Q13: Get stronger and drop words like someone, seem, feel, and opportunity

Gallup contributions. Don’t get me wrong, Gallup has made phenomenal contributions to employee engagement. Without their work, employee engagement would not be the phenomenon it is today. Gallup has more smarter people than me doing survey research and their Q12 has stood the test of time but I got to thinking what I would do if I was to revise the survey. You have to realize this would be a big challenge for Gallup as they already have so much statistical data based on questions developed quite a few years ago – you can almost become a prisoner of your success.

Actual Q12. Their Q12 is famous and often touted as the premier engagement survey questions. To read the Gallup Q12, click here.

Galloping Around the 2010 Clubhouse turn…

Compare and contrast. I encourage you to leave the actual Q12 page open as I offer my revision. In the age of open source and free these questions are copyrighted and I respect Gallup’s copyright. Read Gallup’s statements then read my response.

Survey says… By the way, I don’t plan on doing a survey any too soon as my focus is on making adjustment and improvements in employee engagement for the benefit of all not in creating, administering or conducting another survey. And if I was to use a survey, even without the suggested revisions, I would certainly consider using Gallup’s approach. Also, please respect Gallup’s copyright — you cannot just use their survey without obtaining their approval.

Stronger – remove qualifiers – add a question I would eliminate or strengthen the use of the words  “someone,” “seem,” “feel,” and “opportunity” embedded in over half the questions. In addition I would ensure that personal responsibility would be part of the Q13 engagement equation by adding a 13th question.

My suggested revisions:

1. Expectations. Not a bad question but I would slant it more towards  acting on what is expected than knowing what is expected. I can know what is expected but not engage in it.

2. Tools.  Tools are important and I believe they will get even more important in the coming decade.  I would trust that I would also have the gumption to ask for the tools not just have the tools. We need to be proactive in our approach to work.

3. Opportunity for your best.  I would like this question stronger (it is a strength question after all) it is not about an opportunity to do your best but to actually DO YOUR BEST EVERYDAY. Engagement is about having a strong sense of personal agency.

4. 7 day recognition.  I think recognition is key but receiving recognition in the past seven days is tepid or anemic recognition at best. I would like to see recognition (both received and offered) every day and especially for great work.

5. Does someone seem to care? Drop the word someone and seem. Either they care or they don’t we don’t need any seem. Even Yoda said “do or no do, there is no try.” Caring needs to be powerful, authentic, and expressed.

6. Does someone encourage me? I know this is an anonymous survey and I know you can’t be really specific but I would change the word someone to WHO. Who at work encourages your development? How do they do this. As long as people and their responses to engagement are anonymous the survey may be part of the problem not the solution.

7. Counting opinions? Once again, get rid of the word seem. Opinions should not just seem to count, they should count

8. Job Feel important? I think the mission should go beyond having people feel to knowing in their marrow that their job is important.

9. Coworkers working? I like having committed co-workers but I would ask how do you specifically hold others accountable for good work? By the way, to me accountability is not about checking up on people, a top-down relationship, it is about checking in with people. We are each responsible for own engagement and accountable for other worker’s engagement.

10. Good buddy? I love the idea of having friends at work, not sure I need a best friend. My best friends are from grade nine and grade 12 even though I am in my mid fifties. My best friendships are  not based on people I work with. If your best friend is at work perhaps you are working too much. I would change question 10 to fostering and experiencing strong supportive relationships and knowing I am part of a caring and valuable community rather that a focus on best friend. This is the age of social media and we need a stronger and more pervasive  social focus than merely having a best friend at work.

11. A progress conversation in the past 6 months? Are you kidding me?  We should be talking about progress on a weekly, daily, even an hourly basis. Time to refresh this idea with some of Jane Dutton’s great work on energizing organizations through high quality connections (these only need a few seconds) and hold engaging conversations about performance and progress at least every 6 hours not every 6 months.
    

12. Growth Opp once a year? Drop the opportunity – it must happen. I believe a year time span in this new decade for learning and growth is like a decade when the survey began. I want to know if you are learning every day and that work is helping you to become more than you were.

13. I know there is no Q13 or question 13 in the Q12 but I would add one more for the decade ahead. The Q12 engagement questions puts engagement in the hands of the organization, manager, leaders, friends, peers, etc. What about us? We are responsible for our own engagement. Question 13 should ask: What have you done today and this week to ensure your own engagement and foster engagement in others and what will you do right after completing this survey to improve engagement.

The decade ahead. What do you think? Do we need new employee engagement questions for the coming decade or should we place our bets on past performance? And what about having some fresh new approaches in the decade to learning about engagement rather than a survey? I hope that Gallup with their experiences and resources will be leading the way by using more experimental controlled studies that go beyond corrleations of engagement to causation. I also hope they will make use of the new neurbiological and technological tools being developed by MIT to assess honest signals and engagement in real time. I have so much appreciated their past performance and hope they will be a leader in employee engagement in 2010 and beyond.

I encourage you to focus on this pithy and practical ebook by Seth Godin and so many others. Daniel Pink has a very specific offering about engagement on page 25 with a focus on what we do, when we do it, how we do it, and with whom we do it.

What Matters Now

If the ebook fails to open in this window, click here.

Just another stone in the wall?

Smiley, Saskatchewan. I have written about this before but for whatever reason the Great Wall of Saskatchewan came back to me today.  This is short 10 slide presentation on one man, 30 years, and a free standing stone wall built about 1 kilometer west of Smiley Saskatchewan. And if you don’t know where Smiley Saskatchewan is don’t feel bad as many people in Saskatchewan don’t know of it either.

Lunacy and legacy. Albert (Stonewall) Johnson built the wall on his farm and I spent a couple of hour there back in October of 2008. It seemed strange to see someone’s life work right in front of me. I was torn by the dialectic of lunacy and legacy. Being there was an emotional experience as I thought of all of our careers like building a stone wall but most of us cannot literally see what we did with all our years of work.

3 questions. I encourage you to view this very short 10 slide presentation and think about your own employee engagement:

• Do you stick your head up from the “wall” you are building?
• Do you why you are building the career you are building?
• When your work is done what will you leave behind?

Remember: Keep your tenacity for work alive, leave a legacy behind.

If the slide share presentation fails to open in this window, click here.

21 tips and links to add power and panache to your employee engagement:

1. Quietly today the EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT NETWORK reached 1800 members. http://employeeengagement.ning.com/

2. Zinger Empathy Statement of Understanding: I guess because of (content) you feel (emotion) and you want to (intention).

3. Zinger Empathy Listening Formula = Content + Emotion + Intention / Listening x Responding.

4. Take a peek into global presentation trends with SlideShare Zeitgeist 2009 http://slidesha.re/8z9GPl

5. Read This: Why Projects Fail: Obstacles and Solutions. Slide Share by Michael Krigsman http://bit.ly/5FO1DZ

   and Aiming For Innovation: Living Design in a Business World by @brynn & @newhighscore http://bit.ly/8EYbiV

6. Empathy a key to employee engagement? Empathy and What It Teaches Us By Aren Cohen http://bit.ly/7fe82I

7. South Africa Employee Engagement: 31% of employees below 30 disengaged undecided on connection to job/organization http://bit.ly/6CTbIH

8. Employee Engagement: 68%of employees in India rate their managers as effective – compared to the global 60% http://bit.ly/5D1Klv

9. Employee Engagement from METHOD: Taming a Type-A Culture Gone Wild by Melanie Warner http://bit.ly/6rvN45

10. Overview/review of Atul Guwande’s Checklist Manifesto by Jack Covert http://bit.ly/4DP9tW

11. Cranky Middle Manager, Wayne Turmel with John Blackwell on remote working http://bit.ly/6KtRY4

12. Get wise by embracing your ignorance. Wise leaders don’t know too much. http://bit.ly/6Y5VsH

13. A Solution: #Employee Engagement And #Retention in Healthcare. http://ow.ly/teGq

14. Strategy of Giving. Great free e-book from Mikka Leinonen I hope you didn’t miss it. If you did read it now. http://bit.ly/84VCgU

15. Is Employment Always a Bad Thing? by Scott Young http://bit.ly/5zoeGj

16. Screaming / Love index with Jessica Hagy. Right on the mark. http://bit.ly/8r0hNp

17. Happiness Project. Bob Sutton finds happiness. http://bit.ly/5XwIFW

18. Great Findings From Social Sciences Applied To Online Communities @RichMillington http://bit.ly/6NSuyh

19. Real Time Is *Not* Fast Enough: Three Strategies For Companies To Get Ahead http://bit.ly/6MQX7K

20. BE REMARKABLE. Fast inspiring remarkable slide share presentation by @mwalsh http://bit.ly/4AgNMN

21. How to Sail Through Your Tough Performance Review by Jodi Glickman Brown http://bit.ly/8OHtlk

18 seconds?

I encourage you to sample some of these engaging resources from employee engagement factoids and job crafting to muddy change management poetry and leadership yoga.

1. Employee engagement on the rise. HBR factoid. http://bit.ly/8LT8H9
2. I missed this TIME: 10 Ways Your Job will Change. http://bit.ly/7a2U6B
3. Time Magazine on Job Crafting. http://bit.ly/5osHcn
4. I love Job Crafting. Let’s craft our careers. http://bit.ly/5GL0xU
5. E is for Empathy. Don’t get some express some. Steve Roesler. http://bit.ly/6P4KZL
6. FREE. Hot new CHANGE THIS manifestos. Great information in wonderful packages. http://bit.ly/5nVOSm
7. Employee Engagement. A muddy poem on change management. http://bit.ly/84jT7c
8. Tom Davenport on HBR about why we don’t care about information overload. http://bit.ly/4MAKYk
9. HBR. Is Social Media Worth Your Time? by Morten Hansen http://bit.ly/8IXYon
10. Put it in reverse. How to reverse a mistake in the middle of it. HBR. http://bit.ly/7CDjaC
11. Informative interview with author of Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design.
12. Free and Freeing Employee Engagement Network just 9 members away from 1800. http://bit.ly/rKCXH
13. Kanter rant. Let’s hope there are enough far-sighted leaders to defy denial and accelerate productive change http://bit.ly/6JtLL3
14. Not just any “GUY” lessons from Guy Kawasaki. http://bit.ly/7xGVW7
15. Are you an 18 second manager? Tom Peter 3 minute video. Be a strategic listener! Well said. http://bit.ly/6JAECw
16. Mingle with great minds on the December Leadership Development Carnival. http://bit.ly/6iJnCC
17. GOOD TRIP. Follow The Mindful Journey by Antonia http://bit.ly/7Vr3UH
18. The Art of the Idea: And How It Can Change Your Life. Artistic and inspirational slides. http://bit.ly/7jpYd3
19. Born to Give? by John David Mann http://bit.ly/79nrgh
20. Articulate review of Simply Effective by Ron Ashkenas on 800 CEO Read. http://bit.ly/5x6H8K
21. R. M. Kanter (HBR). Leadership yoga, stand ideas on their head. http://bit.ly/4NAbFO 11:40 AM Dec 7th from bit.ly

Here is a transcript of my interview with Zane Safrit. To read the original, click here.

You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

David is a leading expert on employee engagement and strength based leadership. David founded and hosts the over 1700 members of the employee engagement community on Ning. He is a management consultant with over 25 years of experience. We talked our common passions: how to create employee engagement, increase it, and sustain it. We talked about its costs and its ROIand how it is the key differentiator for any business, large or small, serving any market.

Where are you and what are you working on?

I am in Winnipeg and working on our new e-book from the Employee Engagement Network. It is comprised of 240 one sentence perspectives on employee engagement that the members of the community shared. It will be out next week.

What has happened over the last 18 months with this community?

It has swelled from just myself wanting to learn more about social media whereas I designed a website to do that and all of a sudden the Ning platform came about and that does everything I need it to do. We now have 1685 people on our community.

In 2010, we are looking to expand and engage more. The secret glue of social networking that I don’t think a lot of people understand is to find meaningful contributions for people to make that aren’t too time consuming. The glue of an online community is to find ways and methods for people to make simple, yet significant contributions. Once you have made a contribution, you get more tied to the community.

It is a big community and I have personally welcomed everyone. You must look at it as though you are hosting a party. Meet and greet!

As a founder and community manager, I give you a great deal of credit to do some of the tougher work…what have you learned over the past 18 months about encouraging conversation, communication and collaboration?

There are many things going on there. It is about connections. I do send out a weekly newsletter and there are just a few things in there. I encourage people to come back, I suggest that they make contributions even once a week, I would like more people to connect with one another and visit other’s websites. I am hoping for authentic connections. Just little things make a difference… the smallest contribution can have the greatest impact.

What are your three tips for other online community managers to grow their community by eight to nine fold in 18 months?

1. Love what you do. I think you have to love what you do. I am passionate about employee engagement. I don’t do it to build the network; I do it because I am interested and love learning from people.

2. Act like a host. If you are willing to set up a network, you must act like a host. Welcome people and try to help people to link and be connected.

3. Keep it interesting. Make it visually appealing and keep it changing. Find things that are meaningful and engage.

What was your reasonable aspiration or hoped for goal in starting the Employee Engagement community?

1. One goal was to understand community and focus. The best way to learn about it was to do it.

2. I have the equivalent of a master’s degree in Employee Engagement by reading and following all of the things that people are offering. I am learning so much from the 1600 people that are there.

Have you achieved it? Have you learned about social media and online community?

Yes! I don’t taut myself as an expert but I do know how to do it. I don’t publically offer my services, but people have certainly approached me and I am happy to assist.

What has been the most surprising challenge in growing this community?

I guess I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of people who have joined the community. The majority of the group is in their 40’s and I am happy to see them involved in social media.

It is not just the young people. It is also about trying to find the time and grow the network. I want to shake up the consulting companies and make this an expansive movement.

I do have some pretty strong thoughts about employee engagement. It goes beyond the happy employee. Happiness is there, but it is not the only component. Organizations have to be economically viable for employees to be valuable. There was a Harvard Business Review snippet just yesterday that said that about 31% of leaders, managers and supervisors are financially illiterate and don’t understand the difference between a profit and loss statement and the balance sheet. Now that is a scary thought.

What did you learn as you overcame all of these numbers? For example, 40-50 people wanting to join your community – what did you learn in managing that process?

If you build it, they will come is not valid. There are lots of things you need to keep doing, authentically to keep that growing and vibrant.

The network teaches me as much as I offer something to it.

I see you as a one man giant portal to the employee engagement movement and community. What has been the biggest trend over the past 18 turbulent months in the arena of employee engagement?

It is a blessing and a curse all at once. Employee engagement has caught more attention all of the time…this is the blessing.

The curse is that there is a lot of fluff out there: the feel good, be happy stuff.

People are just taxed to the max lately and things need to be done by the entire corporation to recognize that the staff is “US”, not them.

Conduct more than bi-annual surveys. Do more. Engage them. Engagement needs to be more than once a year measure. It is a fluctuating thing that needs to be seen and worked on everyday. People need to step up and accept the lack of engagement-make it real and recognizable.

Employees are frequently not asked. Why do you think management tends to distance themselves as time goes on? What creates that trend?

Structurally the capacities are so narrow and so small. There is fear. Managers are afraid of looking at the numbers and how that will reflect on them. The failure for executives to recognize that fact that they are still employees. Even the CEO. It is not US vs THEM. They are in it together.

We are starting to transform organizations into companies. For me it, engagement, is not an added task. Employee engagement is a way of leading now.

What is driving this awakening about employee engagement?

It is fear. There is enough financial data out there to show the benefits of engagement but to be honest I see many organizations engaging in it primarily due to fear. They are worried that they will be left behind or forgotten.

What is needed to sustain Employee Engagement?

Community. Conversations. Caring, not in a soft sense, but it means caring for profit, customers, each other, the strategy, career development, happiness, and connections. These are strong variables that need to be integrated with one another.

Employee Engagement is leadership and management.

What is the potential for Employee Engagement?

The potential is for more different ways or robust powerful ways of working and connecting to our work. If you don’t engage at work, you may not engage outside of work. We need to realize and have celebration, an acknowledgement of contributions and what has been done.

So many people in the workplace are invisible and you are not going to be able to engage people if they are not recognized.

How do employees take ownership of their personal engagement?

If you don’t take ownership, no one else will do it for you. You engage for the benefit of the organization, but you also do it for yourself. That is one thing that I see that is deficient, from the CEO to the brand new hire. It is important to do it for yourself. We must create conditions of safety and respect for one another. We are moving in this direction.

Can you share with us a case study of a company who has created better engagement with their employees?

There are pockets more than companies. Sometimes I am called in by the President or CEO and they want a three hour program. I like to be called in and examine strategy and engage the employees, helping everyone see the benefits. It is not just a quick motivational speech or a happy feeling for a few hours.

What are three characteristics of companies who do promote EE?

The bigger you become, the more challenging it becomes.

I think companies are realizing it is more than being an organization, it is being a community. It is not just relying on command and control.

There is a level of authenticity.

Leaders and managers need to know it is something that will make a difference with them.

I am sure you have measured the ROI of EE. What are some metrics companies can use to see the results in encouraging genuine employee engagement?

I think there is enough data out there, but you can get so locked into your data that you lose the connection with your people and the things that matter. If you have your financial objectives for the year, then Employee Engagement is about achieving that.

You must include people on every level of the organization and keep them involved. It can be just 45 seconds of conversation to get the ball rolling and start the dialog. It blossoms from there. One conversation at a time! Bring things out in to the open – don’t keep anyone invisible.

What is the cost of creating invisible employees?

It is a terrible cost to the individual employee not to be seen or heard. If they are not seen, why would they be engaged? It needs to be authentic gratitude and leveraging your strengths in the service of others.

Are you a fan of Marcus Buckingham and the whole strengths movement?

Yeah, I think Marcus has done a good job. His message is very sound: your strength is what engages you.

What is the Zinger Model for creating engage employees?

It has a few different components and is based upon the last two years of my work in this field.

It begins with what results are you trying to achieve.

Go back to your engagement to see if it is there.

Craft your strategy.

At the core of it is CARE: Connect, being Authentic, Recognition and Engage.

There is a focus on “other” and a focus on “self.”

48:03

When did you come up with the model and what are some of the results?

I think it was September. I think I would like it to become open source. I would like to create a simple survey and teaching elements and make it available to the public.

Being an avid reader, what are your three favorite books for the topic of engagement?

Peter Block’s book on Community.

Henry Mintzberg just wrote a new book about Managing

I am not if we should be reading just engagement books. I do tend to take sources from very different elements and take them to engagement.

What will be the trend in the Employee Engagement community we discuss in one year from now?

I think the network will be 3-4000 people by then. I am hoping the network will have transformed into a deeper community. Bringing coherence to the field as well as increased academia. I don’t want it to be a fancy buzzword with a short shelf life as a term for motivation in the workplace. I want it perceived as the way of working and leadership.

Three reasons our listeners should join the EE.

1. To make a contribution

2. To make a contribution

3. To make a contribution

Are you an 18 second manager?

Be a strategic listener if you really want to foster not just employee engagement but engagement in just about anything. Become a listening professional.

Well said Tom.

If the video does not load in this window, click here.

Read or view along with me

Here are a  fantastic range of resources from the Canadian Marketing Association to the Australian anthill. You can learn to subtract to get where you need to go, or learn to think like Bill Gates. Learn how we are born social or even get huffy humor. Engage along with me, the best is yet to be:

1. Top 10 Tips on Engagement for Managers, by Doug Shaw. http://bit.ly/4FwsPq

2. Leading the ENGAGED Company by Cathy Martin. http://bit.ly/77kkqM

3. 2 Employee Engagement and Morale Killer Apps by David Lee. http://bit.ly/7HZYXC

4. Employee engagement. Giving with open ‘hands’ http://bit.ly/8d8Dam

5. Michael Stallard uses the Blind Side to show the power of connection. Connection is more than mushy. http://bit.ly/7hYlur

6. SkillStorm: When it comes down to it, employees simply want to feel a connection to their employer. http://bit.ly/4V4i1Q

7. One of the easiest, and cheapest ways to engage with staff is to undertake fund raising tasks as a team. http://bit.ly/7N3mM2

8. Polly Pearson. Employee Engagement and Employment Branding Suddenly Hot Business Subjects http://bit.ly/4OMiLG

9. 6 tips to boost employee engagement from the Australian anthill. http://bit.ly/7TLHo0

10. Canadian Marketing Assoc. 5 Coffee Talk Rules for Employee Engagement. http://bit.ly/8g5kgE

11. Do you have a pay for performance culture or an entitlement culture? http://bit.ly/8hYa69

12. Video. 3 Minutes on Employee Engagement from Manchester Evening News http://bit.ly/7vYkfn

13. Research shows that engaged employees generate 43 per cent more revenue than disengaged ones. http://bit.ly/8flKS3

14. Employee engagement responses from Thomas Augustine, Associate VP – HR Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Ltd. http://bit.ly/5TzpeH

15. 21st Century Moms. Telecommuting fosters employee engagement it does not decrease it. http://bit.ly/5CKUz5

16. Employee engagement – so engaged that leaving would be painful. http://bit.ly/4FuH05

17. By involving employees Starbucks is building customer and employee engagement. http://www.employeefactor.com/

18. FACE up to more employee engagement with Phil Gerbyshak. http://bit.ly/8Fx42O

19. Project Management. Staying on tracks. Success stories from 3 managers. BNET. http://bit.ly/8o6wKG

    and BNET. 4 lessons from the world’s best project managers. http://bit.ly/8V74Qi

20. What about you? 1771 members have already joined the Free and Freeing Employee Engagement Network. http://bit.ly/rKCXH

21. An inspiring collection of 37 videos. http://bit.ly/8w2R1V

22. Can you spare a tweet? “You, please, help, free” and 16 more words/phrases that foster retweeting. http://bit.ly/4UmWhS

23. HELP. Johnnie Moore provides early evidence that we are born social. http://bit.ly/5CLjIP

24. Read Archers and Fletchers recommended by Dick Richards. http://bit.ly/8zUnHQ

25. Do you need to play web ketchup? http://bit.ly/4VoBQz

26. Just in case you want to think like Bill Gates by JD Meier. http://bit.ly/4Yx46h

27. How to Give a High Performer Productive Feedback by Amy Gallo. Informative, Cases, Principles. http://bit.ly/4FoCi3

28. Screw SMART goals. Go HARD – Heartfelt, Annimated, Required, Difficult. http://bit.ly/4xWmkT

29. Time to get huffy. Read and watch comedy on the Huffington post. http://bit.ly/73H5ZB

30. No employee engagement here. 8 ways to tell you are boring. http://bit.ly/4Psj9j

31. Big Take Away by Steve Roesler. Be real by subtracting. http://bit.ly/5MLn7R

Jump into the next stage of video.

You make the call. Video with choice. I have always appreciated the moves of Parkour. I appreciate how engaged a person is in determining new ways to move through space and this video (s) takes you to the next level. You see  two Parkour experts and decide which one you will watch and what move you want him to do through a series of videos.

Imagine work videos giving us more choice. Your first choice will take you away from this site but will give you the idea of video for the future. My partner, John Junson, suggested it would be so interesting to watch an employee engagement meetings and decide what character to follow and what their next moves would be.

Engage in choice. Watch this but also ensure you engage in your choices. This will take you out of this site parkouring through you tube.

The best is yet to be. I have often said, “engage along with me, the best is yet to be.” I think this help you engage and starts to show us what the best will be in the very near future.