Another cartoon by John Junson:

These two snippets are from  Rosabeth Moss Kanter on 2 management keys from Peter Drucker:

Management should be a profession, and executives and managers should remember that their primary job is to look out for the long-term health of their organizations. That means looking outside their walls at society and taking responsibility for well-being, not just wealth.

Knowledge workers cannot be controlled; they must be motivated. Such employees must see a purpose more meaningful than personal profit. When the game is only about money, disparities in society get worse as the favored grab the largest share.

How are you managing employee engagement?

Employee Engagement Information from David Zinger

Why employee engagement and why now?

Work has changed. Command and control are archaic and
motivation is too anemic. Employee engagement is the most
robust and beneficial approach to get results in the age of
co-created work and conversation. It transcends being an HR
buzzword to creating powerful connections between all parts
of the organization and results.

Who works with you and why do they work with you?

My clients range from Investor’s Group, Convergys, and the
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to The Physiotherapist’s
Association of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Regional
Health Authority. In addition, I Chaired the Second Annual
Employee Engagement Conference in Barcelona Spain in
2009. These organizations work with me to learn leading-edge
insights and approaches. I speak the language of organizations,
meaning, community, humor, story, and results.

What do you offer?

I offer powerful result-focused and person-centered customized
speaking, education, coaching, and consulting services to
meet the pressing needs of each client.

What is the future of employee engagement?

The future is now as we move beyond surveys and simple
techniques to integrating employee engagement into all facets
of the organization’s approach to serving customers and creating
results. To sustain engagement initiatives, employees must
experience the rich benefits of engagement for themselves.

What do you recommend as the next step?

I invite everyone to:

• Read the over 850 free blog posts at my website – this
• site has already had over 2,300,000 hits in 2009.
• Join the global 1650 member Employee Engagement Network.
• Study the Zinger Employee Engagement Model

For a one page PDF of this interview click the image below or click here.

Contact me today by E-mail at dzinger@shaw.ca or phone
(204) 254-2130 and take the next step to create full and
authentic employee engagement for the benefit of all.

Free Book: Fired Up or Burned Out by Michael Stallard.

Connection is part of the center of the Zinger Employee Engagement Model. Click here to see the full model and explanation.

Connect. A central key of employee engagement is connection. In some ways connection is synonymous with engagement. How well are employees connected to the other elements of engagement ranging from their organization to genuine happiness? Connect starts the central keys of CARE embedded in the employee engagement model.

It is my honor to offer members of the employee engagement network and readers of this site a free copy of Michael Stallard’s 250 page book:  Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity.

I think this is one of the top 10 books in the whole field of employee engagement.

Click the book or link below to get the PDF version of the book.

Fired Up or Burned Out PDF Book

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.

David Zinger Interviews Michael Stallard:

Interview reprint. Here is a reprint of an interview I conducted with Michael January 21, 2008 shortly after the book first appeared:

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.

Good Reading

Stretching the concept of employee engagement. Here is a fine collection of twitter nuggets including:

• Zest Practice principles by Tony Ryan;
• Rosa Say’s Daily 5 Minutes;
• Jessica Hagy’s wonderful 10 second funny pictures; and,
• Edith Zimmerman’s witty post on how to make your husband a nice dinner.

Enjoy the engaging connections to these fine sources:

1. Zesty and creative. From best practice and next practice to ZEST practice. Read Tony Ryan. http://bit.ly/laPxI

2. Find your knowledge. You know what? Wall Street Journal on Who knows what? http://bit.ly/2EjqvU

3. Insightful and thoughtful: Cheap, Fast and good enough By Jeffrey Phillips http://bit.ly/1dxPlE

4. @JHenning RT Shuck & Wollard study the evolution “employee engagement” to come up with a definition: http://tr.im/D9ah

5. Managers ->Turbo Charge your daily 5 minutes with Rosa Say. http://bit.ly/4Dq8YH

6. @Engagingbrand RT 10 Life Lessons from Tibetan Monks! http://bit.ly/1q8aab

7. @Starbucker RT @swoodruff: Minneapolis launches a new iPhone app for pilots, called “Come on Down!”

8. @jessicahagy I love the pity pictures of statistical convergence. Great if you have an axis to grind.

9. Johnnie Moore unravels silence in shadows of organizational life. http://bit.ly/2gDWvQ

10. Haiku…US President…Receives the Nobel Peace Prize…While we’re at war. http://bit.ly/2ZIc73

11. Guy Kawasaki – The Most Important Things in Life Are Free. http://bit.ly/OrfK2

12. Very informative: Richard MacManus on the Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Personalization http://bit.ly/VZlPN

13. Good Interview with Anna Farmery and Vanessa Hall onThe Truth about Trust in Business http://bit.ly/4dDxrR

14. Great picture of wolf jumping. It is worth the look. http://bit.ly/4vOfqSabout

15. Encouragement Counts! By Bob Burg http://bit.ly/2X9Udy

16. Simple. Elegant. Witty. Best 10 second diagrams ever. http://thisisindexed.com/

17. Flowing Data: The relationship between confusion and information. Looks like a smile to me. http://bit.ly/26fcZTa

18. Funny Stuff by Edith Zimmerman: How To Make Your Husband A Nice Dinner http://bit.ly/2leTS8

Employee Engagement and Customer Engagement. This post is from Phil Gerbyshak on 9 ways to deliver common sense customer service. Serving customers is a key component of employee engagement:

Serve Customers or customer engagement is a key component of the Zinger Employee Engagement Model.

Serve customers. We want employees to serve the organization’s customers and there are very strong relationships between employee engagement and customer engagement. Does the employee feel served by the organization and management so much so that they in turn offer the same level of service to the external and internal customers.

First impressions matter (a lot!) – The first thing your customer sees or hears is REALLY important, and it sets the tone for the rest of the transaction. Take some time to make this a good one. Smile, comb your hair, take a deep breathe, and smile some more.

Tune the customer in and the world out – When your customer is talking, listen to what they’re saying. Turn off your iPod, don’t answer your cell phone, don’t play on Twitter, just tune your customer in and tune the rest of the world out.

Please and thank you still count – Remember those manners your parents taught you? Use them…ALL THE TIME!

You don’t know everything (but you better still find the answer) – When you read it, you know it’s true. You can’t possibly know everything…but some customer service people think they do. If you’re in customer service, admit it when you don’t know the answer…and then do what you can to find the answer as fast as you.

Customers aren’t always right (but they are always the customer) – Customers may not always be right, but that doesn’t mean you should stick it up their butt that they’re wrong. Customer service reps do NOT need to be right to make the point. The customer is ALWAYS the customer, and if you force your desire to be right, you may make your point…and lose the customer forever after. Treat the customer with respect and find a way to let them win if you can…or at least save face.

People’s names are like gold (learn them fast) – The sooner you can find someone’s name, the sooner you can begin using it to create rapport with the client. Dale Carnegie was right: The sweetest sound anyone will ever hear is the sound of their own name. Learn the name and use it and your customers will be much happier.

Your name matters too – Take a few moments to introduce yourself too. Tell your customers your name, so when they have a question, they can use your name to ask the question.

Complaints are great– Complaints are an opportunity to fix what’s wrong. If folks don’t complain, you can’t make things better. Let your customers know you welcome their complaints and appreciate the opportunity to make things better.

Service recovery matters (a lot!) -  If you screw up (and you probably will if you work in customer service for more than a day), you need to practice your service recovery. How you recover from a mistake is often MORE important than the actual service delivery. I’ve had many places where I had something done wrong, that when they finally fixed it, they made it GREATER than if they had never messed up in the first place.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kasthor/93217483/

What are your best ways to deliver common sense customer service?

This was a reprint of  Phil Gerbyshak on customer service. To view the original article or visit Phil’s website, click here.

Read This: 8 Is Just Enough

1. Quick Six Pack Assessment from Chris Bailey Six Criteria For A Healthy And Effective Workplace. http://bit.ly/2GRqKP

2. Seth Godin on handling trolls – people who relentlessly find fault. http://bit.ly/3XrmZq

3. @BlessingWhite RT 550+ signed up for this week’s webcast “Developing Smart Doers into Smart Leaders” – join us http://bit.ly/BbqRv

4. Dissipate social media fear with The Social Media Fear Factor By Rachel Happe http://bit.ly/1bhbVn

5. 2 VIEWS: Can Generation Y change the world? By Alison Esse http://bit.ly/2tnB0J

6. Work Sucks. Let the Workers (and their Computers) Work – Cali & Jody http://bit.ly/3JZst4

7. Steve Roesler: When someone joins or leaves a group…do this. http://bit.ly/T9b93

8. Transform organization into employee engagement community. Mintzberg. http://bit.ly/2ItYjp

Community. Organizations must strive towards creating communities of engagement. Henry Mintzberg one of the world’s top management experts advocates communities of engagement in organizations.

Foster relationships and community is a key component of the Zinger Employee Engagement Model.

Foster relationships and community. A strong key of employee engagement is our connection to relationships and community. These relationships and community can be personal and social media. Do we build relationships and results? The essence of work is relationships and community. Organizations that do not transform themselves into communities are in danger of becoming obsolete or ignored.

Stephen Golberg, from the Employee Engagement Network, gave us a heads up about an interview with Henry Mintzberg on Management that appeared in the Montreal Gazette.

Here is the part of the interview that leapt off of the page for me:

Q: You’d like to see organizations as “communities of engagement.” What do you mean?

A: We’ve isolated everybody. We measure performance individually, we hire and fire individually, we don’t give enough attention to how people work together and function together as a community. The companies we admire the most have a sense of community, people are happy to work there.

Are you there yet? Is your orgnization working as a community? Do you have a strong sense of community where you work?

1. Rosa Say on Sense of Workplace: It’s Milk, Maslow and You http://bit.ly/46mAId1 minute ago from bit.ly

2. Leo Babauta: How to Give Yourself to Whatever the Moment Brings, and Forget Stress. http://bit.ly/33PxIG3 minutes ago from bit.ly

3. Creativity: The mule & the muse ~ Curt Rosengren on productive creativity http://bit.ly/UnJYu4 minutes ago from bit.ly

4. Eric Klein: How to influence without saying a word. http://bit.ly/3NNrWT9 minutes ago from bit.ly

5. Scot Herrick: 5 Simple Tips to Earn More Respect from Your Manager. http://bit.ly/2dREHf10 minutes ago from bit.ly

6. Change This Manifesto: Self Promotion for Introverts. http://bit.ly/2M5fgu15 minutes ago from bit.ly

7. Review and interview of Working for You Isn’t Working for Me. http://bit.ly/3G5osN16 minutes ago from bit.ly

8. A quick review of Gallup’s THE POWER OF TWO. http://bit.ly/pILQC21 minutes ago from bit.ly

9. Can a flu shot demonstrate organizational authenticity? http://bit.ly/1NFK2l22 minutes ago from bit.ly

10. Steve Roesler on 7 tip for effective coaching. http://bit.ly/24zB9u23 minutes ago from bit.ly

11. Employee engagement and change management stat. http://bit.ly/3uA5OWabout 1 hour ago from bit.ly

12. Today at Work Cartoon by @junson. Another clown in the office? http://bit.ly/p5AGU7:36 AM Oct 24th from bit.ly

13. Catchy simple video on simplicity. Get the 10 laws and apply them to employee engagement. http://bit.ly/3WyFDM11:01 AM Oct 23rd from bit.ly

14. Peter Drucker would be 100. Here is his wisdom piece in HBR from Rosabeth Moss Kanter http://bit.ly/46X4m

When it is time for a change…

Skip Reardon on Be Excellent highlighted a study by Right Management on Change and Employee Engagement.

More than 9 in 10 Employees Are Disengaged When Organizations Don’t Implement Change Well

Global Engagement Study of 28,000 Employees from 15 Countries – Ninety-four percent of employees who report that change was not handled well in their organizations are disengaged, according to a global study by Right Management.

The research identified the factors critical to change implementation effectiveness and the correlation with employee engagement.

For employees who said leadership managed change effectively, only 40% were disengaged.

When it is time for a change we need to think carefully about the impact on employee engagement.

A bit of a clowing around cartoon by John Junson.