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David Zinger - Employee Engagement Speaker

Employee Engagement Education, Speaking, and Consulting

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Employee Engagement: Disengagement as Self-Protection

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Let’s view employee disengagement as self-protection.

Larissa Thurlow sent me an image from Brene Brown’s book, Rising Strong. Larissa underlined one short sentence.

We disengage to self-protect.

I got to know Larissa when I was doing some work on employee engagement in Doha, Qatar for the College of the North Atlantic – Qatar. I appreciate her sending this sentence.

Rather than looking at disengagement as laziness, malingering, or apathy I encourage you to think about disengagement as self-protection. What might the employees in your workplace be protecting through disengagement?

Disengagement as Self Protection

Let’s transform disengagement from a punishable offence into a trigger for a conversation. Let’s also increase the level of psychological safety in our organizations so that employees will feel less need to protect and more need to express and engage.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert.

Employee Engagement: The Free Iatrogenic Disengagement E-Book

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Employee Engagement: Let’s guard against creating disengagement in our efforts to improve employee engagement.

Iatrogenic Disengagement Book Cover

(Reading & Viewing Time =  2 minutes and 41 seconds)

Iatrogenic disengagement is the disengagement caused by trying to measure or increase engagement. It is often unintentional and frequently goes unnoticed. I am offering you two resources to help stop iatrogenic disengagement where you work. The first is a one minute video on the topic. The other resources if a slide presentation that can also be downloaded as an e-book. Use these resourses to increase awareness and stimulate conversation about iatrogenic disengagement where you work.

A video introduction:

Iatrogenic Disengagement from David Zinger on Vimeo.

The slides (e-book) resource.

If you prefer a PDF e-book version, click on this title or the image of the cover at the start of this article: Iatrogenic Disengagement e-book

David Zinger is a global employee engagement speaker and expert.

Employee Engagement Invitation: Work Can Make You Well

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Get to Work and Find Well Being

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I think for far too many of us work is hell not well.

  • We disengage.
  • We experience drudgery.
  • We burnout.
  • We feel drained.
  • We encounter toxic relationships.
  • We lack the resources for the job.
  • We live for the weekend but lack enthusiasm for much beyond napping when the weekend arrives.

The last thing we need is someone being motivational and inspiration and saying that we just need a little attitude adjustment and work will be great.

Now here is the tricky part. I believe work can make us well. Really? Really!

And much of it is simple even if it is not easy. I think it begins with experiencing work as an invitation to well-being. Like any invitation, we are free to decline it, we don’t have to go there.  Yet, we need to realize the consequences to us, our co-workers, our customers, and our families when we fail to accept this invitation.  Of course, here is the tricky part, no one sends you the invitation in a fancy card with gold embossed script saying you are invited to be well at work.

So if you have read this far, please accept this bland blog invitation to merely entertain the idea that work can make you well and join me over the next month or two and explore how we can find well-being right inside the work we do.

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David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who is saddened by disengagement and the impact it has on individuals and families. David taught counselling psychology at the University of Manitoba for 25 years and was the employee assistance counsellor for Seagram Ltd. for 15 years. He founded and host the 6400 member Employee Engagement Network. He knows work from the inside out.

 

Employee Engagement in Reverse: 25 Ways Employees Disengage

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Here is a playful list of 25 ways various employees disengage from their work:

Assorted Zingers Button

  1. Dentists feel they are going through the same old drill patient after patient
  2. Surgeons who can no longer cut it
  3. Truckers lose their drive
  4. Bankers continually losing interest
  5. Florists who fail to bloom
  6. Jewelers who lose their sparkle
  7. Firefights who are burnt out
  8. Pilots who just take off
  9. Teachers without any class
  10. Massage therapists who lose their touch
  11. Programmers who lose the code
  12. Carpenters who are board
  13. Plumbers who won’t take the plunge and feel drained everyday
  14. Deep sea divers who have become shallow
  15. Shoe sellers who have lost their sole and become heels
  16. Grocery produce workers who are past their best before date
  17. Cooks who can’t stand the heat
  18. Photographers who lose their focus
  19. Coaches who are all played out
  20. Butchers who are constantly beefing
  21. Hockey referees who no longer whistle while they work
  22. Lumberjacks who are stumped
  23. Judges who are benched
  24. Architects without any plans
  25. Detectives who are clueless

How does your profession disengage?

Zinger Associates

David Zinger is an expert  global employee engagement speaker and consultant who uses the pyramid of employee engagement to help leaders, managers, and organizations increase engagement.

 

 

Employee Engagement Friday Factoid #23: 93% of us work with a Slacker

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Are you slacking or picking up the slack?

Slacking co-workers cause a quarter of their hard-working colleagues to put in four to six more hours of work each week…four out of five say the quality of their work declines when they have to pick up their co-workers’ slack — a huge potential blow to the bottom line when you consider that 93 percent have a co-worker who doesn’t do his or her fair share.  Stuck With a Slacking Co-Worker?

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This survey was conducted by Vital Smarts and offered support for the importance of holding Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations when working with others who have disengaged.

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert. He teaches both Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations for Shared Visions/Vital Smarts and believes in the power of conversation to foster engagement and to correct for disengagement.