Employee Engagement with David Zinger
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Towers Perrin, one of the leading employee engagement companies, turned 75 this year.
Congratulations on turning 75. Your services in employee engagement are so much needed as we navigate through these economically challenging times.
All the best in the next 75 years.
Do you bounce? Do you bounce back?
Goldfish don’t bounce ~ Nancy Cartwright
Time for bouncing. We can always bounce yet in uncertain times and economic upheaval I believe we need to have even more bounce. If we can’t bounce we will get stuck and unable to create movement with our work. Bounce is what puts energy into our work and transforms effort into engagement.
Defining bounce. Some of the definitions of bounce include to spring back, to move up and down, to come back, able to rebound, leap, a light self-propelled movement upwards or forwards, and rebounding from an impact. When we are engaged we bounce. We move upwards and forwards, we move up and down, we spring back, and we rebound from an impact. I like the idea of thinking of engagement as a light self-propelled movement upwards and forwards!
The give and get of bounce. As a child I played with a baseball glove and rubber ball. That rubber ball was the inspiration for the image used for this series of The One Ball posts. I loved to throw the rubber ball against our cement front steps. If the angle was right and the toss was true it was like pitching in baseball and the ball would instantly bounce back right into my glove. It was both captivating and engrossing to be able to throw something and have it come right back. The One Ball is not limited to a real rubber ball.
Resilience. How resilient are you? How well do you cope with adversity and difficult situations. Can you bounce back after a setback or do you get all bent out of shape and stuck in adversity. It was interesting, that the rubber ball I would play with as a boy would start to fall apart ever so slowly through prolonged use but it was amazingly hardy and able to keep returning after being tossed even with all kinds of nicks and rips. Here is a snippet Val Nelson, a painter, wrote on her blog Optimistic Pursuits:
“optimism” is actually misrepresented. A word coined by 17th century philosopher Leibniz, its original meaning was actually “optimal”, to signify the perfection of the universe as it is now – in other words, being in the moment, and deciding to accept things as they really are.
Val is a painter who describes her approach as “I aim to convey the pleasures of looking, and, without irony, I propose that optimism is a viable impetus for painting. If optimism can be a viable impetus for the art of painting, and Val does it very well, I believe optimism is an essential impetus for work.
The core strength of acceptance. Although bounce implies movement there is something solid at the core that helps create bounce. Can you live your optimism by being in the moment and accepting things as they are. To me, acceptance, is the core strength from which bounce originates.
Conversational Bounce. Good conversations also have lots of bounce. When we feel safe and work towards mutual purpose and mutual respect we are able to bounce ideas off of each other and develop results we never may have imagined on our own.
Bouncing Baby. When my 3 children were small they loved to be bounced. They were the proverbial bouncing babies. As they grew older they loved to bounce on their beds and on the sofa. I believe we are made for bounce. Have you kept your childlike enthusiasm for bouncing or have your become brittle both physically and psychologically? Go ahead and get bouncing.
Trampoline effect. As we learn to bounce it is amazing how much altitude we can generate. Ensure that you can bounce psychologically and in relationships and take a good look around when you reach new altitudes. Many children can bounce for hours on a trampoline fully engaged in the movement and enjoy the process. Discover or create the work that will keep you fully engaged and bouncing well into retirement.
Success is how high you bounce
when you hit the bottom.
~ General George S. Patton
I think David Allen offers useful perspectives and advice but it got me thinking that The One Ball is not about his titles.
I don’t want to make it all work. I just want, in the moment, to make one thing work. And a lot of that is working on myself to focus on The One Ball.
It isn’t about getting things done. It is about getting this thing right before me done.
Have a ball.
Next One Ball Post: Bounce.
Roger D’Aprix wrote The Credible Company: Communicating with Today’s Skeptical Workforce.
I think D’Aprix did an excellent job with this book. He stated, “one of the most cherished of leadership outcomes is a more engaged workforce” (p. 53).
D’Aprix summarized the work of Earl Gommersall from Texas Instruments in studies on participative management. There were 3 keys to full participative management: job mastery, predictability, and recognition for contributions. This study was conducted in manufacturing at Texas Instrument and D-Aprix summarized the need for recognized contributions this way:
If employees reached the point at which they felt that they were indeed loved — that is, they were recognized as highly valued members of the organization — the researchers found these same employees had a reciprocal need to love back. At this point they were at last willing to go the extra mile and actually participate wholeheartedly in their work. (p 44-45).
Perhaps Jerry Maguire needed to yell out show me the love rather than show me the money.
In this fine book D-aprix also looked at job responsibilities, performance feedback, individual needs, team objectives and results, visions, mission and strategy, and engagement.
He phrases these variables as 6 key questions:
Perhaps the bigger question is: Can all your employees give positive and constructive answers to these 6 questions?
I encourage you to read the book to learn how to inform skeptical employees during this time of turbulent change. I trust you can create a workplace culture where people will flourish in the pursuit of worthwhile goals.
Engage 5 is a weekly feature of Employee Engagement Zingers. Engage-5 asks leading thinkers, writers, consultants, and others involved in employee engagement to complete 5 sentences. Each person was asked to limit their sentence completion to just one sentence for each of the 5 leads.
Read Steve Roesler’s 5 sentences on engagement:
I encourage you to follow Steve Roesler’s fine writing on the workplace at All Things Workplace.
133 members Latest Activity: Feb 5 This group is intended for anyone who wants to help Managers do a better job promoting employee engagement. What skills does a Manager need? What to…
34 members Latest Activity: Jan 4 You’ve heard the hype, but how useful is social media really? Share your experiences, comments and questions.
25 members Latest Activity: Sep. 30, 2008 In this group we will look at how we foster, enhance, and extend our own personal engagement in work.
55 members Latest Activity: 8 hours ago This group is for people who write blogs, books, or other resources on employee engagement.
42 members Latest Activity: Jan 9 This group is for anyone who want to talk about books on engagement, work, leadership or management. You can recommend a book, ask others about a book…
11 members Latest Activity: Sep. 12, 2008 Engaging films are thought-provoking and have great emotional impact. They not only change what we think and feel and often what we do, they also chan…
37 members Latest Activity: Jan 23 Let’s share favorite quotations that are somehow relevant to business. I frequently include them in letters, e-mails, proposals, and book reviews. The…
18 members Latest Activity: Jul. 22, 2008 What stories, case studies or personal experiences do you have of mounting rescue operations or missions to reconnect disheartened or marginalised emp…
43 members Latest Activity: Jan 2 This is a group for people interested in research on employee engagement. You can offer the latest sources or discuss the results.
29 members Latest Activity: Feb 4 A group to help people working in the UK find each other and to offer assistance to visitors coming over for work or just passing through
3 members Latest Activity: Aug. 12, 2008 A group to help people working in Africa to find each other
25 members Latest Activity: Jan 28 A group for people from Canada or people interested in Employee Engagement in Canada
8 members Latest Activity: Jan 15
13 members Latest Activity: Feb 2 This group is for those who want to learn more about best practice employee recognition and to share ideas on this important engagement tool
Engagement is not always about charging ahead, it is also about knowing where we are!
Do you take the time to reflect on engagement and what it means for both you and your organization?
Elizabeth Perry’s drawings relax me and help me become more reflective. If you have a red chair and a notebook why not sit in it and take some time to get perspective on employee engagement.
If you don’t have a red chair then find your favorite spot and engage in some red chair notebook reflections. You can start by looking at these 2 drawings and see how they engage you:
Engage along with me, the best is yet to be.
Drawing from Elizabeth Perry. Visit her site to view her daily drawings.
Gretchen Rubin writes the Happiness Project.
She offered a great post on making happiness a daily project.
Read her post here and follow her blog on your pathway to happiness.
Choose your One Ball and Know Your No.
Take your pick. Do you know what your One Ball is? How do you choose which ball to pick up? When there are so many possibilities it can be stressful just to make one choice. We may even choose to just keep juggling rather than determining the ball that is the best fit for us and getting the most out of our engagement with the one ball.
Choice paradox. Performance means anything worthy of your attention. The challenge is to determine which ball is most worthy of your attention. Barry Schwartz wrote an insightful book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less on the paradox of choice alerting us to the stress of trying to make the right choice. There may not be a perfect “ball” to pick up but there are some guidelines to follow to help you engage with the one ball:
Ball paralysis. Rather than suffer from ball paralysis just pick up the ball that seems best at the time. Engage with the ball and monitor your focus, energy, and performance. You could follow Marcus Buckingham’s suggestions to find your strengths: determine what activities you look most forward to, watch for activities that you feel fully engaged in while you are working with them, and watch for activities that you have positive reflections about.
Mastery trumps competency. Strive towards mastery rather than merely being competent. Many organizations encourage “ball juggling” by having managers and leaders responsible for so many competencies that they cannot even remember them without referring to the 150 pages manager’s competency guidebook outlining the 287 managerial competencies at 5 different levels. This reminds me of the old statement: he got on his horse and rode off in all directions at once.
Know no. Learn the power of a positive no. Know that you must say no to say yes to something else. William Ury wrote about the Power of the Positive No. Here is the lead paragraph from his site:
No is perhaps the most important and certainly the most powerful word in the language. Every day we find ourselves in situations where we need to say No – to people at work, at home, and in our communities – because No is the word we must use to protect ourselves and to stand up for everything and everyone that matters to us.
3 tips. Ury created a tip sheet that is available at his website that outlines the 3 steps for a positive no:
Click here for the pithy one page PDF from Ury’s website.
The choice is yours. Go ahead make a choice. You are not glued to your choice for life and you can make additional choices too. Just don’t choose to engage with more than one ball at a time.
And that’s the way the ball bounces.
Over 800 people have joined the Employee Engagement Network.
Join us as we rapidly expand to the place to be for employee engagement.
Engage 5 is a new weekly feature of Employee Engagement Zingers. Engage-5 asks leading thinkers, writers, consultants, and others involved in employee engagement to complete 5 sentences. Each person was asked to limit their sentence completion to just one sentence for each of the 5 leads.
Here are the Engage-5 primers:
Read Ian Buckingham’s responses to the 5 employee engagement primers:
Ian Buckingham is the author of Brand Engagement – How Employees Make or Break Brands. You can learn more about Ian and his work by visiting: www.by2w.co.uk. Ian is also an active member of the Employee Engagement Network.
David Zinger from Winnipeg Canada is an expert on engagement. He founded the 4500 member Employee Engagement Network. His work is designed to increase engagement for your organization.
He is a management consultant with over 25 years of experience. His education services are enhanced by his 20 year background as a University educator for the University of Manitoba and over 15 years managing an employee assistance program for Seagram Ltd.
David's services mix current research with practical approaches to build authentic relationships and achieve powerful results. To learn more about David, click on "About David" on the link bar near the top of this site.
Contact David Zinger at:
Phone (204) 254-2130.
Email dzinger@shaw.ca
