The future of work will be flat,  “on demand,” transparent, and competitive. The future of work is you.  Here is a well-designed slide show on the future or work.

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

NBC obviously has engagement issues with two of their most talented employees Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno.

Many companies can have disengaged employees but when each employee has their own TV show it takes the statements around disengagement to a whole new level.

With multimillion dollar salaries money is not the engagement issue.

There has already been enough written on the situation and the employee’s responses. If you need some data or speculation just but Conan and Jay into a Google news search and you will find more information than you will ever need.

I would like to hear  your perspective to any of these 5 questions::

1. What caused the disengagement?
2. What should Conan do?
3. What should Jay do?
4. What should NBC do?
5. What would you do if you were in Conan’s situation?

To Haiti – Part of our World Community

Today did not feel like a day to focus on employee engagement.

My thoughts and caring go out to all the people of Haiti.

It felt like time to give rather than write.

The right thing to do was to engage in sending an immediate donation.

I chose the Mennonite Central Committee’s online Haiti disaster fund.

What did you choose?

David Zinger to be the keynote at the Warsaw Poland Engagement Conference on January 25th.

I am looking forward to going to Poland in 2 weeks to offer the keynote presentation at this conference.

I love the challenge of thinking about employee engagement from a different perspective and the opportunity to learn from my hosts and the participants about the current state of employee engagement in Poland.

In addition, I look forward to visiting Warsaw and learning more about this city.

I guarantee you will see a few posts in early February similar to the posts that were done after chairing the Employee Engagement Conference in Barcelona in 2009:

8 Employee Engagement Lessons from Barcelona. I was very impressed not only with the knowledge shared at the conference but the look and feel of Barcelona and how Gaudi and Miro’s art work offer perspectives on employee engagement. Barcelona made me think of the Geometry of Employee Engagement.

21 links to articles and sites with information to enhance employee engagement from the work-life tip sheet and 15 kudos to big blue to traumatic events and health engagement.

1. Great Employee Engagement Resource. Sloan’s Work and Family Blog. Well done! http://bit.ly/6J9gu2

2. The Work-Life Tip Sheet: 10 Steps to a Successful Workplace http://bit.ly/7i5XvB

3. Work/Life & Employee Engagement – more likely outcome when you view your life as meaningful. http://bit.ly/6vi9lR

4. Survey 200 executives & project experts only 1/3rd believe they are very good at project management http://bit.ly/5ZbhLN

5. Michael E Stallard Master of engaged connections: Connect with shared identity, empathy and understanding. http://bit.ly/7adjc7

6. 15 Kudos to Big Blue: IBM Offers Great Guidance in Social Media and Employee Engagement. http://bit.ly/5Vr5pL

7. Bad Science blog asserts if you want to be trusted more claim less. http://bit.ly/6CvYkp

8. 30 bloggers to read in 2010. http://bit.ly/6OV09U

9. Take a great bird’s eye view (almost literally) of New York City. Wow. http://bit.ly/8NYpaq

10. Employee engagement test? How Would Your Organization React to a Traumatic Event? ~ Kathryn Britton http://bit.ly/8vFYNK

11. Mission Statements Suck By Gregg Lederman http://bit.ly/6hYcdn

12. Snow business like cold weather reporting. Funny video. http://bit.ly/6r0Cb9

13. VERB power made easy. Good list of strong one-syllable verbs. http://bit.ly/8SQLCl

14. Employees engaged in their social networks can also reduce the cost and improve the quality of recruiting http://bit.ly/6hEUGv

15. 1 in 10 think that businesses are doing an excellent or very good job of health engagement. http://bit.ly/8JixrW

16. Employee Engagement – the perception of progress – is top motivator of knowledge workers, surprised? http://bit.ly/5BlS1a

17. Best of TED talks on the web. http://bit.ly/73UNDY

18. If you are searching for slides on a topic go to Slidefinder. Serach shows top slides. Very cool. http://bit.ly/4t8xnQ

19. Engaging in Google an interesting range of Googler stats. http://bit.ly/7NTvC0

20. Yet another fine Today at Work cartoon by @junson. He keeps getting better. http://bit.ly/4Bod5g

21. Polly Pearson. Employee engagement and employee recognition are everybody’s business. http://bit.ly/7hBgZn

15 Great Nuggets and More from IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines.

I believe that social media is not only here to stay but a vital link in communication and relationships inside and outside organizations. It can be a powerful tool to foster employee engagement, and yes, you can spent too much time and not add value during your time engaged with these tools.

Overall we need to engage and encourage employees to engage rather than close down the organization with a paranoia of firewalls and social media Luddite-like fear.

My thanks to Jeannette Paladino for making me aware of How IBM Promotes Employee Engagement with Social Media.  I recommend you read her article and ensure that you read and study IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines.

If Big Blue can show that it is green and growing with social media for employee engagement what is holding back you and your organization?

Here are 15 great nuggets from this  fabulous and freeing social media corporate document:

1. IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens. These individual interactions represent a new model: not mass communications, but masses of communicators.
2. It is very much in IBM’s interest—and, we believe, in each IBMer’s own—to be aware of and participate in this sphere of information, interaction and idea exchange
3. The rapidly growing phenomenon of user-generated web content—blogging, social web-applications and networking—are emerging important arenas for that kind of engagement and learning.
4. It becomes increasingly important for IBM and IBMers to share with the world the exciting things we’re learning and doing, and to learn from others.
5. Know and follow IBM’s Business Conduct Guidelines.
6. IBM supports open dialogue and the exchange of ideas. IBM regards blogs and other forms of online discourse as primarily a form of communication and relationship among individuals.
7. One of IBMers’ core values is “trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.” As a company, IBM trusts—and expects—IBMers to exercise personal responsibility whenever they participate in social media.
8. Online social media enables individuals to share their insights, express their opinions and share information within the context of a globally distributed conversation. Each tool and medium has proper and improper uses. While IBM encourages all of its employees to join a global conversation, it is important for IBMers who choose to do so to understand what is recommended, expected and required when they discuss IBM-related topics, whether at work or on their own time.
9. Be who you are. Some bloggers work anonymously, using pseudonyms or false screen names. IBM discourages that in blogs, wikis or other forms of online participation that relate to IBM
10. Be thoughtful about how you present yourself in online social networks. The lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred in online social networks.
11. IBM’s business performance. You must not comment on confidential IBM financial information such as IBM’s future business performance, business plans, or prospects anywhere in world.
12. Add value. If it helps you, your coworkers, our clients or our partners to do their jobs and solve problems; if it helps to improve knowledge or skills; if it contributes directly or indirectly to the improvement of IBM’s products, processes and policies; if it builds a sense of community; or if it helps to promote IBM’s Values, then it is adding value.
13. Be the first to respond to your own mistakes. If you make an error, be up front about your mistake and correct it quickly. In a blog, if you choose to modify an earlier post, make it clear that you have done so.
14. Use your best judgment. Remember that there are always consequences to what you publish. If you’re about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, review the suggestions above and think about why that is.
15. Don’t forget your day job. You should make sure that your online activities do not interfere with your job or commitments to customers.

Once again, go read and study the entire document at IBM Social Computing Guidelines.

Kudos to IBM for showing guidance and growth rather than fear and force in the face of social media and employee engagement.

Good management matters. Managers need to be fully engaged themselves and they can can play a very significant role in engaging others.

Let’s start fully managing employee engagement and engaging management fully.

Shifting to Management. I believe we will see a significant focus on management this decade. I think we have saturated our focus on leadership and will move to a stronger focus on fully engaging management. We need good managers who are good leaders and good leaders who are good managers. Engagement means getting things done and getting things done not through people but with people and this will be a major role for managers in the 10 years ahead.

Mediocre managers days are numbered. There have been so many books and blog posts on what to do when you work for a “jerk” that bad bosses and mediocre managers must know that their days are numbered.

Rosa Say focused on management. Rosa Say is focusing strongly on management in 2010. I loved her post on reduce your leadership to a part-time job:

I am Manager, hear me roar. In 2010, dare to call yourself a manager, and be a great manager instead of a “leader.” I am not saying to stop leading, not at all. I am saying to put leadership in better perspective as another thing that great managers do, and do well. Do it better than most self-proclaimed leaders do.

Think about the definition we have been using, where simply said, management is about channeling available energies into optimal productivity, a productivity aimed at whatever mission or vision (or strategic objectives) we have set our sights on. If only we had more of that!

People continue to write books about leadership, touting “more leadership” as what we desperately need. I admit that I have been thinking that way too, but 2009 and the challenges we still face have illustrated something to me: What is working best for those in the success stories we see unfolding, is a return to more management concentration, but in that reinvention that management still needs to achieve. You can expect that is where my attentions will now be as I continue to share my writing with you.

Return to the deliberate work ethic of a better-defined management style. Manage more than you lead, and in the process, accomplish them both. Accomplish them better.

Lisa Haneberg is a vocal,  steady, and consistent voice for managers and managing. Lisa has been crafting management and a very strong management advocate for well over the last 5 years. I encourage you to read her blog on Management Craft.

Terrence Seamon on Management 3.0. Terrence, who is very involved in employee engagement,  wrote about Management 3.0

Management 3.0 is about engaging and unleashing people. As I have said before, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in organizations worldwide:

• from focus on weaknesses to focus on strengths
• from appraisal to appreciation
• from “our way or the highway” to flexibility
• from “one size fits all” to customization
• from “command and control” to coach and engage

Management 3.0 recognizes that the aims of the earlier eras –increasing productivity and satisfying customers– are still relevant, but are achieved by hiring the best and trusting that they will do what the organization needs to have done.

Call it the talent management movement, or the positive workplace movement, or the employee engagement movement, or the strengths-based movement, or the appreciative inquiry movement, or whatever. It is happening.

Bob Sutton – 6 questions to assess Your management. Bob Sutton has certainly tackled the importance of good management in Work Matters.  I appreciated his recent short profile on Frank Shoniker from Canada:

…back on June 10th I commented on the emotion of dealing with having to let people go. Who knew that less than a month later it would be my turn! With an experience less than ideal, I can only offer advice on what makes a “good boss” vs. a “toxic boss”.

I can sum it up in 6 question

1. Do you make decisions in isolation
2. Do you have your staff’s “back”?
3. Do you put yourself in the “other guys shoes”?
4. Do you trust others?
5. Do you listen to the contrarians?
6. Are your ideas always the best?

If you answered honestly, all you bosses out there, you will know where there are areas for improvement. I leave you with what I hope my staff continue to think about me, that I was predicable, understanding, that I gave them some control over their business lives, and that I was compassionate. At the end of the day we all have to live with ourselves.

Engage with these management questions:

1. If you are a manager, how do you manage your own engagement (Managers are employees too)?
2. Do you understand how engaging others is managing?
3. Are you fully leveraging the power of management for the benefit of all?
4. Are your managers stuck in the middle or are they the core strength of the organization?
5. How will you be a more engaged and engaging manager before 2010 is over?