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Get Small and Simple for Employee Engagement

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In employee engagement — SMALL IS THE NEW SIGNIFICANT!

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How has that big employee engagement program been doing? Is your large employee engagement initiative making a difference? I have no doubt that employee engagement can make a big difference but that does not mean employee engagement approaches have to be big to matter. Small is the new significant.

Pyramid of Employee Engagement and Engaged Well-Being

We need to determine and act on small and simple behavioral practices that can be practiced daily by leaders, managers, and employees themselves. I am currently at work on taking the 10 block pyramid of employee engagement – making it action-oriented – articulating the actions as simple rules – and helping leaders, managers, and employees reduce the 10-block pyramid to a personalized 3-block pyramid embracing simple rules to govern their engagement work.

Here is a perspective from the School of Life that inspires me to keep on this path:

Rikyū reminds us that there is a latent sympathy between big ideas about life and the little everyday things, such as certain drinks, cups, implements and smells. These are not cut off from the big themes; they can make those themes more alive for us. It is the task of philosophy not just to formulate ideas, but also to work out mechanisms by which they may stick more firmly and viscerally in our minds.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert from Winnipeg, Canada

Employee Engagement Pyramid: 10 Keys to Engaging The Power of One

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A singular approach to employee engagement

Employee Engagement Model: Pyramid of Employee Engagement

I am working on the power of one and singularity in my employee engagement practice.  I have revisited my pyramid of employee engagement and awoke to another layer of it. This is a phenomenal coaching model to use with my clients who are striving towards full and powerful effectiveness, engagement, and efficiency. It offer a structure for them to follow and a structure for us to dialogue and develop engaging actions.

  1. Results: Work on what the client wants to achieve and for them to articulate the results. Discuss what needs to end and discuss what the end is they have in mind.
  2. Performance: Determine what the client will need to do to achieve results and how they make key performances worthy of their attention.
  3. Progress: Monitor and work towards progress and manage setbacks.
  4. Relationships: Determine key relationships that will be vital for the client.
  5. Recognition: Create self-recognition and fully recognize others.
  6. Moments: Determine a fine level of granularity of what behaviors to build, foster, and advance.
  7. Strengths: Determine and utilize strengths and use those strengths on a daily basis.
  8. Meaning: Focus on the why of work and find the why behind the results for self and others.
  9. Wellbeing: Encourage wellbeing found inside of work.
  10. Energy: Ensure that work is an energy gain and determine how to energize others.

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David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and coach based in Canada.

Foster Recognition: 5 of 10 Daily Questions to Improve Employee Engagement

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Fostering Recognition

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Pyramid Model of Employee Engagement

This is the fifth of a 2 week series outlining a different engaging question you can ask yourself each day. The questions are derived from the pyramid of employee engagement. Here is today’s question based on fostering recognition, the center block on the pyramid of employee engagement.

How will I recognize someone this week for their good work?

David Zinger developed the 10 block pyramid of employee engagement as a model to structure strong, simple, sustainable and tactical improvements in employee engagement.

Lesson Three from David Zinger Employee Engagement Speaker: 9 Ways to Engage the Audience

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A good employee engagement speaker engages

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I have been to a lot of conferences and witnessed many presentations on employee engagement. I have spoken on employee engagement on at least 200 occasions. The best presentations engage the attendees with each other and with the topic even in a one hour keynote. We don’t need 100 PowerPoint slides and the speaker rattling off statistics about engagement like an auctioneer voicing bids at an auction. We need to ensure that employee engagement sessions transform the noun of engagement into the verb of engage.

Here are 9 things I do to make sure they speech is engaging.

  1. I use just one slide or no slides. This also help me to ensure that I don’t try to cover too much. Many times I tell audience when I show my first slide that this is my first slide and only slide. I have had audiences applaud then they hear it is just one slide. I find that audiences often prefer one slide to no slides because it gives them something to look at. This slide I use most is the Pyramid of Employee Engagement. See this slide at the end of these 9 points.
  2. Within every 15 to 20 minute period I encourage the audience to engage in an exercise to bring the concepts or practices to life.
  3. I never make my audience engage in an exercise or meet with a partner. I invite them to do this and respect their choice not to engage. Real engagement starts with authentic and compelling invitations.
  4. I offer online resources people can use to get more information after the speech/facilitation so that they don’t feel compelled to write everything down.
  5. I rely more on stories than statistics and each statistic should have a story behind it.
  6. I voice tentative statements so that audiences can determine for themselves if the ideas or practices are viable or valuable. We learn in a richer more expansive way when we are given good tentative information.
  7. I honor the experience that many people will learn more by what they say than by what they hear.
  8. My VIA signature strength is humor and playfulness so I ensure my speeches have both humor and playfulness built in to the design and delivery of the session.
  9. By the end of the speech I know I have been successful if I have a hard time getting the audiences’ attention back from an invited exercise because they are so engaged with what they are doing.

Zinger Model of Employee Engagement

David

David Zinger is an expert  global employee engagement speaker and consultant who brings the engagement  down to earth while striving to enliven the pyramid of employee engagement to help leaders, managers, and organizations increase engagement and results while also building relationships. David has worked on employee engagement from Winnipeg to Warsaw, Saskatoon to South Africa, and Boston to Barcelona. In 2013, David has spoken in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Berlin, New York, Chicago, and Toronto.

Employee Engagement: Achieve Strong Results

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Results: Strengthen the Pyramid of Employee Engagement One Block at a Time

I developed the 10 block pyramid of employee engagement model to demonstrate the keys to employee engagement. Here is a link to a 50 page booklet on the pyramid.

After taking the strengths inventory Strengthscope from Strengths Partnership in the UK,  I was determined to make a systematic application of my 7 significant strengths applied to each of the blocks of the pyramid. This will make the engagement work more robust while also enhancing my wellbeing through the application of strengths in the service of others. There will be 10 posts in this series. Not all will have the same bullet point format but all will involve  a structured application of strengths to engagement.

1. Achieve Results

At the apex of the pyramid of employee engagement is achieve results. We need to know and communicate the results we are trying to achieve. Our results should be engaging and we need to engage in the creation of results. To turbo charge results I am applying my significant 7 strengths from the Strength Partnership’s Strengthscope. The diagram at the top of the page shows “achieve results” embedded within my strengths of leading, enthusiasm, empathy, self-improvement, flexibility, creativity, and developing others.

Here are ways that my strengths can be, or have been, used to support and strengthen the “achieve results” block in the pyramid of employee engagement:

Leading

  • Create compelling and inspiring results that lead others towards a specific destination.
  • Ensure the people I lead are given opportunities to co-create results. I love the line, if you want to get everyone on the same page you must give them the opportunity to write on that page and the similar line from the field of positive deviance, never do anything about me without me. Leading does not mean telling people what to do and how to do it, leading means working together to determine destinations that benefit everyone.

Enthusiasm

  • My result statements need to generate an inherent enthusiasm and I must bring my enthusiasm to those results.
  • I want my results to have a sense of pulling me towards something of great value.
  • I will ensure the crafting of meaningful results and celebrate the achievement of all  steps and progress towards results. These are not gala celebrations but moments taken after a chunk of work to feel the enthusiasm of accomplishment.

Empathy

  • I will listen fully to others to learn from them and to learn their approach to results. I will embrace the Spice Girls’ line: “so tell me what you want, what you really really want?”
  • I will check to see if the results stated and generated create passion and purpose for others.
  • I will apply empathetic  imagination to determine the impact of results on all major stakeholders. As I develop results I can apply my empathy to thinking though the impact of each result on all major stakeholders.

Self-Improvement

  • I will fuse  work results with wellbeing results to develop both personally and professionally.
  • I will learn more about results by going back and re-reading Peter Drucker’s work on results and also reviewing JD Meier’s insightful approach to Getting Results the Agile Way.

Flexibility

  • I will embrace strategic improvisation by determining results but having the heart of improvisation to enhance or improve results based on feedback.
  • I shall craft the results less as statements carved in granite and more as intentions that have specificity and clarity yet flexibility based on feedback.
  • Failure and successes with results will be opportunities to learn and change.

Creativity

  • I love creativity and even took each of my 7 significant strengths and made my own symbol for each of them with the help of my graphic designer, John Junson.
  • Spend more time thinking about results and applying a variety of tools to create fresh or new thinking.
  • Use the full power of daily results to create larger results.
  • Start each day by crafting three result statement for that day phrased as mini heroic stories.
  • Work at communicating results as stories to capitalize on the power of narrative results for both meaning and memory.
Develop Others

  • Start conversations with others about results they are trying to achieve.
  • Help others install and achieve results as a focus for their work and engagement.
  • Enter meetings and courses with a clear focus on the results I would like others to achieve from our time together.

Exciting London Workshop – An Invitation to all UK and European Readers

Plan to attend the London UK Strength and Engagement Workshop Wednesday November 28 from 13:00 to 18:00.  I invite you to attend an afternoon workshop sponsored by Strengths Partnership on The Leaders Role in Optimising Strengths and Engagement to Achieve Innovation and Excellence. I will be presenting/facilitating on the Pyramid of Employee Engagement and Michael Farry, HR Director for PhotoBox, will also be presenting on how to build a culture of positive leadership, collaboration and innovation through a systematic, practical and integrated change and development programme.

For a modest fee of £75 plus VAT, you will receive:

  •  Entrance to the conference and networking over drinks after the event
  •  An opportunity to take the Strengthscope360™ profiler and receive feedback
  •  A free leadership book entitled “Stretch – Leading Beyond Boundaries”
  •  Delegate pack containing proven and practical tools to help optimise workforce strengths and engagement at the individual, team and organisational levels
  •  An invitation to join the Strengths HR Forum (over 1,300 members) and the Employee Engagement Network (over 5,000 members)

To register click here.

Next Post in the Series: Employee Engagement: Mastering Strong Performance.

David Zinger is an employee engagement expert. He will be in the UK in late November to support the Go Live event for the UK Employee Engagement Task Force and to co-lead an afternoon on the fusion of employee engagement and strengths for innovation and excellence.