ENGAGE with David Zinger

Engagement Education, Speaking, and Consulting

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A Step Towards Infusing Employee Engagement Into Performance Management

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I have been advocating for the infusion of the many silos of understanding work, from employee engagement and performance management to wellbeing and making progress. This week the US government advocated for putting employee engagement into performance management with the Plus. I think this is a step in the right direction when far too many of us have far too much to do and so little time to do it.  I have a concern with using the term plus as it makes it seem you are adding more but if it moves to infusion and synergy of work, I am all for it.

Below is a tweet connecting to the post I wrote about this on LinkedIn

David Zinger from Winnipeg, Canada, is a global employee engagement speaker and expert.

Employee Engagement: Gathering is Our Work

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3 Men in a Boat

3 Men in a Boat

Do you gather before you start your work? Do you see gathering as part of work.

In Turkey, I watched these three men gather before they began to get their boat ready to cast off. They seemed so connected and joined being with each other.

I encourage you to gather before you work by taking time to check-in with each other or to huddle or to chat a bit over the phone or text a bit on the computer. We do not get work done through relationships, we get work done with relationships so remember that relationships, not just tasks, are your work.

David Zinger is an employee engagement expert and speaker who believes engagement can help us to make both relationships and results more robust.

A New Lesson in Employee Engagement with Gratitude to Cappadocia Turkey

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Turkey has taught me much about employee engagement. I will be writing more about this over the next few months. I wrote a short post on LinkedIn today on what we can learn about employee engagement by ballooning over Cappadocia. Go there now to learn about the power of wind and lift in our work.

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert and speaker who teaches individuals and organizations the powerful behavioral elements they can apply immediately to make a difference with engagement. He spoke to 2000 people in Istanbul at a People Management conference. The audience was both beautiful and amazing.

Turn People Artistry into Your Healthy Routine

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Do you have a recognition routine to draw out the best from the people you lead and manage?

People Artists

People Artistry is anything but routine yet paradoxically a routine is what can get you into People Artistry and sustain your work at bringing out the best in others for many years. In our time of energy depletion of having far too much to do and too little time to do it, intentional structure and routine operate as strong guides of behavior.

Watch for People Artists: Drawing Out the Best in Others at Work coming in October 2015.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who joined forces with Peter W. Hart, an expert on recognition, to create People Artistry – an approach to making workplaces better for all.

Is 15 Minutes of Employee Engagement Sufficient?

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What is your engagement time zone?

Reading time = 2 minutes and 15 seconds

Block_Non3D_Moments_Time

Why should you read this post? We often ask too much of engagement and find that there are many times we postpone, procrastinate, and struggle to get going with a specific element of work or well-being (right now, I am writing this rather than completing some tax work). The solution is to find and dwell in your unique engagement time zone.

Our work occurs in moments and our well being is also to be found in moments. Yet how well do you show up to, and use your moments? How long can you stay engaged with your work or a given task? I think it is vital to know our engagement time zone. The way to do this is to start working with a timer and to set a specific time period for work. This work can be project work, writing, exercise, cleaning, or another task. Perhaps start with 15 minutes and see if you can both engage and sustain work in that zone. If you can’t stay engaged – lessen the time. If it is simple to lengthen your time zone if you find the current duration too easy.

You may also find your time zone varies for different tasks or because of external events in your life. I often catch myself drifting away from my 15-minute time zone into a flurry of non-productive activity. Rather than looking for some underlying psychological reason or trying to sort out the neurology of work, I simply set my timer for the next 15-minute period and begin. Starting my watch timer for 15 minutes triggers engagement.

Last year, I conducted personal experimentation with the gamification of work and well-being. I worked in 24-minute time zones. Two of the most significant lessons from that year long experiment was to make my engagement periods briefer and simpler. It is easier for me to start and maintain engagement for 15 minutes versus 24 minutes and I had an elaborate game mechanism that I reduced to using a notebook and simply recording each 15 minute period I completed. My 15-minute periods focus on both work and well-being. In addition, each 15-minute period completed results in a 15 cent social donation. The amount is deliberately small yet adds up as frequent engaged time zones are completed.  My last donation was for $600 based on 15 cents for each 15 minute period of engagement. This went to the Red Cross for the victims of the Nepal earthquake.

I encourage you to enter and keep re-entering your engagement time zone and I believe you will find 15 minutes, repeated many times in any given day, is more than sufficient for achieving engaged results.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who uses the pyramid of engagement to increase engagement for organizations, departments, teams, and individuals. This post was based on the sixth block of the pyramid of engagement: mastering moments.

Employee Engagement Speaker - David Zinger