Judy, could you give a quick overview of the 10 rules.

David, we understand the importance of engaging employees. It’s our passion and it is the first step to creating loyal customers. So based on our experiences we asked ourselves, how does a company become nurturing and fully engaging internally? To answer this question, we developed the “Ten Rules of Employee Engagement”.

The Rules of Engagement
Rule #1 - Employee Engagement is NOT an Initiative - It’s a Way of Life
Rule #2 - Leaders/Managers Must Show Goodwill Toward Others
Rule #3 - Direct Managers Must Know Their Employees
Rule #4 - Leaders/Managers Must Have the Tools to Foster Engagement
Rule #5 - The Employee and Customer Experiences Must Be Mirror Images
Rule #6 - Companies Must Market to Employees to Engage Them
Rule #7 - Communication Builds Engagement
Rule #8 - Deal with Any “Bad Apples”
Rule #9 - Engagement is More Than a “Pat on the Back”
Rule #10 - Measure the Right Things and Then Act

Judy, how do you distinguish between an initiative and a way of life?

In our view, an initiative is something that has a limited budget, a defined beginning and end date and clear deliver-ables. When something becomes a “way of life” it becomes a course of conduct or the “way things are done around here”. When we are talking about something as important as creating engaged employees this will only happen, if the organization is committed to fostering an environment that will truly make valuing employees the “way things are done around here”. This in turn will lead to an environment where employees will want to say positive things about an organization, stay at the organization and strive to go the extra mile in everything that they do.

What are the key tools leaders need to have to foster engagement?

In our view, it is critical that leaders have the right tools to help them foster engagement. Here is a list of tools that we believe every leader should have:

• The rationale for why employee engagement is critical for their business.
• Information on best practices and trends on employee engagement within their industry, across industries and globally.
• A coaching tool kit on how to handle highly engaged; somewhat engaged; and highly disengaged individuals.
• Personal improvement tools to help the Leader improve their capabilities, communication, listening and other relevant skills.
• Quality tracking and measurement tools identifying levels of employee engagement within their teams, and within the company as a whole.
• Performance Management standards, objectives and tools.
• An expert to call on, if they are having difficulty fostering engagement in an individual or within a Department or group.

How do you see communication building engagement?

Communication is absolutely critical to building employee engagement. However, the traditional top-down, one-way communication method will no longer be enough. Rather, companies must not only promote two-way communication but they must show that they are listening and acting on what they are hearing. The ability to communicate, listen and act will build trust which is a key component in driving employee engagement.

How did you determine the 10 rules?

We developed the 10 rules of engagement based on research and our hands-on experience at the companies who have engaged us. What we found is that the list of 10 rules are a great starting point to helping companies determine how they can develop an environment in which their employees will want to “say, stay, and strive”.

If you were now to add an 11th rule, what would it be?

If we were to add an 11th rule, we would focus on the fact that the quality of the work environment has a direct impact on employee engagement. So the rule would be: Rule #11 - Build a Work Environment That Fosters Flexibility and Freedom.

Thanks Judy.

David Zinger

I’m a former director of Interbrand, owned by the giant Omnicom and arguably the world’s leading brand consultancy. Interbrand authors the annual report into the world’s Top Brands (Best Global Brands http://www.interbrand.com/best_brands_2007.asp) .

I understand the power that mastery of the physical manifestations of brand can deliver to the balance sheet - especially in this age of consumerism where appearance is so important. Many marketing gurus describe brands as promises. However, my passionate belief that brands are simply promises made unless employees are motivated to make or break them is less well understood and often poorly articulated.

As we live in what Tom Peters has called “the age of brand”, brand management is extremely important to all organizations, regardless of sector. The brand is the manifestation of promises made minus those delivered and, as such, responsibility for brand management is much more than a marketers thing. Employees simply have to be engaged with the vision, goals and, most importantly, values of the business if the integrity of the brand is going to be maintained. And this is much more than “tree hugging” HR-speak. It makes very sound business sense and is tied into customer satisfaction and employee retention alike.

Engagement is an elusive and slippery thing, however, as it can’t be forced or conscripted and relies upon individuals exercising free will. Brand Engagement, therefore, is a call to arms for all leaders to start forming partnerships between the external facing and internal facing arms of their organization. It provides a host of best practices and illuminating case studies from a range of organizations who have had success by taking this holistic approach. It’s also a challenge to leaders to form partnerships within their organizations to capitalize on their brands. Until those partnerships are achieved between the people responsible for making promises and those accountable for delivering them, until we can address preconceptions about who is responsible for employee engagement versus brand management the sad fact remains that comparatively few brands are going to live up to their billing!

Outline what you mean by having a CEO - chief engagement officer.

The literature about leadership and internal communication is obsessed with what I call Hero Leaders. The Chief Executives I know and work with, struggle constantly with the notion that they are expected to be the primary communicators within their business when they actually get very little time to act out this role internally and struggle to engage in authentic conversations when they do. For a host of different reasons, the pivotal communicators are line managers. They are the everyday brand superheroes - not CEOs but ceos or chief engagement officers. During times of crisis who do employees turn to? On a day-to-day basis who is responsible for informing and motivating people? Who has to be the communications “jack of all trades” able to facilitate team briefings, interpret and relay vast amounts of context-setting communication and be the role model for the desired culture, the guardian of brand values? Yes, the line manager, even the much maligned middle manager. The sequel to Brand Engagement - Brand Champions, is dedicated to this community and in Brand Engagement I provide hints, tips and techniques for maximizing the impact of this community.

Humor and playfulness are my number 1 signature strengths. One person said the mark of sanity is to blur the lines between work and play. What is the role of play in engaging employees?

It’s a lifelong obsession of mine that we’re expected to deliver our potential at work but to do so with our personalities hidden, to leave our “home” selves at the door when we walk over the corporate threshold. Why? Because it’s somehow deemed unprofessional to be yourself at work. I passionately believe that it is this very neurosis that lies at the core of deep seated morale and performance problems in many organizations. This subject is intrinsically part of the authenticity debate. Being an authentic business is quite simply about promising and being what you promise. It involves clarity about brand positioning, values and communication to customers, prospects, employees, recruits and stakeholders. Being clear about what you stand for (or won’t stand for), makes it a lot easier to do business with you. If you reflect on the leading customer service organizations (and you will have your own examples), the employees aren’t afraid to have fun, they exude confidence and enthusiasm because they enjoy working for the organization and believe in the service or product. Organisations that are clear about their values and communicate them through their people processes (recruitment, performance management, communication etc), will attract and retain like minds. This type of synergy doesn’t require too many rules and enforcement, it encourages self-managing teams, peer pressure and ultimately innovation and experimentation. When these conditions exist for adults, it feels like play and when people feel confident enough to be themselves at work there’s a chance they’re going to be a great deal more engaged and, therefore, effective. Brand Engagement supports this with case studies and data from my consultancy bring yourself 2 work www.by2w.co.uk.

How do we weave bringing ourselves to work and stories into creating more powerful or richer levels of engagement?

I’m a big fan of the work of mythologist and anthropologist Joseph Campbell who dedicated his life to the search for the mono myth or, put simplistically, the central story which underpins all cultures and creeds and forms an invisible part of our collective psyche. As a former student of literature, both English and African, I’ve been intrigued by the seemingly relentless attempts made by businesses to strip the arts from business, to raise barriers between sanitized “business think” and the natural rhythms and patterns of communication. As we all know, storytelling and the oral tradition pre-dates the written word and yet we’ve somehow forgotten the core paths our communication roots have taken as we’ve developed organizations and structures.

The greatest value of storytellers like Campbell is that they remind us of the universality of change, that despite the fact that we may feel victimized by the particular path our organizations may have taken, the fact remains that we’re part of a process as ancient as time itself. If we stop to look around us, to observe the lore that comes from our literature, our art and our stories (both from the home and corporate worlds), we can develop an understanding of the stages of change, learn to look out for archetypes along the way and, most importantly, learn from the mistakes and lessons from the heroes of the stories who have gone before us.

I believe there are a whole host of reasons why there’s such a chasm between the corporate and non-corporate worlds which apply to storytelling along with many of the other, powerful, engagement drivers. The first step towards bringing these worlds back together again in pursuit of greater balance and, I believe, more effective performance, is to recognize that just as we embrace both the commercial and artistic in our home lives, the two can be brought much closer together in pursuit of engagement for mutual commercial gain.

Your chapters end with 5 things to do today. What 5 things would you recommend readers of this interview do today? 

1. If you can influence matters, try and chart the story of the business. It’s a powerful way of connecting people with the change journey and is the most powerful engagement device, an antidote to “short-termism”
2. If you’re trying to build a business case for engagement, consider the cost of recruitment and retention versus spend on internal communication and engagement. We measured this at a financial services firm recently and the results were a real eye-opener.
3. Ensure that your internal communications function is at least as professional as your marketing team.
4. Pause for a moment and consider your personal legacy. As you chart the way through the personal and corporate journey, how do you want to be remembered when you leave and how are your values going to guide you?
5. Measure, measure, measure…………………

Ian Buckingham is the author of Brand Engagement - How Employees Make or Break Brands http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=281268 and he is currently working on the sequel Brand Champions. Ian has almost twenty years consultancy experience in the communication, engagement, change management and organisation development fields. Formerly a partner at the Omnicom owned SDL, Ian was the founder of Interbrand Inside and currently runs The Bring Yourself 2 Work Fellowship at www.by2w.co.uk.

An interview with Cindy Ventrice to get your work week percolating with engagement.

It is my pleasure to interview Cindy Ventrice, author of Make Their Day: Employee Recognition That Works. Cindy is from Santa Cruz California and has worked with a wide variety of organizations including Cisco, MIT, WorkSafeBC, and State Farm Insurance. She works to improve engagement through enhanced recognition efforts.

1. Cindy, what do you see as the relationship between recognition and employee engagement? How well is this being done in the current workplace?

First, David, you need to understand that when I talk about recognition, I am not talking about handing out company logo pens or t-shirts. Recognition is a behavior not an award.

With a management style that leaves employees feeling recognized the ties with engagement are extraordinary. With solid recognition practices employees are more productive, produce higher quality products, give better service, create a more safe work environment, and work to engage each other.

2. As you know, I love the title of you book, it has a Clint Eastwood, Make My Day connection for me. Briefly, if we are a manager why do we want to make employee’s days?

If you think about a manager who really made your day, hopefully more than once, you will realize that you would go the extra mile to make that manager look good. It really is a reciprocal relationship.

3. Explain to the readers why you believe employees want to love their job. Isn’t a job just a job?

Study after study shows that while employees talk about the importance of money, they will stick with a job that lets them use their skills and strengths, challenges them to grow, and allows them to help their organization achieve its goals.

4. In the book you talk about the importance of everyday recognition as opposed to giving out T-shirts and having gala once-a-year recognition ceremonies. How do I do this as a manager when I am so busy already.

You are right, everyone is challenged for time. In fact, I have had no luck getting managers to add recognition to their extraordinarily long to do lists. That’s why, a number of years ago, I started telling managers not to put recognition on their to do lists, but instead I ask them to make recognition the header of the list. I want them to look at that list from a new perspective; ask themselves where they can build recognition into what they already have to do. For instance, when they have a project to delegate they can tell each member of the team why they were selected. It might be because of stellar work on a previous project or because it provides an opportunity to build skills that will help them grow. Both offer recognition.

5. We need to identify and acknowledge the people that work with us. You write about the 4 elements of recognition that work. You give us a PORT (Praise Opportunity Respect Thanks) to anchor our recognition efforts. Can you leave the readers with one example of how we can use each of these 4 factors to both recognize employees and enhance employee engagement.

Thanks, or appreciation is pretty self-explanatory. Simply thank people for their efforts. Don’t take them for granted.

In the previous delegation example we have Praise for previous work and Opportunity in the form of a new challenge. Praise acknowledges success and accomplishments. New opportunities demonstrate that the manager really understands what the employee values.

It is important to remember that there is no recognition without the element of respect. I often ask employees to tell me about the most meaningful recognition they have received. One said it was when her manager said she couldn’t take her vacation at the same time he did! How many people would consider that recognition? He had developed such a strong respectful relationship that she interpreted his comments to mean that she was too valuable to be gone at the same time.

Interview by David Zinger

This is the fifth in a five part series interview with Graeme Ginsberg from London. Graeme is the Managing Editor, Research and Reports for Melcrum - the international research and training company focused on internal communication. I requested the interview go get a better understanding of Melcrum’s research and their current publication: The Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement.

The Practitioner’s Guide really delves into these techniques with practical processes, advice, tips, and checklists. What will the reader be able to do after reading about these techniques?

Readers will gain a thorough understanding of what the techniques are, why organizations need them and how to apply them. Each chapter is written by a leading engagement expert, who walks readers through the steps of the process, providing templates, meeting agendas, sample questions and other tools so the readers can get up and running straight away. There are also case studies to illustrate how the processes have been applied in major organizations, including McDonald’s, Rolls-Royce, Royal Mail, DRS Technologies and O2. The chapter authors are:

• Action teams – Linda Dulye, President and Founder, L.M. Dulye and Co.
• Appreciative Inquiry – Caryn Vanstone, Business Director, Ashridge Consulting
• Message Maps – David Grossman, President, dg&a
• Tony Quinlan – Principal, Narate

Are there any other statistics in your latest survey research of 1,625 professionals in HR and communications that stood out for you?

I’m certainly surprised by how many organizations aren’t measuring employee engagement. Around a quarter of organizations with engagement on the agenda use a dedicated survey and 44% use a standard opinion survey, but a quarter still aren’t measuring it at all. Those organizations with a formal program are much more likely to use a dedicated survey than those that have engagement as part of a general philosophy, but even 7% of those with a formal program don’t measure.

Also, a really important and interesting area is regional variation. We’ve recently published some very extensive research into communicating effectively with global workforces, and national culture is a very major factor when it comes to engagement. For example, if you look at those key engagement drivers mentioned earlier – senior leadership and direct supervisors – the perception of what ‘good’ leadership or management is may be very different from country to country. For example, employees in North America and Western European countries tend to like their leaders to involve them in decision-making, while those in Russia and Eastern countries expect their leaders and managers to be authoritative

Actually, it’s even more complex than this. Even sweeping terms for territories like “the West” are misleading – there can be quite major differences within any particular territory also. For example, in our employee engagement survey data, if you look at ‘large’ organizations (i.e. more than 10,000 employees), 17% of respondents from large organizations in North America (US and Canada) said their organization doesn’t have employee engagement on the agenda, compared with 3% from UK large organizations. And, when it comes to techniques being used by large organizations, employee action teams are significantly more prevalent in North American organizations compared with those in the UK, while storytelling is significantly more prevalent in UK organizations compared with those in the US.

So, global organizations have to be very careful when they’re looking at engaging employees in different countries and not just take a ‘one size fits all’ approach. They can’t just adopt engagement strategies or techniques and apply them in the same way across all their different offices.

Graeme, as we conclude, is there anything else you’d like to add?We’ve produced a summary of key findings from the employee engagement survey – please let your readers know they can download it free of charge at: http://www.melcrum.com/offer/etee/surveysummary.pdf This summary also includes further details about the Guide. Thank you for your time and input. I believe that Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement will be a very valuable contribution to any organization’s employee engagement efforts.Many thanks, David, great to talk with you.

This is the fourth in a five part series interview with Graeme Ginsberg from London. Graeme is the Managing Editor, Research and Reports for Melcrum - the international research and training company focused on internal communication. I requested the interview go get a better understanding of Melcrum’s research and their current publication: The Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement.

I think the technique that many readers may be unfamiliar with is message maps. I believe a message map is a visual communication tool to help individuals tell their organization’s story more effectively. Is that correct? Can you tell us a little more about this.

Message maps help managers capture the core messages of a topic. The topic might be something quite broad and abstract in nature – like where the organization, an initiative or an individual is heading. Or it might be something tangible – for example, an announcement about a product launch or annual conference. Message maps act like blueprints that guide all subsequent communication on the topic – ensuring consistency, whether it’s a CEO speech, an employee newsletter, website copy, a press release, marketing collateral, or whatever.

When it comes to creating the message map after the messaging session, less is definitely more – it’s presenting core and supporting messages so they’re really transparent and accessible. But the message map doesn’t necessarily need to be ‘visual’ in the sense of having arrows and boxes. It’ll depend really on the organizational culture and the topic – the message map could equally be a more traditional page of bulleted text. The Guide gives an example of each type of message map.

Can you tell us why you focused on these particular techniques? What was the background to this Guide?

It was becoming clear to us from our conversations with communication and HR professionals that the discussion around engagement had moved on considerably. Organizations weren’t so much debating what employee engagement means and whether it can drive business performance – they were now telling us that they wanted to know how they could actually achieve it. We had already produced our Employee Engagement report in 2005 – a very comprehensive research report covering the strategic issues around engagement – and we realized that one of our Pracitioner’s Guides would be the best way to provide the hard-hitting “how to” information that they needed for implementation.

We talked to practitioners at our annual employee engagement conferences in the UK, US, Australia and Europe and they told us that they really wanted to understand the techniques for engaging employees, rather than simply getting more information about particular channels. Action teams, Appreciative Inquiry, message maps and storytelling quickly emerged as the techniques most widely used by organizations – and also the ones that people wanted to know most about – so we focused on them.

Part 5 (next post): Conclusion

This is the third in a five part series interview with Graeme Ginsberg from London. Graeme is the Managing Editor, Research and Reports for Melcrum - the international research and training company focused on internal communication. I requested the interview go get a better understanding of Melcrum’s research and their current publication: The Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement.

What conclusions do you have about the key drivers of employee engagement?

Senior leadership and direct supervisors are still by far the most important drivers – nothing has really changed there since our engagement survey in 2005. Around 25% of respondents in organizations that conduct a driver analysis said senior leadership is the most important driver and around 25% said direct supervisors. This probably isn’t too much of a surprise since these are the people that employees look to for understanding what the organization’s values are and where it’s heading, and these are the people who shape the environment the employees work in and their day-to-day work. If leaders and managers are giving the ‘wrong’ messages, employees feel insecure, confused, cynical, demotivated – in short, disengaged.  The next most highly rated drivers in our survey were “compensation and benefits”, “opportunities for career advancement” and “people-centric culture” – each rated as most important by around 9% of respondents. I mention this to people and they say, “Well the first two are hardly surprising, everyone wants more money in the bank and a bigger desk to work on”, but I don’t think it’s only about that at all. There are really emotional elements underpinning these – salary, skills and job title have a major impact on self-esteem, confidence, security, trust, and so on. If organizations are keen to engage their employees, they need to look more deeply at the drivers – not just which drivers are important, but also why they’re important.The Guide focuses on four key techniques: action teams, appreciative inquiry, message maps, and storytelling. Would you briefly outline each one. Sure. Very broadly speaking:Employee action teams are created to work with leaders to identify engagement goals and develop strategies to achieve them.Appreciative inquiry brings employees at all levels together in a collaborative process to discover what are the factors that have made the organization or an initiative succeed, then envision ideals built on these factors and design how these ideals can be turned into a reality.

Message maps are a way of capturing the core messages simply and efficiently. The focus in the messaging process is on achieving the deepest understanding of the topic, who the key audience are and what that audience’s needs are.

Storytelling is the gathering, distilling and communicating of essential information about the organization through a narrative or narrative elements. This brings a ‘human’ quality to the facts and data so employees can really relate to it.

Part 4 (next post): Message maps and the rationale for the specific 4 techniques.

This is the second in a five part series interview with Graeme Ginsberg from London. Graeme is the Managing Editor, Research and Reports for Melcrum - the international research and training company focused on internal communication. I requested the interview go get a better understanding of Melcrum’s research and their current publication: The Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement.

Aside from the changing business environment, are there any other factors that you think have encouraged such an acceleration of focus on employee engagement since 2005?

I think that socioeconomic trends have had a colossal impact. Organizations have been understanding and adapting to the changing business environment, but they’ve also been understanding and adapting to the changes in employee attitudes, values and behaviors. Ten years ago, the Internet was beginning to give people more tools to question what they were being told. They could quickly and easily go online, get back all sorts of data and viewpoints, and develop their own, informed opinions. Since then, this has really mushroomed – not only access to more information, but also the ability to express themselves, to discuss and share views extensively through interactive social media – blogs, online video like YouTube, podcasting, wikis and social networks like Facebook and Second Life.

People use these technologies in their personal lives and they expect to use them at work. They aren’t going to accept traditional, ‘static’ communications and channels anymore. Even email has become old-fashioned and frustrating for them – their inboxes are totally overloaded with endless emails containing lines and lines of dry text. Organizations have really had to re-examine how they phrase, present and deliver their communications to employees. Quite simply, if communications aren’t engaging, employees won’t give them the time of day.

We did a social media survey in June 2007 for our report How to Use Social Media to Engage Employees and I think this really illustrates just how seriously organizations have been taking engagement and changes in employee behaviors and needs when it comes to technology. For example, half the respondents (communication and HR professionals) said their organizations were already using online video to engage employees and another 27% said they would be introducing it by June 2008. Meanwhile, a quarter of respondents said their organizations were already using online social networks, and another quarter were set to introduce them by June 2008. Organizations are definitely taking note of what people are doing in their personal lives. But, there again, it’s not totally surprising. A lot of the time we’re talking about “organizations listening to their audiences”, but it’s not “us and them” – a lot of these respondents have been using these technologies in their personal lives themselves.

Part 3 (next post): Key Drivers of Employee Engagement.

This is a five part series interview with Graeme Ginsberg from London. Graeme is the Managing Editor, Research and Reports for Melcrum - the international research and training company focused on internal communication. I requested the interview go get a better understanding of Melcrum’s research and their current publication: The Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement.

Today I am pleased to interview Graeme Ginsberg. Graeme is based in London and is the managing editor of research and reports for Melcrum. Graeme I was excited to read the abstract from your new Practitioner’s Guide, Essential Techniques for Employee Engagement. Thank you for agreeing to the interview.Are you surprised that employee engagement is not on the agenda of 19% of organizations and just a general philosophy in the people practices of 54% of other organizations?

For the 19%, I am surprised, absolutely. I think to myself, “How can any organization these days afford not to put motivating employees, helping them understand the strategic direction of the organization and their part in delivering it, and encouraging them to go the extra mile, at the top of their agenda?” The market is increasingly fluid and changeable, and organizations need to stay sharp and up their game if they’re going to compete, or in some cases even survive. My guess, though, is that for many of these 19%, it isn’t a lack of understanding about how important having a motivated, engaged workforce is.

I think it’s more a case of the leaders and managers having to juggle lots of time-consuming, stressful projects and responsibilities and feeling they just don’t have the time to conduct research, develop engagement strategies and tactics, change team structures and find new ways of working. To them, an engaged workforce would be a ‘nice-to-have luxury’ rather than a ‘must have’. They’re too busy ‘firefighting’ to recognize that it’s probably the other way round – engagement is actually a must have.

With an engaged workforce, the organization would be more secure and perform better, and they wouldn’t have to do so much firefighting! Meanwhile, with the 54% of organizations that are incorporating engagement as “just a general philosophy”, I think how surprising these results are will depend on how much you stress the word “just” – too much stress and it implies that this approach is an inferior one. It may be argued that incorporating engagement more generally into people practices is better for the organization than having a formal engagement program. After all, shouldn’t we be looking to engage employees as much as possible – through all our leadership and manager communications, change communications, business strategy communications, and so on – and not just within the context of an engagement program.

Perhaps organizations have the potential to achieve higher, more sustained levels of engagement by letting the ‘spirit’ of engagement flow through all their initiatives – even those areas that might be considered “necessary but by their nature not intuitively natural platforms for engagement” (for example, health and safety messages) or “difficult enough just to get the information across” (for example, financial results). Tim Haynes, Director of Executive Development at GlaxoSmithKline, makes this point really strongly in the Guide in the context of Appreciative Inquiry and employee surveys. I would think that there isn’t ultimately any one correct approach for all, though – it’ll depend on the nature of the organization, the strategic direction, the structures in place, the culture and so on.

Part 2 (next post): The acceleration of focus on employee engagement.

It is an honor today to host an interview with Michael Stallard. Michael in conjunction with Carolyn Dewing-Hommes and Jason Pankau wrote, Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity.

I have to admit that the cover and title did not grab my attention but when I started the book, I could not stop and was enthralled by the focus on connection, creating an environment where people feel connected to one another, to their work, and to the larger mission of the organization.

Michael, thank you for agreeing to this interview about employee engagement and your book, Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity.

Q: Can you share with the readers why you decided to write this book at this time?

A: I discovered something that I thought would be valuable to everyone who works in organizations.  It all began when I was chief marketing officer for the private wealth management group at Morgan Stanley.  During that time, I was interested in motivating the team I led and in improving the client experience by firing up people on the front lines who worked directly with clients.  I knew that culture mattered.  As a former investment banker, I had observed great and not so great company cultures.  My experiences and research led me to believe that the only culture that produces sustainable superior performance is a “Connection Culture” in which people feel connected to their work, their colleagues and their organization.
 
Q: When I picked up the book I thought it was going to be full of motivational platitudes and team trick’s for leaders. It wasn’t that at all. It was about authentic and genuine connection to others, our work, and our organization. What does connection mean to you Michael?

A: Connections are part rational and part emotional. It’s the emotional aspect that’s so powerful.  When people feel connected, it’s extraordinary what they can accomplish together. All great leaders create Connection Cultures.  In Fired Up or Burned Out, we tell the stories of some of these leaders of nations, businesses, sports teams and social sector organizations. We also include a few stories of people who did not lead well so readers can learn from their examples as well
 
Q: Can you give us an example of someone who really connected with you at work and made a difference?

A: John Straus, former head of the private wealth management group and my first boss at Morgan Stanley, was great at connecting with me and I in turn felt a strong bond with my management team colleagues and with the people in the marketing department I was responsible for leading.  John gave me the authority, resources and autonomy necessary to get the job done.  We had a strong Connection Culture, it fired us up and as a result we doubled Morgan Stanley’s private wealth management business over a two and a half year period. 
 
Q: Who are you working at connecting with currently?

A: First of all, I’m always mindful of staying connected with my family members and friends.  I meet each Saturday morning for breakfast with a group of good friends.  I also meet most Wednesdays with a different group of guys for lunch.  Being around these friends energizes, challenges and encourages me.   I’m also actively connecting with people at our client companies and the non-profit organizations I’m involved in.  Because I’m an “achievaholic,” I wasn’t intentional about connecting with people in the past. I had deadlines to meett and deals to close. Now I am intentional about connecting and it’s made me happier and more satisfied with my life as well as more creative and more productive. 
 
Q: Your book is full of powerful stories, experiences, and examples. What do you most hope the reader takes away from this book you wrote with Carolyn Dewing-Hommes and Jason Pankau?
 
A: We want people to understand the tremendous effect connection can have, individually and for the organization, and become intentional about connecting with co-workers, family and friends.  I believe that achievaholism is widespread today and it’s sucking the life out of people.  We need to connect with other human beings and when we don’t, there is a price to be paid.  Absent connections, our physical and mental health suffer.  With abundant connections, we thrive.  Life at work can be as satisfying as life outside of work if we create Connection Cultures. 
 
Q: Can you explain what you mean by Knowledge Flow in the book?

A: Knowledge Flow is one of the key elements of a Connection Culture.  It exists when people freely share information, ideas and opinions.  In cultures with a high degree of Knowledge Flow, people feel their opinions are sought and considered.  They feel valued and more engaged because of this.  A high degree of Knowledge Flow also creates a robust marketplace of ideas that fuels innovation and helps decision makers become better informed and therefore make superior decisions.
 
Q: In Part 4 of the book you profile 20 great leaders from a variety of times and settings. Can you mention one leader from this section and one thing you learned by studying that leader?

A: This may surprise you but I think Warren Buffett is a great leader although most people don’t think of him in that way.  When you study him closely and meet him, as I have, you see that he embodies a passion for excellence in business and he cares for people.  It’s this combination in a leader that brings about both task excellence and relationship excellence in organizational cultures.  Buffett is confident but not at all egotistical.  He is driven to build something great rather than be the center of attention.  Of course, he gets a lot of attention but he doesn’t seem to seek it.  His passion is building Berkshire Hathaway and doing so in a way that’s fair, honest and good for society at large.     
 
Q: Michael, you are very open about what you learned at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City in 2004 as your wife went through cancer treatment. How did that influence your views of work and how is your wife, Katie, today?

A: My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in late 2002 and advanced ovarian cancer in 2004.  Today, she is in remission and feeling fine.  The Connection Culture we experienced at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City made us feel that we were more than just a number.  The doctors and staff cared for us and we could see they cared for each other and for their cause, which is “to provide the best cancer care, anywhere.”  The place had a great buzz of positive energy and it’s one of the leading cancer centers in the world.  Watching them opened my eyes to the power of connection.  Furthermore, the extraordinary support we received from friends and family members was enlightening to me.  Amazon.com just published the story I wrote about it entitled “Alone No Longer.”  It was a life-changing event for me that led me to dedicate my life to increasing connection in the workplace and in society. 

Thank you Michael.

I encourage readers of Employee Engagement to buy this book and get connected!
If you would like more information about Micheal book or company visit: www.fireduporburnedout.com.

David Zinger