may be well at work. Instead of a vicious cycle of disengagement work may create a vivacious cycle of engagement.

Photo Credit: Good Luck and Happiness by http://www.flickr.com/photos/hobo_pd/339564960/