Here are suggestions on how you can apply the concepts from the book:

• Scan the authors to find ideas.

• Read the book as a primer to create your own alphabet.

• Modify it to launch a team or project group exercise on engagement.

• Choose a letter each day and focus on that letter to enhance your own engagement or the engagement of others.

• Share the alphabets with others at work.

• Offer the book as a free resource during employee engagement workshops.

• Develop your own applications based on your interest and focus on employee engagement.

Here is a brief sample letter/concept from each author:

David Zinger,

Results and Relationships. Employee engagement works best when results are woven with relationships.

Tim Wright,  

Tempt. Can you make a chance to engage seem like a sandbox your people can play in? Tempt them: not necessarily with a get-this-done-and-you-get-a-reward message. Make the engagement temptation meaningful and valuable of its own sake. 

Terrence Seamon,  

Unleash - Take the leash off of employees. Trust. Turn them loose! 

Steve Roesler,   

Isolate: Only problems, not people. 

Lisa Forsyth, 

Failure. An engaged employee is more likely to fail, because we are more likely to fail when we stretch ourselves. Yet we often try to soften failure by calling it an oversight, a mistake, or an unfortunate result. This disavowal of failure reinforces fear of failure, so take back ownership of the word failure for the sake of engagement. Encourage self-reliant problem solving, engage employees in the redefinition of failure, and celebrate failing forward. 

Raven Young,  

Communication: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~ George Bernard Shaw  

Robert Morris,  

Authenticity. Natives of Maine are renowned for their colorful sayings, such as “Won’t say he’s dishonest but if he wants to get his cows to come home, he’s gotta get someone else to call ‘em.” If trust is the “glue” of sustained relationships, it is the result of being authentic. 

Ken Milloy,

Deliver: Too often you make promises or indicate you will get back to us on something - please remember that by delivering on those promises you build credibility and trust  - and if we can rely on you, rest assured you can rely on us.

Stephen McPherson,  

Character – your character is the framework of engagement 

George Reavis,

Gratitude.  Another of the five principle ingredients of engagement.  Without gratitude one cannot stay engaged for the long-term.  Fostered by the activity of thanking others which in turn provides recognition and appreciation. 

Ian Buckingham,  

Z – Zoo! Whatever formal engagement strategies there may be it’s always going to be a fantastic, colourful jungle out there with grapevines aplenty so open those cages and connect with the people. 

Angela Maiers, 

Kaizen: Kaizen is the Japanese term for “continuous improvement”, a concept we should take to heart if we want students to achieve their personal and professional best. Small changes, if done every day, can make a big impact over time. By creating an environment of Kaizen, reflection becomes part of the daily work and conversations. Continuous improvement an only be achieved, with continuous reflection.  And with continuous reflection, students will become more and more engaged in their growth and learning.

Click here to download a free PDF copy of the book.

The authors present 95 theses about the changes in business. I encourage you to view the slide-show of the 95 theses and think about them in relationship to employee engagement and internal communication and marketing within the organization.

Here are 4 sample theses out of the 95 the authors have created:

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business — the sound of mission statements and brochures — will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. they need to get a sense of humor.

Are you on the cluetrain? Slide into the 95 statements below and determine what you can do to improve employee engagement within your organization.

| View | Upload your own

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

• 84% said they enjoy challenging work
• 83% look for new opportunities to develop skills
• 58% tend to invest time and energy beyond what is required

The majority of employees felt they needed more organizational support to perform to their full potential.

There was a lot more in this report and future post will elaborate on some of the findings and conclusions.

Photo Credit: check mark by http://flickr.com/photos/benchilada/1528785926/

I invite you to read and enjoy my free booklet: Employee Engagement for All - 18 Approaches to Transform Employee Engagement into Workplace Engagement. Click on the following link for this PDF booklet: transforming-employee-engagement-to-workplace-engagement.pdf

We must all contribute and benefit from employee engagement. This booklet outlines 18 approaches: 7 from the organization, 5 from leadership, and 6 from employees.

Photo credit: down to the well by http://flickr.com/photos/topher76/291324580/

To achieve full levels of employee engagement, efforts must come from organizations, leaders, and employees. This issue of the Monday Morning Percolator will outline 7 actions organizations can take to foster higher levels of employee engagement.

1. Assess and remove any roadblocks or hurdles to employee engagement. Ask employees what could be removed or lessened to increase their level of engagement with the organization.
2. Create a culture where employee engagement is valued, discussed, shared, and lived. Employee engagement needs to be both recognized and appreciated.
3. Ensure that the top leaders within the organization are committed to employee engagement, engaged themselves, and they are willing and committed to investing organizational resources into the engagement initiatives.
4. Move beyond measuring employee engagement to taking action on those measures. Attend to your metrics but focus on your people.
5. Help employees see the benefit of employee engagement for themselves and their customers. Don’t let your engagement initiatives become organizational manipulations to merely squeeze out more productivity and discretionary effort from employees.
6. Study your highly engaged employees to determine the vital behaviors they perform that contribute to their high level of engagement. Once those behaviors are determined work at spreading those behaviors to other people within the organization. Strive to make employee engagement a viral phenomenon for the organization.
7. Educate leaders and managers within the organization on how to foster employee engagement and help leaders understand and leverage their key role in employee engagement efforts.

The next Monday Morning Percolator will be: How leaders can contribute to employee engagement.

Contact David Zinger to learn more about employee engagement.

Picture Credit: Chicago from Above by http://flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/409484853/

Employee Engagement

There are a plethora of methods and approaches to fostering and enhancing employee engagement. Actions can be launched by individuals, leaders, and organizations. When all 3 are working together we move beyond simple employee engagement to workplace engagement with engagement for all!

Yet, the workplace of today is asking more and more from everyone with less and less time to stop and determine what to do and how to do it. If we are given too many things to do we may give up or avoid them simply because we are overwhelmed and there are too many things to do already. It can be a challenge simply to remember to focus on employee engagement.

I recommend a 2 x 2 x 2 design structure:

1. What are 2 actions organizations can take to enhance employee engagement?
2. What are 2 actions leaders can take to enhance employee engagement?
3. What are 2 actions individuals can take to enhance employee engagement?

When everyone is taking action and working together we move beyond employee engagement to workplace engagement with engagement for all. You also get the multiplier effect as 2 x 2 x 2 = 8. The multiplier effect from a systems perspective means: changes in one field of human activity (subsystem) sometimes act to promote changes in other fields (subsystems) and in turn act on the original subsystem itself. This becomes full workplace engagement when we are seeing actions from leaders, employees, and the organization.

In the next 3 Monday Morning Percolators I will outline the actions of each of these groups. In the interim I encourage you to think about what are the 2 most powerful actions you can perform to create high levels of engagement.

Picture Credit: 2 x 2 x 2 = fun by http://flickr.com/photos/bofh/30900799/

Are you flying with a six pack of employee engagement?

In this case, I don’t mean half a dozen beers.

The six essential instruments in a light aircraft are often referred to as the six pack:

• airspeed indicator
• attitude indicator
• altimeter
• turn coordinator
• heading indicator
• vertical speed indicator

Do you monitor 6 strong “indications” of your employee engagement to get you successfully to your destination?

1. Airspeed indicator - how fast can you move towards your goal?
2. Attitude indicator - is everyone maintaining a strong and positive attitude and avoiding too much wobble?
3. Altimeter - how high can you climb with fully engaged employees?
4. Turn coordinator - are you responsive to change to turn back to employee engagement if you begin to drift off course? Can you feel exhilarated while making a steep turn?
5. Heading indicator - do you stay vigilant about where you are headed?
6. Vertical speed indicator - how quickly can you climb to new levels of employee engagement?

Grab a coffee, jump into the workplace cockpit, and prepare to take off with these indicators of employee engagement.

Of course, you could also grab a six pack of beer or root beer and have a down-to-earth discussion about employee engagement with the team of people you work with.

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 #17

Today, I have the honor of featuring George Ambler and his leadership blog. George Ambler writes an insightful leadership blog - The Practice of Leadership: It’s only in the practice of leadership that we influence our world…

He has written a number of excellent short articles on employee engagement.

George summarized a study from PeopleMetrics:

…creating emotional connections to employees is what truly matters because this is where organizations can dramatically boost employee productivity and business outcomes….. Building an emotional bond with employees, … requires organizations to create a ’sense of meaning and purpose’ among employees by connecting them to the ‘higher vision and purpose’ of the organization…. Equally, organizations need to build trust and confidence through regular dialogue with managers and senior leadership as well as celebrating successes, having fun and showing individual appreciation.

In addition, the study of 5,095 workers, across the United States found

• that Fortune 500 companies in the lowest quartile in profitability had 50% fewer engaged employees compared to those in the top quartile.
• high performing employees were twice as engaged as their lower performing counterparts

Kate Feather, PeopleMetrics Executive Vice President gave love and passion for one’s organization wings:

the concept of feeling love or pasion for one’s company is gaining ground because a passionately engaged workforce is becoming an important differentiator in the marketplace.

Get Engaged:

1. Click here to read 5 of George Ambler’s other employee engagement blog posts. If you read the Monday Morning Percolator on Monday you could read one of George’s post every other day during the week.
2. Make the connection with your employees and offer a valuable vision and purpose for the organization that they can connect with. Ask them to tell you what the vision and purpose is to see how well they understand what your organization is doing and why it is doing it.
3. Maintain constant and never ending dialogue with the people you work with. Celebrate success, have fun and voice individual appreciation.

Picture credit: Zen rock garden Portland Oregon by http://flickr.com/photos/canuck01/128562559/

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/

Monday Morning Percolator (MMP) #11

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  ~ Albert Einstein.

In the center of the apple is the core, in the centre of an idea made to stick is a simple or core statement.

In the last Monday Morning Percolator, I outlined the 6 principles of stickiness outline in the book, Made to Stick. To be effective an employee engagement idea or approach must have stickiness. Otherwise it is forgotten or lost in the myriad of tasks and relationships that fill an organization and individual’s day.

Simplicity = Core + Compact. Our challenge when we leverage simple stickiness for employee engagement is to find the core and express it in the form of a compact idea that can be enduringly powerful. Simple is not “dumbing down” it is finding and communicating the core.

For example the military encourages officers in combat to ask themselves these two questions:

1. If we do nothing else during tomorrow’s mission we must _______.
2. The single, most important thing that we must do tomorrow is _____.

To translate these questions to the field of employee engagement answer these two question at the end of each day to get yourself primed for tomorrow:

1. If we do nothing else at work tomorrow about employee engagement we must ______.
2. The single, most important thing we must do at work tomorrow for engagement is _______.

To me, the simple core employee engagement idea is: Employee Engagement for All.

We all must benefit from employee engagement - employees, organizations, leaders, customers, families, and other stakeholders. Employee engagement must have mutual purpose - moving engagement from “me to we” as we all see the benefit of engaged employees and we all contribute to employee engagement.

Get Perking:

1. Write your own simple statement to lead you and your team into employee engagement.
2. Apply the employee engagement KISS: Keep it Sincerely Simple!
3. Read Chapter 1 of Make it Stick to determine why “cast member” for Disney staff is sticky and “sandwich artist” for Subway staff leaves you wondering where’s the beef? Is there a job title or role that will fully engage you in your work?

Next Week: Monday Morning Percolator #12: Unexpectedness.

Picture Credit: My personal Thanksgiving by http://flickr.com/photos/riot/289783985/

Are you holding employee engagement together with duct tape?

Don’t let engagment die with all the other projects, initiatives, and work screaming for  your attention.  Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, offers 6 powerful principles to give engagement gumption, tenacity, and longevity.

Make your approach simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and use stories. The next 6 Monday Morning Percolators will profile each of these principles applied to employee engagement.

The Heaths offer the acronym SUCCESs to remember the principles. Here is a quick outline of the SUCCESsfull principles you will learn to make employee engagement stick:

1. Simplicity. Strip employee engagement to the core and make sure you focus on the most robust method.
2. Unexpectedness. Capture your employee’s attention…and hold it by making an element of employee engagement unexpected.
3. Concreteness. Make engagement concrete so employees understand it and remember it.
4. Credibility. Make sure employee engagement is credible for all involved.
5. Emotional. Remember that emotions will influence motions so employee engagment must become a positive emotional approach.
6. Stories. Leverage stories to inspire employees to work with full engagement.

The authors practice what they preach with a stickey cover - a picture of duct tape stretched across the book jacket. The duct tape is raised from the cover to feel like real duct tape. You will be tempted to try and pull it off but what you really want to pull off is applying the principles to employee engagement.

Get Engaged:

1. Read an excerpt from the book.
2. Browse the Made to Stick blog.

Next Monday: Employee Engagement Made Simple.

Photo Credit: Duct Tape Neck Tie by http://flickr.com/photos/jasoneppink/

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/

If you are a leader here is an important multiple choice question. Your answer may indicate the role you play in your employees’ level of disengagement.

As a manager, my interactions with employees surrounding their performance is the following:

a. who has time to talk with employees about this kind of stuff?

b. we talk about how to improve their weaknesses.

c. we talk about their strengths.

If you answered “c” the chance of your employees being actively disengaged is 1%.

In an interview about the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 for the Gallup Management Journal, Tom Rath discussed the strong link between a leader’s focus and employee engagement. Here were the 3 powerful conclusions from Gallup’s research on conversation, engagement, and strengths:

1. If your manager primarily ignores you your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
2. If your manager focuses on your weaknesses your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
3. If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

Perk Up:

1. You have only one task this week. Ensure that you talk with as many people, as much as possible, about thier strengths and performance. Use strengths to muscle out disengagement!

Picture Credit: Fore! By http://flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/

Technorati Tags : employee engagement, employee disengagement, percolator, David Zinger

Holding Hands by http://flickr.com/photos/harpers/

The title of the third post I wrote in this employee engagement blog was: If it is to be it is up to me.

I appreciated the meaning compacted into a 10 2-letter word sentence. I was inspired by the sense of responsibility and accountability embedded in this pithy statement.

To percolate is to give something time and to let it simmer in our brain. After 6 months of percolating, I now want to revise this statement to reflect the principles of partnership and co-creation. When I wrote this statement I was 51 with an emphasis on 1. Now, I am 52 and I want to highlight the 2.

So the revisions of this statement based on changing just one letter is: If it is to be it is up to we. Yet, flipping “M” to “W” is very significant. Employee engagement is fueled through partnership, close connections with leaders and reports, friendships at work, and our caring connections with others.

I resonate with the picture of the twins holding hands and it reminds me when my twins, now 15 years of age, were that age. There is so much energy derived when we connect with others and they connect with us. We may not be wee any more, we may not hold hands at work, but we can always think as WE.

Engagement moves beyond individual effort and tasks to residing in relationships. Watch out Frank Sinatra, I am tempted to rewrite I did it my way to We did it our way.

On my strength based leadership blog I am also in the process of flipping me to we as I write a series on the  WE(E)-Factor for leaders. This is taking place as that blog is dedicated to the Mount Everest we-theme of The Brotherhood of the Rope.

Perk Ups

Identify the people who contribute to your engagement and ensure that you let them know the contribution they are making to your development

Thank you Dushyanta Persaud for being such a positive and caring person who has helped boost not only my engagement but the employee engagement of countless people you have worked with or led, and in your leadership I always sense you are working with the people you lead.

Seek out someone at your workplace who is disengaged and devote your energy to connect with them and contribute to their engagement.

Technorati Tags : employee engagement, WE(E)-Factor, percolator, David Zinger

Nine and thirty-nine - from http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/

We often think people of different generations are bad drivers. Older drivers look at younger drivers in disdain while younger drivers think older drivers should get off the road.

Yet, when it comes to employee engagement Watson Wyatt just released data to suggest that different generations share the same engagement drivers and that generational differences in drivers of engagement are not as wide as perceived.

The #1 driver of employee engagement for all ages was strategic direction and leadership. The only exception was employees between 30-39 who believed that rewards (pay & benefits) was the #1 driver. This generation rated strategic direction / leadership as the #2 driver while all the other generations rated rewards as the #2 driver.

Communication was a part of the #3 driver for all the generations. The different generations in the workplace from under 30 to over 60 and all the ages in between rated leadership, rewards, and communication as the key drivers of engagement.

Debra Horsfield from Watson Wyatt concluded: “employers should avoid an emphasis on labels and instead focus on commonalities in what motivates employees.”

This makes intuitive sense to me because even though I am 52, my three teenagers listen to the same rock music as me. At times, we seem worlds apart but often we share so much in common.

I think we often overestimate generational differences at the neglect of commonalities. If you want to read an informative book on generational influences at work I highly recommend Jennifer J. Deal’s book discussing the research on the common ground between the young and old, Retiring the Generation Gap.

Here were the 10 key principles she developed in her book:

1. All generations have similar values; They just express them differently
2. Everyone wants respect: They just don’t define it the same way
3. Trust matters
4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy
5. Organizational politics is a problem — No matter how old (or young) you are
6. No one really likes change
7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation
8. It’s as easy to retain a young person as an older one — If you do the right things
9. Everyone wants to learn — More than just about anything else
10. Almost everyone wants a coach.

Technorati Tags : employee engagement, engagement drivers, generations, David Zinger

Do you flow into engaged activity? Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has researched flow and outlined how we can achieve flow at work. I have appreciated his ideas on flow for years and I believe flow can be seen as a close synonym for personal engagement.

You experience flow when you are fully immersed in what you are doing. You experience energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

Here are the ingredients to percolate flow:

1. You set clear goals
2. You concentrate and focus
3. You lessen or lose self-consciousness
4. You have an alterted sense of time while being immersed in the moment
5. You have direct and immediate feedback
6. You create balance between your ability and the external challenge
7. You act out of personal control
8. Your motivation or reward for the activity is intrinsic
9. You are fully absorbed in the task at hand.

Have you experienced flow at work? Blend the ingredient above to design your work to achieve flow - the psychology of optimal experience.

Marcus Buckingham in his latest book on strengths, Go Put Your Strengths to Work, has defined strengths in a similar way to flow. He outlines 6 powerful steps to achieve outstanding performance. Strengths are defined as an appetite for an activity, strengths strengthen us, we look forward to working on these activities, and we feel high levels of satisfaction after completing activities based on our strengths. Look to experiences that provide flow as keys to unlock your strengths in the workplace.

Like freshly brewed coffee poured into a waiting mug, flow into your strengths to experience higher levels of engagement.

Go with the flow…

Get Engaged:

1. Click here to read a more detailed outline of flow.
2. Read Steve Palvina’s 7 Rules for Maximizing Your Creative Output.

Technorati Tags : employee engagement, flow, percolator, David Zinger

Part 1: Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I’m angry, even a bit ticked off.  If you read my blogs you know that I seldom if ever rant. But I am ticked off at all the measurement of employee engagement where employees tick off measurement boxes in private, an outside company collates all the measurement, and the organization receives general results and recommendations from someone not directly involved in the organization’s engagement.

Don’t get me wrong - I am not against measurement I just don’t believe that anonymous and confidential surveys really address or respond to employee engagement.

Too often the central issues in measuring employee engagement seems research and statistical centered: private, confidential, reliable, valid, and with statistical significance. After much cost, and use of employees’ precious time, impressive numbers are generated and the lofty conclusion: more research is required.

Yet in a recent meta-analysis by the Conference Board - the central conclusion in study after study that involved millions of employees around the world, was that it was the employee’s relationship with their direct leader that was the single biggest driver of employee engagement.

If we know that, why do we persist in these large scale anonymous studies? How does it help to get a measurement of overall organizational engagement without employees talking directly with each other and their leaders?

Couragous Measurement

I advocate a new measurement method in employee engagement: courageous measurement. In courageous measurement leaders and employees work together, the results are transparent, and everyone is accountable for improving engagement - employees, leaders, and the organization.  Employees have the courage to genuinely rate and voice how engaged they are, leaders have the courage to do this for themselves, and leaders are courageous to hear what is said followed by the gumption to make changes to enhance engagement.

Get Engaged:

1. If you are a leader, sit down with employees and discuss their engagement. Keep doing this again and again.
2. When you encounter someone who is disengaged collaborate with them to rekindle their engagement. If engagement can’t be rekindled determine what changes need to occur.

As stated in a recent post, the number 1 driver of employee engagement is the relationship with our direct leader.

Sometimes we are fortunate and have a great boss who:

• provides numerous high quality interactions,
• demonstrates how we are part of the organization and team,
• cares about us,
• encourages our career development,
• offers genuine appreciation and recognition, 
•  knows our strengths, and designs our work so we can use our strengths on a daily business.

With these characteristics in place, employee engagement flows from us in rivers of productivity and emotional well-being.

But sometimes we need to manage our boss to foster engagement. How do we do this?

BNET has provided a wonderful set of articles on how to manage our boss. Their feature package includes:

1. How to manage your boss
2. Bosses: A field guide
3. Troubleshoot bad boss behavior
4. How I got here: Boss-management tips from the pros
5. Five myths of managing up

The feature provides perspective, humour, insight, and actions to change the relationship.

I loved the humour of the field guide providing a “birder’s eye view” of bosses and their characteristics. For each of the 10 boss types you get a playful image of the type with an outline of the following descriptions: characteristics, plumage, archetype, quote, pros, cons, warning, care and feeding.

In addition to the humour of the field guide the other resources have an eclectic range of useful tips. For example in how to manage your boss you will read about how to:

1. Make “keeping the boss in the loop” a regular activity
2. Create a core message for your boss
3. Tap a vital resource: The boss’s influences
4. Learn everything you can about your boss’s career
5. Cultivate compatible personal interests

Get engaged:

1. If you don’t have the boss you want, put some coffee in the percolator, click into BNET’s manage your boss feature, and learn to manage the person who manages you.
2. If you work for someone who creates employee disengagement - don’t leave home for work without this resource.