Employee Engagement with David Zinger
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Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource to Improve Work and Life.
David Zinger offers you great links and resources to enhance and improve your work and life engagement. Today’s features range from 100 tips on how to write long posts and 100 ways to serve others to chopped liver leadership and how much labeling do we need.
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
How do we educate senior leaders for employee engagement?
I am indebted to Jennifer Schulte for posting this forum at the 2037 member Employee Engagement Network:
An Engagement Network Forum created by Jennifer Schulte
What follows was my immediate response to the question. I am not sure we have to have senior leaders become undercover bosses pretending to be employees. Senior leaders must always remember that they are employees! The job is not to go undercover but to discover the impact the organization is having on employee engagement.
Jennifer:
I don’t pretend to have an answer to how to educate senior leaders but I do have my own responses:
First – Remind senior leaders that they are employees! Therefore everything that applies to all other employees can also apply to them.
Second – I would not use the word training with senior leaders and I am not sure “training” is suitable for any employee. I prefer education and leaders need to know education is as much about what they give as about what they get.They are not trainees they are part of a learning community brought together to make a difference in learning, engagement, and performance.
Third – I wrote a popular piece: 21 Sure-Fire Ways Leaders Can Energize Themselves for Work. You are welcome to use it.
Fourth – Crucial Conversations is a good methodology for them to achieve mutual purpose and mutual respect leading to results that matter to all. I so much appreciate the compelling evidence that Jane Dutton and Ross School of Business have gathered to show the most powerful contributor to organizational energy is high quality interactions or connections. Leaders may need help knowing how to show up, be present, and engage so that is is real, valuable, and has impact.
Fifth – I would be tempted to have them experience a little bit of the invitational conversation that Peter Block offers in Community – The Structure of Caring. Pages 177 to 185 are a very good summary and Peter encourages people to freely copy and distribute this section of his book.
Fifth – I think about my work teaching The Influencer and getting Senior Leaders to focus on the 2 or 3 vital behaviours that will get the measurable result they are after and then stacking the deck to ensure this occurs. We need to keep our efforts small and significant and most leaders already have a plate that is overflowing and we don’t want them to experience engagement as one too many meatballs.
Sixth – I would introduce them to the work of Sandy Pentland and show them how technology now allows us to monitor and measure honest signals and that our honest signals play a huge role in communication and change. They don’t need to wear a sociometer or wocket but they should understand how important it is for them to model and express congruent integrity.
Seventh – They need to know that engagement is not a fluffy extra or a soft skills. (How I detest the word soft skills because it makes our human skills seems mushy and fluffy – I would prefer that we use fixed and fluid skills and communication and people skills are the fluid elements that keep the fixed pieces working) I believe that engagement is how we work in 2010 with: co-creation, conversation, social media, strategic improvisation, postmodern management, etc.
Jennifer, I am glad you asked for this as it just made me realize that my approach to leadership engagement is taking a more articulated form when I can write this off of the top of my head and from the caring of my heart to reach out and get results that matter to all.
David
What do you think? If you would like to respond to this forum join the Employee Engagement Network and click here.
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded, moderates, and co-hosts the 2037 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
Shift Thinking of Soft Skills Into Fluid Skills and Hard Skills into Fixed Skills
Employee engagement is not a soft skill.
And it is not a matter of pure will.
You don’t go to a training room to learn engagement.
Training is for dogs – education is for people.
We can certainly go to a classroom to learn about engagement
But we must show class by demonstrating that education
is as much about what you give as what you get
and that a learning community resides within the group
and we need to bring learning out while creating community
Don’t just put more stuff in with participants who are already loaded to the max with too much to do and too little time to do it and going to a course just seems to be putting them further behind and they shudder at the possible imposition embedded in training to do a whole bunch more stuff when they leave the session with time and energy they do not have.
Education and engagement must be invitations not impositions.
Engagement is no more a soft skill than accounting is a hard skill.
Engagement is a fluid approach embracing skills in relationship to
our work, each other, our organization and our customers.
And this fluidity is what keeps the fixed skills from seizing up.
Lets melt our rigid concepts of hard and soft skills training
into fluid and fixed learning and actions that achieve results that matter to all.
We must say no to something else while maintaining laser-like focus on performing
the smallest thing we can that is most significant in creating and sustaining engagement.
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
The Walden 2.010 Project (Week 5)
What percentage contribution towards employee engagement
would you attribute to each of task, role, and organization?
Daily employee engagement. This is a weekly reporting of a one year project monitoring, measuring, and assessing daily employee engagement. You can see the original project plan, intention, measures and tools by clicking here.
Week 5. This was a week of highs and lows in engagement. Day 2 and Day 3 were the highest scores I have had all year in engagement and Day 4 and 5 were the lowest.
Assessment and Review. Teaching continues to a major contributor to my own engagement. Social media work on Days 4 and 5 were the lowest days in engagement. I can get quite engaged in the moment in social media work but the overall contribution to engagement is not as strong as my education work.
Conclusions and Recommendations. I am becoming more keenly aware of the cost of high levels of engagement. I may have a couple of very engaged days but then I seem to compensate with lower days. I will be interested to see if this trend continues during the year.
Employee Engagement Overall Take-away. At the risk of sounding like a Mini Marcus Buckingham I believe it is imperative that we help employees determine their strengths by defining strengths as what engages them. The nature and type of my work has had a huge influence on engagement this past week.
What impact does the type of your work have on your engagement?
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
Are you using story to create, foster, and enhance employee engagement within your organization.
Robert McKee is a master of story.
He offers a short insightful video look at the power of story to engage.
Robert provides us with a strong 6 minute powerful “PowerPointless” video on how to use story to engage. He concludes with the comment, “I’d rather hear a fact woven beautifully into a story than look at a pie chart.”
If the video fails to load in this window, click here.
Don’t wait until once upon a time, start making use of story in your employee engagement work today.
I encourage you to take 5 minutes – how seldom on the Internet we will stay anywhere for 5 minutes – but I encourage you to take 5 minutes to watch and listen to Gabrielle Bouliane performing slam poetry on engage now.
Here is the description that accompanies the YouTube video:
The lovely and amazing performance poet Gabrielle Bouliane performs for the audience at the Austin Poetry Slam.
This would be her last public performance.
Gabrielle was diagnosed with Stage Four Cancer shortly before this video was filmed. Our dear sister fought hard, but she ended her fight January 29, 2010. She was surrounded by family and friends, and her passing was in a very quiet, peaceful room full of love and affection. She was so brave.
Please share this video with everyone you know. I am sure it would tickle her to no end to have this video get as viral as a video can be. Tell the world.
Bunny up!
Warning. She uses strong language but this is a a much needed strong message.
If the video fails to open in this window, click here.
Mojo = Employee Engagement.
Are you ready for major Marshall Goldsmith Mojo?
Marshall’s Mojo. Are you working with Mojo and does your work give you Mojo? Marshall Goldsmith’s latest book is called Mojo. My mental image of Mojo is often something coming from a 7 foot 260 pound NBA player driving to the net so it is intriguing to watch the gentle but tenacious CEO coach with a Buddhist background, Marshall Goldsmith, focus on Mojo.
Mojo and Nojo. Here is a diagram from one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Business Week posts last year:
Mojo defined. Marshall Goldsmith explained Mojo in his latest newsletter:
My definition of Mojo spins off from the great value I attach to finding happiness and meaning in life. Mojo plays a vital role in our pursuit of happiness and meaning because it is about achieving two simple goals: loving what you do and showing it.
These goals govern my operational definition:
Mojo is that positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.
To attain Mojo, we must consider what we can start doing in order to achieve more meaning and happiness in our lives. That’s the payoff of having Mojo. More meaning. More happiness. It’s not just for organization al leaders; it’s for all of us, and it applies to all aspects of our lives because, as our research clearly documents, people with high Mojo at work tend to have high Mojo at home.
Video explanation of Mojo. Watch Marshall offer this 3 minute presentation:
If the video fails to load, click here.
5 Mojo questions:
Next step. Read Marshall’s Mojo book and find your Mojo.
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2012 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
Get engaged. From positive psychology on empowerment at work to a 5 second tea break and from accountability muscle to inclusion, flexibility, and creativity to turn workplaces around. Also, a field guide to change agents and how we see ourselves as stories.
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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2012 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
THE source for employee engagement. I am thrilled at the unanticipated success of The Employee Engagement Network.
A Saturday afternoon experiment. I started this community 2 years ago on January 26th., 2008. It began as a Saturday afternoon experiment. My motive was to learn more about social networks for business and to see if I could gather 50 to 100 people together on the topic of Employee Engagement. I succeeded on both counts!
Our 2000th. member. Bev Mate – a director of competency development for HR in New York – is our 2000th member. Of course she would not be 2000th without the joining of 1999 members before her.
My contributions. I have worked hard to make this a welcoming, connected, informed, and engaged community. My work has ranged from personally welcoming every new member to suggesting, compiling, and creating our free resources. I have learned so much from this community and can only imagine how much I will learn from them this decade.
300 rejections. I have also declined about 300 members who wanted to join but were not really focused on the topic and may have had other motives to join and use the community.
A special thanks to John Junson. This network would not be what it is without the contributions of John Junson. John, is a friend of mine from grade 9 at Bruce Junior High in Winnipeg. John has enhanced the design, created compelling graphics, designed the e-books and book, and also created 2 great work related cartoons every week! Thank you John.
Our contributions. A huge thank you to everyone who has joined and an even bigger thank you to all the members who have made such fine contributions:
Our future. We have a network on employee engagement that has grown to 2000 members, has become a community and is headed towards becoming a strong movement. We are the #1 place to be for employee engagement.
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David Zinger is an employee engagement expert. He founded and hosts the 2000 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
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
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