I Ash You: How Toxic is Employee Engagement?

An employee engagement bedtime story?

Mike Klein wrote a powerful and engaging toxicity report on employee engagement suggesting it might be time to say good night to employee engagement, perhaps even kill it while it is sleeping. Mike stated:

No way.  Indeed, it’s time to kill the term “employee engagement” and spread its ashes all over Iceland.  To our industry, it’s become no less toxic than the term “sub-prime mortgage” in the finance world….not hide behind a sweet-smelling but easy-to-see-through fig leaf called “employee engagement”.

Click here to read the full post and the many comments the post generated. It was very engaging.

I loved the conversation created and chimed in with my own perspective. Here is the comment I put on the site:

Mike:

This was a very engaging read.

There was passion, opinion, debate, perspective, villains, victims, bad terms, good terms, and even a little bit of discretion, even effort in that discretion.

I found it a thoroughly engaging conversation and Mike, I believe you are a master of stimulating that.

I personally have no problem with engagement at all. I loved how engaged everyone was here. I see engagement as connection and when we only connect the term to one concept (employee) that is disconcerting to me and a disservice to employees.

Employee engagement has become a common term and I have often suggested we change it and will be thrilled if you are successful in moving it in an altered direction. Yet I also believe hundreds of people on the employee engagement network have been striving to make work better for employees, managers, customers, organizations, leaders, etc. I don’t think they merely see it as – sucking discretionary effort out of overtaxed employees. They have provided wonderful examples of engagement. I am thinking of such fine people as Michael Stallard, Judy Bardwick, Mike Klein, Robert Morris, Ben Simonton, Terrence Seamon, Jonena Relth, Karen Schmidt, Abhishek Mittal, and I could go on and on.

Let’s never forget that managers and leaders are employees too (they sometimes forget this themselves). We certainly don’t need villains, victims, and helplessness in our workplaces and I need to guard myself against the possible “villainization” of the term: employee engagement.

Mike, you are one of the most engaged people in the field, you even belong, heaven forbid, to the employee engagement network and your voice is so much needed.

It is tough to see you say “goodnight” but every “goodnight” can be an entry point to a “good morning” so when I wake up and the workplace wakes to a new improved term please start a network with a new term and I would be delighted to join it because I know you are a good leader. Of course you also said good night with a question mark so maybe you haven’t put the term fully to rest yet!

In the interim, I am not prepared to give up on engagement and I hope not to shrink it down to a new term but to expand the concept so that it is engagement for the benefit of all and that we extend beyond a simple and simplistic focus on just employee engagement. Employee engagement, the concept, has provided the interest and impetus to have organizations get involved in some very meaningful practices and conversations to enhance work.

Thanks to all the participants (Dan, Kevin, Geoff, Jennifer, Sean, Asaad,Indy, Kristen, etc. in the comments) for making the last 40 minutes such an exquisite and engaging time for me.

I trust you will engage along with me and let me know about my blind spots, warts, and trusting innocence that we can enhance work in 2010. In closing, I really do see employee engagement not as a problem to be solved but as an experience to be lived fully by the employee (even the CEO who is an employee) for the benefit of all.

David

What do you think? Is employee engagement making an ash of itself? Is it a toxin or a sweet-smelling but easy-to-see-through fig leaf?

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2350 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and reached over 1,000,000 page views in under 4 months in 2010. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

Over 1,000,000 Page Views in Under 4 Months

1,000,000 page views in under 4 months in 2010.

Thank you one million times from David Zinger to everyone who has read a page from this site.

According to Google’s Urchin 3 statistics, David Zinger’s Employee Engagement site just reached the one million page view mark in under 4 months!

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2350 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and reached over 1,000,000 page views in under 4 months in 2010. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

MORE: The Richness of Multiple Employee Engagement Definitions

Employee Engagement: No need to stay single!

Define love. I am miffed at the criticism and pleas for a single definition of employee engagement. Often people dismiss the field because of a lack of a single definition. Do these same people dismiss love because of a lack of a single definition?

Rich diversity. There is richness in the diversity of definitions. We get to see many angles and viewpoints on employee engagement from the robust business case and performance numbers to retention issues and workplace happy dances.  What we need is more clarity about how people are using the term rather than forcing agreement on a single definition.

Let’s argue. It is enriching to have conversations and disagreements — this is how employee engagement will mature and grow and branch out. We do not need a “one-trunk tree” of employee engagement devoid of branches.

Operational clarity. What I would like to see is more operational definitions of the term so that when someone talks about employee engagement we can determine specifically what they mean. We can argue and quibble about the operational definition but we would at least have clarity about how engagement is used in that instance. One of the values of operational definitions in  science is clarity and I am all for more clarity over singularity in employee engagement.

Without clarity engagement could fad or fade away. Although I do not want a single definition, I fear that employee engagement could fad or fade away because of a lack of clarity.

Q12 or See Stay Say. It does not bother me that Gallup uses the Q12 or Hewitt uses see stay say. It is important that we know what they mean. What does bother me is if they don’t tell you what exact number determines an employee moving from disengaged to engaged or from one category to another. Once again, if we say someone is disengaged, how is that operationally defined?

Drop the single definition grail. The single definition quest for employee engagement is not the holy grail for an engaging focus on the workplace. Let’s keep open to a plethora of definitions while striving to be clear and behavioral about what each of them means.

Let employee engagement be your defining moment.

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2335 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

7 Keys to Engage = Crucial Confrontations + Employee Engagement

7 Keys of Crucial Confrontations as a Powerful Employee Engagement Approach.

Confrontations in Saskatoon. Last week I completed a two-day Crucial Confrontations course in Saskatoon. This was delivered by Stacy Nelson from Vital Smarts for Shared Visions in Canada. I am presently certifying to teach the course. I plan to teach the course in Regina this May.

Defining confrontation. Confrontation means to hold another person accountable, face-to-face, for a broken promise, a violated expectation, or bad behavior.

My 7 keys from  this curriculum. There were so many valuable tools and insights from the course. It isn’t my intent to give a full overview of the course — the best way to do this is to take the course yourself.  I would like to voice a few of the keys I gleaned from the course.

7 Keys:

1. Crucial confrontations are authentic recognition. A confrontation can be a great tool for engagement even while addressing a broken promise, a violated expectation, or bad behavior. It tells the other person that you are seeing them and that you are thinking about them. Never overlook the power of this type of authentic recognition and ensure that you see recognition as so much more than a 20 year long service pin.
2. Check your story and transform your judgement into curiosity. If you are going to confront a disengaged employee be careful of the stories you are telling yourself about their disengagement. Don’t get locked into a nasty story about another person and why they did what they did or did not meet an agreed upon expectation. Our motive is huge when we confront others. They must know we care about them and care about what they are interested while still holding them accountable for what has occurred.
3. We are always a part of it. Never overlook our role in a confrontation. Perhaps we have sown the seeds for their disengagement and the confrontation conversation will end with us who needs to make the most important changes. We are not helpless, we are not victims, and the other person is not a villain. I have to keep reminding myself that: them is us.
4. Safety. Safety. Safety. If we are to be successful in a crucial confrontation we must make it safe for both us and the person we are confronting. We do this by authentically creating mutual purpose and mutual respect. Mutual respect and mutual purpose are the foundation of person-to-person engagement actions. Building results and relationships is more about safety than it is about conversational technique.
5. Intent trumps content. We often avoid confrontations because we fear the content of the discussion. We need to keep the intent of our discussion clearly in mind and in the conversation. If our intent is to engage and help the other person grow and develop this can be a great method to enhance employee engagement. With the proper intent our crucial confrontation is really more of a crucial “care-frontation.”
6. Motivator/Abilitator. Managers and leaders need to balance the role of  motivators with the realizations that they are “abilitators” too. This is my word not a word from the course. I know the term “abilitator” is clunky but we often give too much focus to motivation and not enough to ability so I thought it would be good to create a balance word for motivator. How often do we assume that disengagement is a lack of motivation when it can be lack of ability that no amount of motivating will address until the ability has also been addressed. It is not good enough that the person wants to do something, we need to know if they know how to do it.
7. Be natural. Ensure the person is aware of the natural consequences of their behavior and the hidden impact their broken promise has on you, the organization, customers, and even themselves. Make sure any invisible consequences are made visible. I believe that many disengaged employees have giant lacuna’s or blind spots about the consequences of disengagement for themselves, others, us, customers, and the organization.

Gratitude. I have a big thank you to Stacy Nelson for teaching the course, adding his experience and stories, and encouraging each participant to take 10,000 shots. I am very indebted to the other 13 participants for helping me to see the impact and insights they took from the experience. I am so pleased that Vital Smarts created this course, that Shared Visions has brought it  to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and that I will have the opportunity to facilitate this course for others to enhance their thinking, approach, and tools to hold  Crucial Confrontatiosn to achieve results while building relationships.

Crucial confrontations -> Engaging connections . Employee engagement is based on connection. Crucial Confrontations gives us an approach and tools for these engaging connections to enhance performance, achieve results, and build relationships —- all at the same time!

What stood out for you? There were certainly a lot more than 7 keys from the course and I plan to write more about this after teaching the course. If you have taken the course or read the book, what stood our for you or what do you see as the tools or keys that can be applied to foster and enhance more robust engagement in organizations?

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2335 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com

34 Employee Engagement Eclectic Resource Zingers (No. 17)

David Zinger’s 34 Eclectic Employee Engagement Zingers

Dive into this great collection of Eclectic Zingers that will help you be more engaged in trust, humor, results, data, change, health, relationships, and so many other elements of your work and life.

1. How to Build Organizational Trust That Boosts the Bottom Line. http://bit.ly/bZgVsk
2. Why did I abandon storytelling and get entangled in management speak? by Steve Denning. http://bit.ly/duj6Fk
3. No Standard, Then No Kaizen By Pete Abilla. http://bit.ly/a8x7qv
4. The Value of Conversation by Dave Pollard on Our Culture / Ourselves. http://bit.ly/9rjZOh
5. 8 Overlooked Elements Every Online Community Should Have. http://bit.ly/dhIAKJ
6. Humorous data images comparing real first date versus reality TV first date. http://bit.ly/btgVI6
7. A Plea to Professional Communicators – Don’t Be Microphones by Rachel Happe http://bit.ly/9aUXcZ
8. Change is Hard Because Self-Control Wears You Out. http://bit.ly/cLmVrd
9. Very relaxing and promotes mindfulness. Elizabeth Perry’s drawing. Rosebud. http://bit.ly/dthi2D
10. SLOAN Work/Family: Employers miffed at employees’ lack of health engagement? Get real. http://bit.ly/aWLcx5
11. Great read and graphics – Social Business Planning: Aligning Internal With External ~ David Armano. http://bit.ly/d9sgEC
12. 45 minutes great listen to Seth Godin’s Linchpin Session. http://bit.ly/cEe2K0
13. Lisa Haneberg gives us a handle on bosses that drive us mad. http://bit.ly/aWj432
14. Keep asking: 42 Questions to Ask When You Hit a Career Roadblock by Curt Rosengren. http://bit.ly/cnYvIp
15. Ten Unwritten Rules of Communication – a good reminder. ~ Don Frederiksen http://bit.ly/aAjxVU
16. Take a Few Eggs Out of the Basket (Or Why You May Not Need What You Think You Need) By Matt Cheuvront http://bit.ly/cq30gr
17. Daily improviser. Strengths and weaknesses. Take your fork in the road into both directions. http://bit.ly/bk19Vy
18. Give information to change. Read the sign. Dan Pink stairway to exercise post. http://bit.ly/9ilc1k
19. Change is Hard, Except When It’s Not! By Dave Shearon http://bit.ly/cZZ3jH
20. Presentation Zen: The storytelling power of photography. http://bit.ly/9gGbuG
21. Avoiding Conflict is Killing Your Bottom Line By Joseph Grenny http://bit.ly/9wBBNH
22. Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team. http://bit.ly/ax0ob3
23. Talking debate or everyone talking and listening conversation. http://bit.ly/cZRfRg
24. Dan Oestreich unfolds leadership – the Cause of all your pain. http://bit.ly/9zMHuf
25. 5 steps to build engagement. http://bit.ly/bXjvKI
26. Leaders Who Focus on Strengths Cause Employee Engagement to Skyrocket. http://bit.ly/9veqZJ
27. Employee engagement from the bottom up. http://bit.ly/a1kE2R
28. The biggest mistakes of leaders. Forum on Employee Engagement Network. http://bit.ly/a4LEy0
29. Johnnie Moore. The care is rotten and the stars are good. 2 good videos. http://bit.ly/agjz0P
30. What half are you in? First? Second? Read Ed Batista. http://bit.ly/cHQeIt
31. Eric Klein Illustration and key points on why action plans fail. http://bit.ly/a4nf4A
32. Successful Coaches Know When to Do It Themselves, and When to Get Help. http://bit.ly/aKoyrv
33. Mass Exodus at Gorilla Coffee: Employees flee from “perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment” http://bit.ly/9yH989
34. TRUST = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) / intent http://bit.ly/945hf2

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David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2330 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.

Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.

Email: dzinger@shaw.ca  Phone 204 254 2130  Website: www.davidzinger.com