Quick Review: StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Book 1 of 3)

by David Zinger

3 Reviews and 1 interview. The next 3 posts will review 3 books by Tom Rath that are essential reading for anyone involved in employee engagement. The fourth post in this series will be an exclusive interview with Tom Rath about his work.

Strong questions. Do you know your strengths? Do you consciously use them everyday? Do you find new opportunities to make the most of your strengths? Do you engaged in strong conversations?

StrengthsFinder 2.0 is an ideal source to weave together strengths and employee engagement. The value of the book may be more in the assessment and online access than the actual book. You must buy the book to do the assessment and have access to all the online resources.

Strengths and engagement. There are a number of pathways to strength identification and action and this book is one of the best. There is a very strong link between knowing and using your strengths and levels of employee engagement.

Tidbits from the book:

• People who focus on their strengths everyday are 6 times as likely to be engaged in their jobs.
• People who focus on their strengths everyday are 3 times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.
• Only 1/3 of people agree that they have the opportunity do do what they do best every day at work.
• “You cannot be anything you want to be — but you can be a lot more of who you already are.
• If you manager ignores you you have a 40% chance of being disengaged. If you manager focuses on your weaknesses you have a 22% chance of being disengaged. If your manager focuses on your strengths you have a 1% chance of being disengaged.

David’s strengths.My strengths are: Maximizer, Strategic, Positivity, Ideation, and Empathy. I find that I am more engaged when I keep these strengths in mind and action.

Grow strong along with me, the best is yet to be.

Next Book Review: Vital Friends.

Rest and recovery are vital in sustaining energy for employee engagement.

Enjoy some soup with this cracker.

Have a good Father’s Day!

Photo Credit: Saltine by Elizabeth Perry.

Next week I will be focusing on Tom Rath and his contributions to Employee Engagement.

Monday to Wednesday will feature a review of 3 books Tom wrote:

1. StrengthsFinder 2.0.
2. How Full is Your Bucket?
3. Vital Friends.

On Thursday, visitors will have the opporunity to read an an engaging and exclusive interview with Tom Rath.

Be prepared next week to Gallup into Employee Engagement.

21 Ways Leaders Can Energize Themselves for Employee Engagement [Read more...]

Blogs that David Zinger Follows

by David Zinger

I am not posting this weekend but perhaps you are looking for a good blog or blog post to read:

Here is a list of the almost 300 bloggers who inspire me:

• AAA Employee Engagement Network

• Absotively Integration Blog

• acidlabs

• Adam Salamon

• Alex Shalman . com

• Alkamae Blog

• All Things Workplace

• Author Blog

• B 800-CEO-READ Blog

• Bailey WorkPlay :: The Alchemy of Soulful Work

• Be Excellent

• Ben Casnocha: The Blog

• Beyond bullets

• Bill Geist’s Zeitgeist

• The Bing Blog

• The Blog Herald

• The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

• Blogging Experiment

• BlogWrite for CEOs

• Bob Sutton

• Bob Sutton

• Boing Boing

• The Bold Leader Blog

• Brain Rules

• BrainBasedBusiness

• the brand dame

• Brand Mantra?

• BrandSoul

• Bud Bilanich

• Business Improvisation

• Business Intelligence | Canadian Management Centre PodCast

• Businesspundit

• Buzzoodle

• Cali and Jody

• Capability Development

• Career Intensity

• Caroline Middlebrook

• Cenek Report

• ChangeThis Newsletter

• Check Out Blog

• Chris Brogan

• Christine Kane’s Blog

• Circadian Shift

• CK’s Blog

• The Coach Approach

• Cognitive Edge

• Common Craft – Explanations In Plain English blogs

• Communication Nation

• CONSUMED

• ConverStations

• Copyblogger

• Cosmedia by Gino Cosme

• Creating Passionate Users

• Creative Generalist

• Creative Think

• Creativity and Action

• Cube Rules

• Culture to Engage

• Customer Experience

• Customers

• Daily Blog Tips

• Daily Writing Tips

• Daniel Pink

• The Dashboard Spy

• Dave Barry

• Dave Cheong | Engineer to Entrepreneur

• David Zinger’s Posts – The Employee Engagement Network

• davidsfinch.com

• Dawud Miracle @ dmiracle.com

• The Despair Inc. Blog

• Developing Excellence

• Die Happy Today

• Digital Roam

• The Dilbert Blog

• The Dip by Seth Godin

• Disorganizational Behavior

• Dosh Dosh

• Dr. Z’s Leadership Institute

• Dwight Schrute’s Schrute-Space

• e2.oh

• Eclecticity

• elise.com: On the Job

• Employee Engagement Zingers

• Employee Evolution

• Employee Factor

• The Employee Factor

• Employment and Jobs Blog

• Endurance Is

• The Engaging Brand

• The Enlightened Manager

• Ensight

• EQ4PM

• Escape Adulthood

• The FASTForward Blog

• FC Experts

• For Your Approval

• Fragments From Floyd

• FreelanceSwitch – The Freelance Blog

• FreelanceSwitch – The Freelance Blog

• FunnyBusiness

• Future of Work

• Future Tense

• Genuine Curiosity

• gladwell.com

• Global Neighbourhoods

• The Globe and Mail – Monday Manager

• The Go-Giver

• Goal-Free Living

• Good Morning Thinkers!

• Graphic Facilitation

• Great Management – Articles

• Grow Your Business

• Guy Kawasaki

• The Happiness Project

• HappyRant

• Harvard Knowledge

• Hitchhiker Blog

• How to Save the World

• Humor Power

• Idea Sandbox Blog

• Ignited! by Vince Thompson

• The Impassioned Workforce

• The Influencer Blog

• Interactions

• Into A New Groove

• jack/zen

• Joe and Wanda – on Management

• Johnnie Moore

• Jon Gordon’s Blog

• Joyful Jubilant Learning

• The Jungle of Life

• Just In Tom

• The Kaiser Edition

• Kent Blumberg

• Kevin Carroll Katalyst Blog

• KK Lifestream

• Know More Media

• Lead Quietly

• Leader Storytelling

• The Leader’s Journey with Lee Thayer

• Leadership Made Simple

• Leadership Turn

• Leading Blog

• Leading Questions

• Learn This

• Learn This

• Learning Circuits

• The Learning Rap

• Lessig Blog

• Let listeners have their say

• Life 2.0

• Life Beyond Code

• Life in a Matrix

• lifehack.org

• LifeTweak | Get More Out of Life

• Living Life Fully

• Logic+Emotion

• LOGICal eMOTIONs

• The Long Tail

• The M.A.P. Maker [Meaning, Abundance & Passion]

• MabelandHarry

• Made to Stick

• Maeda’s SIMPLICITY

• Make Something Happen

• Manage To Change

• Management Craft

• Management Quotes

• Management Skills Blog

• Management-Issues : News

• Manager Tools

• Managing Leadership

• Managing with Aloha Coaching

• Marketing

• The Marketing Minute

• Marketing Profs Daily Fix

• Mashable!

• MBA On The Run

• The Melcrum Blog

• Mendoza Sites

• metacool

• MetaFilter

• The Michel Fortin Blog

• Mission Minded Management

• Modern Marketing – Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

• The Monster Blog

• The MountainWorld™ Blog

• Mr. Irresponsible

• My Bad Habits

• Naked PR

• NetSpeed Leadership

• Never Eat Alone

• Never Work Alone

• New Scientist

• Newly Corporate

• Occupational Adventure

• The Official Google Blog

• On the Job

• Open Loops

• The Organic Leadership Blog

• Ottawa Real Estate

• Own Your Brand!

• PandemicBlog

• partum intelligendo

• Patently Silly

• Pavlina PD

• People @ Work

• Performance and Talent Management Blog

• Performancing

• Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

• Perspectives

• Phil “Great” Gerbyshak

• Phil’s Leadership Blog

• Positive Influence

• Positive Psychology News Daily

• Positive Sharing

• Practice of Leadership

• Presentation Revolution

• Presentation Zen

• ProBlogger Blog Tips

• Productivity in Context

• Project Creative Vision

• Psychology Headlines Around the World

• Purple Wren

• Purposive Drift

• raganwald

• The Rapid eLearning Blog

• Raven’s Brain

• Reforming Project Management

• Remarkabalize

• remarkable communication

• Richards Leadership

• The Ring in the Rubble

• Rothacker Reviews

• Rothacker Reviews

• RyanWallPaper

• Sanders Says

• Scott H Young

• Scrambled Toast

• Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching

• SEO Book.com -

• Servant Leadership

• Seth’s Blog

• The Simplest Thing That Works

• Simplicity

• Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Insights

• Slacker Manager

• Slow down now blog

• Slow Leadership

• Smart Lemming

• SMC:posts

• Social Customer

• Social Signal blogs

• SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

• Steve Miller

• The Storytellers (UK)

• studentl.inc

• Success Begins Today

• SuccessMinders

• Syntax and Soul

• Talent Development Resources archives

• Talking Story

• Technorati Search for: David Zinger

• Technorati Search for: http://slackermanager.com

• TED | TEDBlog

• This Blog Sits at the

• tiny gigantic

• Tom Peters Weblog

• Tom Peters Wire

• TPN :: The Cranky Middle Manager Show

• Tune up your EQ

• Unclutterer

• Unfolding Leadership

• Visionary Blogging – A New Look at Blog Improvement

• Web Ink Now

• Web Strategy by Jeremiah

• Weekly Articles About Blogging – NxE

• Where is the sausage?

• White Papers

• Wikinomics

• Wise Bread

• woolgathering

• working 2.0

• World Business Academy Blog

• Write to Done

• You Already Know This

• Your best just got better

• Zen Habits

• Zoomstart

• ~37days

• ÜberEye Marketing Blog

The Employee Engagement Network swells to 300 members in 4 Months.

by David Zinger

300

We had our 300th members join the Employee Engagement Network today. There are 88 different discussion forums and some of the best people involved in employee engagement from around the world.

Join us and Jump Into our Engaging Conversations!

Moving into Employee Engagement

by David Zinger

Our body needs movement to maximize our use of oxygen, increase our flexibility, and physically contribute to our levels of engagement. Get regular exercise but more immediately ensure that you move every hour to 90 minutes. Overcome Newton’s law: A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

Here are a couple of “moving” statement from Jim Loehr’s in The Power of Story:

Lack of movement = Lack of energy

To perform better, you need to move more.

Movement is the most powerful stimulant the body experiences.

To exercise get moving beyond your comfort zone:

Comfort: bad.   Pain: bad.   Discomfort: perfect.

Get comfortable with discomfort, move right into employee engagement, and when you need to perk up remember that movement not coffee is the most powerful stimulant for the body. 

Photo Credit:  Jogger_07-1109-002 by http://flickr.com/photos/heyjules/1951986512/

Don’t Quit on Employee Engagement

by David Zinger

Bill Taylor, writing the Game Changer blog at Harvard Business and the originator of the focus on the Zappos offer of $1000 to quit, has an excellent follow up blog post: Why We Went Zany for Zappos.

I recommend you watch this 9 minute video interview with Bill about the Zappos offer and the link between engaging customers and employees. For example, the offer has gone from $100 to $500 to $1000 as the company continues to grow.

By the way, Zappos engagement work certainly embraces much more than a juicy offer to quit…they give you plenty of reasons to stay!

If the video fail to load in the window, click here to watch it at the Harvard Business Blog Site.

Transformation from Disengagement to Employee Engagement

by David Zinger

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact — it is silence which isolates. ~ Thomas Mann

Many organizations fear the voices they may hear in social media and what employees may say publicly about their own organization. We are making a big mistake if we muffle and stifle the voices of the people we work with.

Disengaged energy. I believe that disengaged employees who take the energy to express, connect, and voice their disengagement for their company are demonstrating a high level of energy that can potentially be used for engagement.

Here is the story. A participant in a recent course told me that 5 young employees in her organization started a negative Facebook group about their company. The company became aware of it and thought about what action to take. Two of the employees received suspensions for a few days based on what they said and their use of company logos etc.

Now here is where it gets interesting. The company and the union had discussions with the 2 two main employees responsible for the site. With greater understanding of what they were engaged in both employees expressed sincere apologies and their own naivety about what they had engaged in.

From enraged to engaged. One of those employees is now a supervisor and has transformed his energy to working with, not against, the organization.

It gets even better. This formerly disgruntled employee is now in the training department and is the first person that new employees meet and receive training from when they join the company. He is the first voice of the organization!

The major points:

• We need to encourage the different voices from within the organization.
• We need to listen and educate.
• We need to see that voiced disengagement has the potential for transformation.
• Social media does need respect and a code of conduct within organizations.

Are you listening? What are you waiting for? Are you letting employees give voice to their experiences, their engagement, and even their disengagement?

Photo Credit: Toy Sampling Megaphone by http://flickr.com/photos/altemark/337248947/