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David Zinger talks about Employee Engagement with the Engagement Zone

May 1, 2017 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

This interview originally appeared on the Engagement Zone site one month ago. I invite you to read it if you’d like more information about my perspective on employee engagement.

David Zinger – CEO of The Employee Engagement Network

 

 

 

We at The Engagement Zone sat down with the CEO of The Employee Engagement Network & Engagement 101 Fellow – David Zinger. 

David Zinger an employee engagement speaker, author and coach that founded the Employee Engagement Network. With 15 years’ experience as a counsellor and coach at Seagram, Zinger has a depth of experience in working with employees and helping them reach their full potential.

In this interview, we ask David about the keys of employee engagement and where he sees the field in the future.

EZ: What does employee engagement mean to you?

DAVID: Employee engagement is all about the ABC’s of work: Achieve results. Build relationships. Cultivate wellbeing. I define it in 8 words: good work done well with others every day.

EZ: What are your three tips for companies looking to drive engagement in their organisations?

DAVID: Stop being mechanical. Employee engagement is not about driving and levers, it is a human experience. We need to move away from engagement as something we do “to” or “for” employees into something we do with employees. Stop thinking about engagement as a noun and view it as a verb – engage – requiring engaging actions every day.

Employees are responsible for their own engagement and we are each accountable for our influence on other’s engagement. Ensure that you help all employees (leaders, managers, frontline) be ready, able, and willing to do what is necessary to engage based on personal responsibility.

Stop trusting consultancies and tips (even ones like this from me). Test them for yourself and your organization to see if they work. Move from best case to test case. Your people are smarter than you think — they could develop a survey that is unique for your organization. And if you think you need to benchmark just use the standard bell curve from statistics and you have a decent benchmark free of charge. Engagement requires relationships so enliven this classic line from positive deviancy: never do anything about me without me.

EZ: What do you feel are the biggest pitfalls that companies should look to avoid when executing their engagement strategy?

DAVID:

  • Stop looking for engagement, there is no way to engagement, to engage is the way.
  • Never go on a retreat to create strategy rather charge into the organization and draw the strategy out rather than giving strategy as something ready-made.
  • Work towards more open and transparent approaches to engagement.
  • Stop making people invisible by giving them anonymous surveys that make it impossible to personalize the feedback you received from employees in an anonymous survey. Employees should be the first to see their own engagement levels if you believe in personal responsibility for employee engagement.
  • Strive towards making your organization as psychologically safe as possible and one day you could stop all this anonymous stuff and make engagement authentic and real.
  • Disengagement should not be a punishable offence; it needs to be a trigger for an engaging conversation.
  • Never sell or pay for your personal and organizational data to be taken from you. You should own your own engagement data and individuals within the organization should own their engagement data.

EZ: Why do employees fail to buy in when companies try to ramp up engagement?

DAVID: Employees fail to buy in because of the “buy in” metaphor. Stop selling engagement. Engagement needs to be seen much more as an experience to be lived, shared, and worked with than a problem to be solved. If you want to get everyone on the same page they must be invited to write on the page.

EZ: What skills are most useful for everyone to have when trying to move towards a culture of engagement?

DAVID:

  • The ability and skills to listen.
  • The ability to get comfortable with error and mistakes.
  • The ability to have engaging conversations any time there is a positive or negative variance from expectation.
  • Skills in understanding “the numbers” and to have a stat for every story and a story for every stat.
  • The skills to make work psychologically safe for both ourselves and others.
  • Robust relationships skills wedded with know how to infuse wellbeing into the very fabric of our work.
  • The ability to simultaneously connect and care for both results and relationships.

 

EZ: You’re a judge for the Employee Engagement awards. What will you be looking for in the entries?

DAVID: If I was a judge, I am on a quest to see that all 3 of the ABC’s of work are covered.

  • Is this creating results that matter to organizations and individuals?
  • Does engagement build relationships?
  • Is engagement integrated into how the organizations works, manages and leads.
  • Does engagement create wellbeing derived from the very act of working?
  • Is engagement of benefit to all?

I want to see a genuine and authentic mixture of pride and humility in an entry.

EZ: How important do you think it is to connect Employee Engagement to Customer Engagement and why?

DAVID: We are in this together and engagement is connection so yes they are linked. Perhaps we could just call it people or human engagement and people can be either employees or customers and often we are both.

EZ: What’s the best EE idea you’ve seen a company roll out/attempt and wish you’d had that idea yourself?

DAVID: I love to see companies that don’t trust all this engagement stuff. They test it and I love when I see even a quasi-experimental design used to offer more control and to get at engagement causation. I think it is wonderful and creatively disruptive to have operations or finance be the engagement champions rather than automatically thinking it should only be housed in HR or Internal Communications. The best ideas fuse engagement with other key interests so that what you are doing in improving performance management, engagement, wellbeing, and operations occur all at the same time with key actions and behavior to engage!

EZ: What’s the worst and glad that you didn’t?

DAVID: When the anonymous survey numbers become the sole focus of engagement and some managers demand that employees give them high numbers. Any idea that is manipulation disguised as engagement — so that what is called engagement does just the opposite and creates deeper disengagement.

EZ: Since you entered the world of work, what’s the best experience you’ve had?

DAVID: The best has always been embedded in relationships that made work better, made me better and made the other person better. This “better” is all 3 of the ABC’s at one: results, relationships, and wellbeing.

EZ: What’s the worst?

DAVID: When I have witnessed people with very high work engagement let go because the organization was threatened by their high level of engagement and their willingness to challenge the status quo. Sometimes I think organizations fail to understand what it fully means to be engaged and are disguising manipulation as engagement as a feeble attempt to get better profits or performance.

EZ: If you could only roll out only one programme, which of the following would you choose and why? Wellbeing, Leadership Development or Recognition.

DAVID: Engagement is a daily process, not a program. Programs tend to have a shorter shelf life than behavioral processes integrated into everyday practice. Engagement offers us the opportunity not to be “siloed” by department or function. Engagement is best as the verb engage and engaging actions can be infused into all we do.

EZ: Which person (dead or alive) would you love to be able to come in and speak to your workforce/colleagues?

DAVID: Charlie Chaplin, because he wouldn’t say much but he once said, “life is a tragedy in close-up and a comedy in long shot.” I also know, if we can laugh, we can last :).

Seriously, one of Engage for Success’ four enablers is employee voice so I want to hear genuine, real, and authentic employee voice fused with the full realization that in organizations we are all employees from the first day hire to the retiring CEO.

EZ: Favourite song to crank up after a tough day at work?

DAVID: I want the music of work that is inside of us be turned into a symphony of relationships creating results and wellbeing simultaneously. I sometimes hum at work and I love how Shonda Rhimes called full engagement, “The Hum”. I strongly encourage you to view this 2-minute summary video on “The Hum”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUvRbJc30vw

Meaningful results are vital. I think we should all hear the lyrics from the Spice Girls annoying earworm song Wannabe: “so tell me what you want what you really really want.” Engagement must help both individuals and organizations work on meaningful results that matters to both so we should have ongoing conversations with organizations letting employee know what they “want, what they really really want” and employees are asked what they “want, what they really, really want” as employees craft their work for the benefit of themselves and the organization.

EZ: Best place in the world you have visited?

David Zinger with his wife Susan

David’s wife Susan and youngest son, Luke

DAVID: I have been around the world and have visited so many wonderful places from the Taj Mahal in India to Iguazu Falls in Argentina but it is never the place that is best — it is the people I travel with and the people we meet. Engaging people can transform a dreary airport waiting lounge into a wonderful place of meeting and conversation. I like sites while I love people.

EZ: The place in the world you’d most like to visit?

DAVID: There is an old quotation that goes, “If you make where you are going more important than where you are, there may be no point in going.” So, this is not so much about a place for me as it is about time and dwelling fully in the present moment. I visit the present moment occasionally but the past, the future, and endless thoughts churning though my mind make dwelling in the present a challenging visit to prolong yet I strive to keep going there again and again and again.

EZ: Where is employee engagement headed as we move towards 2020?

I think employee engagement is going in two directions at once and both spell the end of engagement.

The first direction is that engagement will die as a management fad that failed to deliver on its promise.

The second is that engagement dies or disappears because it fully integrates into how we work, manage, and lead so that we do not need to use it as a distinct phrase. I often say, there is no way to engagement, to engage is the way. My work is to help employee engagement die the second death so engage along with me, the best is yet to be.

To get in touch with David Zinger, go to the following websites or send him an email:

www.davidzinger.com

www.employeeengagement.ning.com

david@davidzinger.com

Filed Under: Employee Engagement Tagged With: David Zinger, David Zinger employee engagement educator, employee engagement 2020, employee engagement interview, Engagement Zone, future of employee engagement, speaker

Employee Engagement: David Zinger on Engage-11

November 14, 2016 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

The next eleven years of engagement

engage-11

Engage-11. This post was written on November 11, 2016. It is the 11th anniversary of my focus on strengths and engagement. I am calling today, and the next 11 years of my work, Engage-11. The name is to honour Remembrance day and all those who made it possible for me to be. It is named Engage-11 because my work in engagement has been going on for 11 years. It is also called Engage-11 because I intend, health of myself and my family willing, to work for 11 more years on engagement.

Retirement November 11, 2027. I have set my personal retirement date as November 11, 2027. I will be 73 at that time and ready for a change. I set the retirement date not as a countdown to get out of work rather as a marker to create urgency to get more into work to maximize my contribution to engagement in the time I have left.

4 books, 7250 engagers, and global work. It has been a good eleven years to date. I wrote 4 books on work, have travelled the globe working on engagement, and have founded and host a 7250 member community for employee engagement. I have learned so much about engagement and have spent about 20,000 hours on the topic. They say it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert and I believe the second 10,000 hours of my 20,000 hours have brought me back to being a novice.

Wearing the white belt. I understand in the early days of martial arts you were given a white belt and it only became black with the dirt and sweat from much practice and then as time progressed if would begin to fray and fall apart and become white again. I am very proud to be a new white belt novice in engagement. Today I am committing to 11 more years of work on engagement, perhaps I will achieve a second black belt and have enough time for it to become white again and retire as a novice.

Little Gidding. At T. E. Eliot so eloquently wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The next 11 years. I am forecasting a number of changes in my work over the next 11 years. I will slowly disengage the word employee from employee engagement and focus on engagement, or more specifically engage.  I hope to help shift engagement from a survey, program, or initiative into how we work, manage, and lead. At a very micro level I have changed my zone of engagement, or E-Zone, to 11 minutes and 11 seconds. I also plan to have my major work for each day completed before noon. I will offer my 20,000 hours of experience in a more focused way to individuals and organizations and will be quite selective in the work I will undertake.

Supportive and challenging. I believe my clients will find me both more supportive and challenging.

A return to teaching. In my final eleven years I will return to teaching engagement on my own terms. I taught Educational and Counselling Psychology at the University of Manitoba for over 25 years and I hunger to teach again. I plan not to teach within a university but to fully explore and utilize the exciting and contemporary ways we can now teach and learn.

Engage. Engage along with me, the best is yet to be.

Zinger Billboard

David Zinger is a white belt novice in employee engagement. He has spent 20,000 hours on engagement, written 4 books on the topics, and consults around the world on engagement. If you want to be one of his first clients in the next 11 years email him today: david@davidzinger.com.

 

Filed Under: Employee Engagement Tagged With: consultant, David Zinger employee engagement expert, Employee Engagement, engage 11, retirment, speaker

Employee Engagement: People Artists Add Vibrant Interpersonal Color to Work

March 31, 2016 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

Employee Engagement Through People Artisty

Employee engagement: Are you a people artist? https://t.co/YpPbWMIS8T

— David Zinger (@davidzinger) January 27, 2016

I encourage you to read the full post including such statement as:

Why do we need people artistry when we already have human resources?
People artistry is our plea to focus on the person, not a human resource. People are not resources that should just be managed; they are people we work with every day. People artistry doesn’t reside in a specific department or area of the business; it needs to touch every person from co-workers and people we manage, to cleaning staff and security guards. We trust that after reading “People Artists,” you’ll personalize your approach to work. Think of being a people artist as your way to repay the debt to someone who brought out the best in you.

To read the full article, click here.

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert and employee engagement speaker.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement Tagged With: #employeeengagement, #peopleartists, book, David Zinger, David Zinger employee engagement, Employee Engagement, engage, expert, Halogen, Halogen TalentSpace blog, People Artist, People Artists: How to Draw out the Best In Others at Work, Peter W. Hart, speaker

The Employee Engagement Network is 7 Years Old Today

January 26, 2015 by David Zinger Leave a Comment

Seven Years of Employee Engagement with David Zinger

It started 7 years ago on a very cold Saturday in Winnipeg. I wanted a few people to network with on the topic of employee engagement. Today is our seventh anniversary!

We have gone from 1 to 6515 members and have a member in just about every country in the world.

We have gone through many changes but I am proud that we are still such an excellent resource for anyone interested in employee engagement. I can’t wait to see what the next 7 years brings to the field of engagement. I am honored to have founded and host such a terrific engagement resource.

Visit us by clicking on the image below or the following link: http://employeeengagement.ning.com/

EEN at 7 Years

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert. He founded and hosts the 6515 member Employee Engagement Network.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement Tagged With: 7 years of employee engagement, David Zinger employee engagement, Employee Engagement Network. Seventh Anniversary, expert, speaker

Employee Engagement Coaching Tool: The Pyramid of Engagement

October 8, 2013 by David Zinger 1 Comment

Let’s achieve sustainable and good work that makes a difference

The pyramid of employee engagement model for coaching

Originally the pyramid of employee engagement was designed to foster a behavioral, action and evidenced based approach to engagement that was  less about feelings, attitudes, and emotions and more about what we actually do to engage. I am offering more coaching to people who are working with engagement in their organizations or people who want to improve how they work or develop their career. It became obvious to me very quickly that the pyramid is also a great model for coaching. I  now take my clients through the pyramid as we work to improve and enhance their performance and the performance of the organization.

Key questions we focus on during coaching, include:

  1. What result do you want to achieve?
  2. What are the 2 or 3 key performance actions you need to take to achieve your result?
  3. How will you monitor and celebrate progress and how will you manage or master setbacks?
  4. How will you engage with the key relationships and connections to achieve your results?
  5. Who needs to be recognized as you work towards your result? What do you need to recognize in yourself? How will you recognize others and yourself?
  6. What are the key moments that will make the biggest difference in your work and how will you make the most of moments and short periods of time? What is the length of your maximum yet sustainable work/engagement time zone?
  7. Are you working with your strengths daily and are these strengths fully leveraged in achieving results while building relationships?
  8. What is the meaning that provides the foundation for your work and your career? How do you keep your meaning alive at work?
  9. Is work making you well? If not, why not?
  10. At the end of a working day is work more of an energy gain or an energy drain? How do you handle those things that drain your energy at work?
  11. What block needs to be added or changed to make your work and results more powerful?

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker, expert, and coach. If you would like to engage with him for coaching or learn more about using the pyramid of engagement for work or coaching contact David today. Visit his coaching page by clicking here.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement Tagged With: Canada, David Zinger employee engagement coach, Pyramid of Employee Engagement, speaker, work results

David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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