Retire now: Weave retirement into your work even if you are in your 20s

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. 

Employee Engagement Monday Morning Percolator #21

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.

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #20

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/

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/

Read this insightful post from jack/zen on accountability and engagement:

In many of the organizations I work in, the overperforming criticize the underperforming and ultimately call for what’s considered the ultimate cure: “holding people accountable.” Just saying the words in a pathetically stern tone warms the hearts of vindicators. What’s curious is how the question is never, “How can we get better at helping these people succeed?”

We still live under the rock of mythology that suggests that fear and punishment are sustainable factors in authentic personal transformation. They are not and never were. People become more engaged when they become conscious at higher levels, and a negative deficiency approach only creates lower energy vibrations of consciousness.

Being accountable is the act of authentic commitment, which is the opposite of bartering compliance for rewards. And this only comes about in relationships where people are supported to make commitments not contingent on conditions.

Jack Ricchiuto  

If you value ZENgagement I encourage you to read the plethora of pithy insightful and inspirational posts at jack/zen.

Photo credit: Zen rocks by http://flickr.com/photos/pyrsokomos/441063276/

Do you mind?

Are you willing to grow for it or are you fixed - stuck in a mental rut that inhibits learning, risk and effort?

Carol Dweck, a noted social cognitive psychologist, has studied attributions and performance for many years. I recall studying her work during my B.A. at the University of Manitoba in the 1970′s. Her current contribution is a popular book on attributions and understanding of ourselves called: Mindset. Our mindset influences so much in our lives including engagement.

Dr. Dweck distinguished between two main types of Mindsets.

1. Fixed Mindset. We believe our qualities are carved in stone. We feel a need to prove our-self over and over. Overall, we see intelligence as static which leads to a desire to look smart and a tendency to avoid challenges, we give up easily, we see effort as a waste of time, we ignore negative feedback and we feel threatened by the success of others.
2. Growth Mindset: We believe our basic qualities are things that can be cultivated through our efforts. We believe we can change and grow through effort, application and experience. Overall intelligence is seen as something that we can develop which leads to embracing challenges, persistence in the face of setbacks, effort as the path to mastery, and willingness to learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.

In support of the growth mindset, scientists have found that people have tremendous capacity for lifelong learning and brain development. Robert Sternberg stated that expertise is “not some fixed prior ability but purposeful engagement.”

When we engage we grow and as we grow we engage more and more. Employee engagement is influencing not only the attitudes of employees but also their minds. Can we win their hearts and minds? The growth mindset overcomes a sense of entitlement in favour of discretionary effort. My success is more a reflection of my effort and openness and growth as opposed to raw talent, ability, and past history.

Here is an overview by Guy Kawasaki of how the fixed mindset can lead to problems:

Here’s some food for thought: perhaps this explains the inexorable march toward mediocrity of many (temporarily) great companies. Let’s say a start-up is hot. It ships something great, and it achieves success. Thus, it’s able to attract the best, brightest, and most talented. These people have been told they’re the best since childhood. Indeed, being hired by the hot company is “proof” that they are the A and A+ players; in fact, the company is so hot that it can out-recruit Google and Microsoft.

Unfortunately, they develop a fixed mindset that they’re the most talented, and they think that continued success is a right. Problems arise because pure talent only works as long as the going is easy. Furthermore, they don’t take risks because failure would harm their image of being the best, brightest, and most talented. When they do fail, they deny it or attribute it to anything but their shortcomings.

And this is the beginning of the end.

In the race for engagement the start line begins with, “on your mark….get ready….get set….GROW!

Get Perking:

1.  Click here to see a strong one page PDF visual of the two mind-sets created by Nigel Holmes.
2. Listen to Carol 1/2 hour talk about mindsets at: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail1011.html
3. Read her book: Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Photo Credit: This is my brain by http://flickr.com/photos/killermonkeys/304439098/

Can employee engagement lead to employee disengagement?

I felt sad reading how the Saskatchewan labour relations board put a halt to employee engagement activities for SGI, an insurance company in Saskatchewan. The sadness was that the very concept that could enrich the workplace for all had become a source of dispute between the organization’s management and union.

Here are a few snippets from the Regina Leader-Post article on the halting of SGI’s president’s employee engagement team (PEET):

The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (LRB) had ordered a temporary halt to all activities conducted by SGI’s president’s employee engagement team (PEET), including handing out bonuses under its employee recognition program.

The Saskatchewan Insurance Office and Professional Employees’ Union (COPE) Local 397 filed a complaint with the LRB in January alleging SGI had committed unfair labour practices by negotiating directly with employees through the establishment of an employee engagement committee in April 2006, which was composed of in-scope and out-of-scope employees.

The union claimed the committee gathered employee-related information, made recommendations and took steps to implement changes which related to the terms and conditions of employment of in-scope employees.

The union also complained that the employer had undermined the collective bargaining process by promoting the initiatives of the committee, by unilaterally paying bonuses to employees without the involvement or knowledge of the union and by failing or refusing to bargain these matters with the union.

SGI denied that it had committed an unfair labour practice through negotiating directly with in-scope employees by way of the president’s employee engagement team, the primary objective of which was to increase employee job satisfaction and engagement in the workplace.

I am not close enough to this situation to understand the full extent of the issues involved. In addition, it is not my intention to judge either party in the dispute, I imagine there is validity to both sides on this issue. Rather, I want to express my dismay and grief that employee engagement - something I see so positively -became an issue that probably contributed to employee disengagement.

Engagement must be for all!

This article points out the need to ensure that there is mutual purpose for everyone involved with employee engagement initiatives. For PEET’s sake and the employee’s experience of work, I hope this does not set the sun on engagement for management, union, and the employees in this company. I wish them well as they sort this out and I hope the sun will rise again on employee engagement – making the workplace a better place for all.

Get Engaged:

1. How do your employee engagement initiatives fit within the wider context of the organization?
2. How would you avoid having something similar occur at your workplace?

Photo Credit: Crescent Moon Sunset by http://flickr.com/photos/fortphoto/

According to Shepell-fgi research group: Money not only isn’t everything – it isn’t the main thing when it comes to motivating employees.

How people are treated and how they view their managers have almost twice the impact on motivation and results compared to pay and benefits. Money does not appear to enhance productivity.

Rob Phillips, CEO of Shepell-fgi stated:

We all like some parts of our job more than others. But when overall engagement is low and when your staff prefer to not come in to work or aren’t performing at their full capacity, it costs the organization money – up to an average cost of $1.80 million for a company of 1,000 employees.

Employees want to have trust in senior management, be asked for their input, and have a clear say in decisions that affect their work.

Money is the employee engagement paradox: money is not a key driver of employee engagement for the employee yet it costs an organization great deals of money to have disengaged employees.

Get Engaged:

1. Ensure you spend time not just money with employees. Work is as much about making sense as it is about making cents.

Photo Credit: The snail and the coin (Economy goes slow) by http://flickr.com/photos/mclau/