Employee Engagement Zingers

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

NO! I am not confused.

I celebrate 2 New Years’ Days.

Because I have been around school and university for most of my life it always feels that August is the close of the summer and a new year begins in September with the return to school.

January 1st is my calendar New Year’s Day while September 1st is my psychological and learning New Year’s Day.

I hope you’ll join me in making a New Year’s learning resolution and that this year will be full of learning, performance, enjoyment, energy, and engagement for you.

Photo Credit: Autumn dawn by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjordan/1531979022/

John G. Miller on Engagement, Accountability, and Working

I like the simple yet elegant approach of John G. Miller. I was planning to write a review of his book QBQ: The Question Behind the Question - What to really ask yourself to eliminate blame, complaining, and procrastination. I received his email newsletter and he wrote about engagement and leadership. I asked for his permission to reprint the newsletter and here it is. By the way, I will still write the review of the book at a later date as the ideas are very important to employee engagement.

Wanted: QBQ! Managers Who Engage People

Where is the good people management?

One of the many Miller daughters is now a barista with a large coffee house chain. What a fine organization they are. Great benefits. Decent pay. Good work environment. Fun culture. The company is successful beyond the founder’s wildest dreams, I’m sure.

But none of that matters to a teenager working her first job and experiencing her first boss.

High school senior, Molly, came to work on a Tuesday at 3:30pm, expecting to work till 6:30, and then head back to school for the annual “Back To School Night” event where parents, teachers, and students mingle. And for this young woman, academically #3 in her class, these things are important. (Her dad, a solid B- student all of his school life, doesn’t remember attending even one of these events back in the day). Upon arriving, she’s told by the 29-year-old “shift leader” that she’s actually scheduled to work till 7:30pm-an hour longer than expected. When she expresses that’s not what the overall store manager had on the schedule before, the understanding shift leader says he can handle it and she can leave at 6:30. Well, she stayed till near seven o’clock and then headed off to the school to meet Mom and Dad.

Now, I know this sounds like we’re tootin’ her horn-and no, she’s not perfect-but Molly is honest, punctual, accountable, and hard working. She’s the employee every retail manager reading this QuickNote would like to have on their team. She works hard to make all drinks excellently and is learning to deal with some pretty unpleasant customers-and she’s doing it with a smile. She’s getting a good dose of life and we’re proud of her.

So now it’s Saturday morning and she arrives at work. Moments later, the store manager confronts her-with three associates watching- by tersely asking, “So, why did you leave early on Tuesday?!” Totally caught off guard and embarrassed in front of her co-workers, she tells The Boss of the school event and explains that she hadn’t been aware of the schedule change. She also shared that the shift leader told her she could leave early. The forty-something manager now glares at the teenager and says these words: “Well, that’s not possible.”

Huh? What’s “not possible,” Boss? That you changed the schedule and forgot to notify your staff of the change? That the shift leader authorized her to leave? When you say “that’s not possible,” are you implying that this team member before you is lying? This same team member who recently come in at 5:50am-an hour early-because you urgently needed her to cover for someone who didn’t show? This same employee who also later told her parents that she had a copy of the original schedule in her purse proving the truth of her claim but admittedly didn’t dare show it to you?!

When I heard this story, my first thought was: So where are the well-trained, thoughtful, skilled-in-communication, personally accountable, and caring managers who are willing to look in the mirror? Where are the QBQ! managers?

Let me be clear: Molly has been there 90 days and has loved this job. Will this interaction break her? Heavens no. But in these days when every firm QBQ, Inc. works with talks non-stop about “employee engagement,” did this experience engage The QBQ! Daughter? Did it build trust? Does it cause her to want to please? Is she feeling good about her manager? Will she be excited about getting to her next shift a few minutes early? Did it serve to build her belief in the company?

No on all counts.

The good news is this: If our daughter is ever blessed with the title “manager,” here are the lessons she has learned young:

• When making a schedule change, be accountable to reach out to all staff affected and let them know. In other words, communicate!
• Give assistant managers the authority to make decisions on the spot-in the moment-all by themselves.
• If you don’t approve of your shift leader’s decision, then speak to him/her one-on-one and do not take a management failure to the front line associate.
• When you do feel the need to talk to a staff member, ask for their view of the situation and listen-really listen-to what they say and do it in private.
• Look in the mirror and ask The Question Behind the Question, the QBQ: “What could I have done differently?” and “How can I own the results of my store?” and, of course, never ask the lousy question, “Why can’t we find good people?”
• And, lastly, thank your lucky stars for any employee who is honest, punctual, accountable, and hard working.

In the end, Miller child #4 works for a terrific firm with a stellar reputation, but that matters little to most front line folks. What does matter is the quality of everyday management-how people are treated. That’s what makes or breaks any organization.

Please pass this note on to managers everywhere, and also email us your stories of accountable managers who are doing the job of engaging their people and doing it well. We’d love to hear from you!

John G. Miller
Author of QBQ! and Flipping the Switch

With Kristin Lindeen
QBQ! speaker/workshop facilitator

www.QBQ.com

QBQ, Inc.
Helping Organizations Make Personal Accountability a Core Value ^TM
11368 Nucla Street, Denver, CO 80022
303-286-9900, Fax: 303-286-9911

Email: info@QBQ.com © QBQ, Inc. 2008.  All rights reserved. QBQ, QBQ!, and The Question Behind the Question are trademarks of QBQ, Inc.

Look for a short review of his books in the near future on this site.

I have become peeved with the looseness in how we refer to actions, initiatives, and interventions as best practices.

Here is a best practice definition:

Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people. ~ Wikipedia definition

Click here to read a post on best practices that I wrote at my other site (Slacker Manager) and let me know what you have seen or experienced in regards to best practices and employee engagement?

Were the practices actually the best or was the term best practice used to give a good idea more credibility than it may actually deserve?

Getting Better: It is a matter of life and death.

by David Zinger

What the best may have, above all, is a capcity to learn and change

– and to do so faster than everyone else.

We often seem to have an over reliance on sports as an example of performance improvement and performance enhancement. Atul Gawande wrote Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. This is an exceptional book on getting better and improving performance in life and death situations.

I think we in the field of employee engagement and HR must look for performance and engagement models from a variety of sources. This is not a business book but it is a book that could make a big difference in your business.

Atul writes exceedingly well, he is a “better” writer as he examines performance with compelling stories ranging from surgical tents to hand washing.

My favorite section of the book was on how to become a positive deviant. Here are Atul’s 5 suggetions for how you might make a worthy difference or become a positive deviant. Although the context is medicine I believe the practices would work in any field.

Ask an unscripted question. This is a question that makes a connection with another and does not have to deal with the primary purpose you are encountering this person. The unscripted question makes a human and engaged connection with another person.

Don’t complain. Resist it. There is often much to complain about but what does it do for you and to you? It’s boring, it doesn’t solve anything, and it will get you down.

Count something. Counting something makes you a scientist in this world. Find something meaningful to count. This could range from how many unscripted questions you ask a day to the number of hours you feel fully engaged in your work. It doesn’t matter what you count but the counting should be interesting to you.

Write something. You could write a blog post, an article, or even a book. This will sharpen your perception of the world and may offer a contribution to others. Writing may give you new perspective and publishing makes you a member of a community with something meaningful to say. Find an audience even if that audience is small. A small audience can be very significant.

Change. Become an early adopter. Look for the opportunity to change. What is the last thing you changed at work or how have you changed your performance?

Gawande concluded his afterword with the following paragraph:

So find something new to try, something to change. Count how often you succeed and how often you fail. Write about it. Ask people what they think. See if you can keep the conversation going.

I encourage you to read the book and become the best kind of deviant there is: someone committed to getting better, someone committed to learning and change, someone engaged at the highest levels in their own performance and bringing out the best performance in others.

Uniting the Virtual Workforce For Engagement

by David Zinger

The book. Karen Lojeski and Richard Reilly wrote Uniting the Virtual Workforce. The cover has the picture of a person on a mountain top with his laptop and I borrowed the book from the University of Manitoba Management Library. I thought I’d give it a scan and I didn’t think I would get too much from it.

Wrong again. Was I wrong! I became enthralled by the work of Lojeski and Reilly and instantly was making notes on how to enact what they wrote about for projects I am involved in.

The impact. Here is some of the effects of virtual distance, the psychological distance created between people by an over-reliance on electronic communications:

• 50% decline in project success
• 80% plummet in work satisfaction.
• 83% fall off in trust
• 65% decrease in role and goal clarity
• 50% decline in leader effectiveness

20% of people have never met their boss? One startling statistic the author cite is from a recent Stanford University study: one out of every five professionals has never met their boss.

Distance is more than space. The authors outline the sources of distance: affinity distance, operational distance, and physical distance.

Trust: Benevolence, ability, and integrity. One of the strengths from my perspective of the book was the section on trust and the challenges that distance places on trust. In distant communication we still receive the cognitive elements of trust but the affective elements are a challenge. Benevolence, ability, and integrity can influence trust and distance can tax these pathways to trust.

Be DUMB. I am so tired of the acronym of SMART goals it was refreshing to have the authors advocate virtual dumb goals: Direct, Understandable, Meaningful, Believable.

Gems. I believe the authors offer a number of gems that would enhance and foster the engagement of the virtual workforce. I encourage you to read the book to get a fuller understanding of the complexity of distance and the virtual workforce and the methods the authors advocate to unite a virtual workforce.

6 Personal Virtual Engagement Actions.

1. I am now very attuned to distance even with people just a few feet away.
2. I have ensured that I increase my phone contact with others instead of an over-reliance on email.
3. I do my best to arrange at least some initial face-to-face time.
4. I will try and have pictures of the people I work with at a distance and have video calls whenever possible.
5. I now have a goal to meet as many of the members of my employee engagement network members as possible.
6. I will gain proficiency and experience with webinars to try and shorten our affinity, operational, and physical distance.

I encourage you to go the distance with Lojeski and Reilly.

Cube Rules Interview: Scot Herrick (Part 2)

by David Zinger

This is part 2 of a 2-part interview with Scott Herrick. Scott created Cube Rules, an informative and helpful site for knowledge workers.

Scot Herrick of Cube Rules

His topics often embrace elements of employee engagement. I asked Scott 6 question and he offered a wonderful range of responses. Here are a few tidbit from the two part series:

In order to differentiate your work and have a successful career, you need to consistently improve your skills, perform well in your work, and understand opportunities that are presented to you. Working in a cube is not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Destroying things is easy — you stop the function, layoff the people, take the write-down and move on. Building something is creative, requires persistence, requires budgets that reflect reality, needs support — it is hard, but much more satisfying.

Find time every week to distance yourself from your work and analyze what is working, what could be improved, and answer whether this is still the right position for your work.

4. How has being laid off yourself influenced your view of engagement and work?

I’ve been laid off twice in my career. The first was with Oracle in 2001 at the height of the dot com bust. The second was with Washington Mutual as part of the ongoing mortgage and credit crisis.

Before that, however, I worked for a Bell Operating Company (Ameritech) and watched the workforce dwindle from 105,000 at the breakup of the original AT&T to a low of 52,000 years later. That experience stripped most of the usual suspects out of me — a corporation has no loyalty, only people do. No job is safe, even if you are doing a great job.

Being laid off from Oracle taught me the need to have a great network of people that you can help. It also taught me that I needed to formalize my finances so that I had a year’s take-home pay in the bank to withstand the next layoff. It also taught me that loyalty to people matters.

Being laid off from Washington Mutual, something that was expected by me for over two years, has taught me to really formalize how I go about managing my career and work. It has taught me that, because of the “siege mentality” that comes from persistent layoffs, the culture you work in at a company makes a significant impact on your work engagement. It has also taught me that I am much more engaged with work when the work is building something. Destroying things is easy — you stop the function, layoff the people, take the write-down and move on. Building something is creative, requires persistence, requires budgets that reflect reality, needs support — it is hard, but much more satisfying.

5. You now offer a membership-only section for your site. What are the benefits of becoming a member?

I call it “Career Management Mastery.” Most career management sites, including Cube Rules, have short, one dimensional articles. It’s tough to get substance beyond the 300-word career management tip. If one is serious about getting good career management advice, bite-sized pieces of advice isn’t what you are looking for. Instead, you are looking for more depth. You are looking for how things connect. You are looking for something that is more than the theory that is usually touted on career management sites (”7 things to advance your career”).

For less than two lattes a month, Cube Rules Members get the deeper dive into five categories of career management: brilliant basics, managing management, networking, personal branding, and keeping the castle. Plus they get access to a monthly Layoff Central and Industries in Trouble report. In addition, a weekly “Early Warning” report that has CEO/COO level changes in companies. The reports allow members to easily see troubled areas so they can steer clear. The Early Warning report has the premise that big changes in upper management portend big changes coming for the company.

The free Cube Rules content — pretty good all by itself — will stay the same, including the amount. The membership content is layered on top of the current work. I just launched the membership portion of the site in July and I’m sure it will evolve over time.

In addition, I’m currently building on-line career management classes for knowledge workers that reflect the five categories of career management that I am now writing about for members. It has been a lot of fun and, importantly, fills a lot of holes around practical career management advice.

6. Could you offer a one or two sentence tip or encouragement to keep ourselves engaged in our work?

Find time every week to distance yourself from your work and analyze what is working, what could be improved, and answer whether this is still the right position for your work.

Too often we just go with the flow. The discipline of doing this weekly ensures that you are working in the right position for the right reasons.

Click here to learn more from Scot and Cube Rules.

Cube Rules Interview: Scot Herrick (Part 1)

by David Zinger

This is part 1 of a 2-part interview with Scot Herrick. Scot created Cube Rules, an informative and helpful site for knowledge workers.

His topics often embrace elements of employee engagement. I asked Scott 6 question and he offered a wonderful range of responses. Here are a few tidbits from the two part series:

In order to differentiate your work and have a successful career, you need to consistently improve your skills, perform well in your work, and understand opportunities that are presented to you. Working in a cube is not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Destroying things is easy — you stop the function, layoff the people, take the write-down and move on. Building something is creative, requires persistence, requires budgets that reflect reality, needs support — it is hard, but much more satisfying.

Find time every week to distance yourself from your work and analyze what is working, what could be improved, and answer whether this is still the right position for your work.

1. How did you come up with the name Cube Rules for your site?

When I started looking for career management advice several years ago, what I found was advice for managers or modifying resumes for everyone else. There wasn’t consistent, overall career management advice for knowledge workers. Knowledge workers work in cubes and, to do well, there are rules that need to be followed just as there are management rules. Combining Cube and Rules seemed to make good sense because it specifically did not address management, leadership, or overall business sites. The focus is on career management for knowledge workers.

2. How do the words cubicle and warrior fit together?

If you look out over most large office floors, you can see a hundred cubicles. Sometimes more. In order to differentiate your work and have a successful career, you need to consistently improve your skills, perform well in your work, and understand opportunities that are presented to you. Working in a cube is not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Consequently, you need to elevate your game. You need to be a student of career management and your industry while still producing tasks every day. This takes devotion and focus. I thought that of the hundreds of people working in cubicles, some would understand this and thrive in a cubicle. These would be the warriors of the work world; the people you would want working with you as you worked in a department for a company. Wouldn’t you love to have a group of focused, delivery oriented people — cubicle warriors — working on your stuff? I would.

3. How do we foster engagement of ourselves and others in a cubicle — from surviving to thriving?

As you can imagine, I’ve done a lot of reading on employee engagement (but not a lot of writing as it isn’t the focus of a career management site). Of all that I’ve read, I am still drawn to the work in “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” And while the title is a bit negative and the book is oriented to what managers can do to engage their staff, the three signs also point to what we ourselves can do to be engaged in our work.

The first principle is measurability. We, as knowledge workers in a cube, need to know that we are or are not being successful on our own through our measurements. This means we independently can figure out our success against business goals and not rely on a manager for the validation of our worth. If you have to wait six months for a review (or a review of any sort) to know you are doing OK, it’s not engaging.

The second principle is anonymity. If we are personally unknown at work — our interests, hobbies, the things we like about work — then we won’t be engaged in the work. So knowing the people on your team, your manager, and those that you work with is critical to engagement. We are social creatures and need the connection to be engaged.

The third principle is relevance. Your work must be connected directly to other people or groups. Note: relevant to people, not goals. Not the business. Not the mission. Relevant to people. Connecting your work with helping other people gets you engaged.

I also think you need to like what you are doing, but given that, these principles are the core of employee engagement.

The next post on Employee Engagement Zingers will have part 2 of the interview with Scot. Click here to learn more from Scot and Cube Rules.

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Watch this short slideshare presentation on when does work become fun. I appreciate how it keep completing the statement,  when your work…

Do you understand how conversations are changing not only the way we do work but the very way we understand our world?

I am honored to be one of the many authors of the forthcoming Age of Conversation 2: Why Don’t They Get It. If you don’t understand the conversation or don’t know where to begin watch for the release of this book soon. All profits will be donated to the Vareity Children’s Charity.

Here is a list of many of the authors of this book:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem