GEMO — ENGAGE with David Zinger

Let’s sharpen our focus on work in the New Employee Engagement.

I simplified employee engagement into an 8 word definition: good work done well with others every day.

There is a lot of meaning packed into each word in the eight word definition so I will take the next four blog posts to examine two words at a time.

Today the two words are good work. My first book, Zengage: How to Get More Into Your Work to Get More Out of Your Work, was focused on the work of engagement and engagement with work.

Here are two pages from this pithy book to set the stage for 13 Zingers about good work:

Here are 13 Zingers for good work:

Good work feels real and genuine and full of grit while great work often seems like management consultant hype and euphemism.
I believe daily good work is believable and sustainable while great work is something ephemeral and occasional.
Great days at work are to be treasured while good days at work can be relished daily.
Good work oozes with inherent goodness in the work itself — work infused with meaning, significance, and contribution.
Good work implies an ethical approach to our labour.
It is a fine compliment to say about someone else, “she does good work” or “he does good work.”
It is easier each day to set out to do good work than to set out with great in mind – when we encounter setbacks that diminish great we can still generate good responses to those setbacks.
It is literally impossible to give 110% because the most we can actually ever give is 100% and I believe giving 80% (which I consider good) often results in better performance. To use a quick golf analogy, Ernie Els, a fluid yet powerful golfer, said he only swung the club at 80% in golf and that generated more accuracy and power.
Good is frequently good enough, I have written previously about finding GEMO (good enough move on). GEMO helps me navigate through the myriad of work I engage with each day
Notice the second word in the eight word definition is work, you would be amazed how many definitions of employee engagement fail to mention work.
We are each personally responsible for engagement and focusing on work puts it more in our hands than surveys involving vague levels of satisfaction with how the organization is treating us.
Academics, who are often ahead of organizations and consultancies, have been using work engagement more than employee engagement, it is time for the rest of us to catch up.
Although many seem to believe that work is a living hell, work itself has potential to make us well, especially good work.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart, to give yourself to it. ~ Buddha

David Zinger is a global employee engagement speaker and expert. He has devoted over 18,000 hours to employee engagement in the pursuit of engagement for the benefit of all. David also founded and has hosted the 7000 member global employee engagement network for over 8 years.

Finding GEMO: Good Enough, Move On (The One Ball Series)

GEMO completion mantra. Have you found GEMO? Use GEMO to create quick action and engagement. With GEMO, you don’t need all your ducks in a row, you need to be able to create steadily improving iterations by completing a performance with the inspiration of Good Enough, Move On.

The GEMO Advantage. GEMO is an acronym for Good Enough, Move On. It helps avoid perfectionism, dithering, delays, and other productivity traps and snarls.

Practicing GEMO. Here is how you practice it. You start working at a task, you begin to run out of steam or you know more needs to be done but there are other projects and things that need to be done so you say, GEMO. You move on and you know you can come back to it and improve it later. A GEMO artist does not believe in perfection but believes in things being good enough, being willing to move on, and recognizes you can return and make it better.

Project Managment GEMO. It can also be very helpful to GEMO with partners to avoid becoming bogged down in a task or engaging in discussions that produce no results. GEMO may not occur at the end of project management but GEMO could help a project team from getting bogged down and not moving closer to the targeted results.

Good may be good enough. GEMO is not used to avoid work but to recognize there is always something more that could be done in this age of constant and never ending improvement. Yet, sometimes good, is good enough…at least for now.

Satisfice as early GEMO. I first practiced this principle in the writing process 25 years ago. Back then, the formal term was to satisfice:

To obtain an outcome that is good enough. Satisficing action can be contrasted with maximizing action, which seeks the biggest, or with optimizing action, which seeks the best. In recent decades doubts have arisen about the view that in all rational decision-making the agent seeks the best result. Instead, it is argued, it is often rational to seek to satisfice i.e. to get a good result that is good enough although not necessarily the best.

Preventing writing blocks. Satisficing was a good approach for writers to avoid perfectionism and to finish the first draft. It was very helpful for writers who experienced writing blocks or writing reluctance to get the first vision out and realize they can return for multiple re-visions.

You must be cautious with GEMO – you are not avoiding something rather you acknowledge it is good enough for now. it may be just what you need to increase your productivity.

I hope you find GEMO

This post at an example of GEMO. This post could be better but it is good enough —time to move on. My first iteration of this article appeared in September of 2007 when I was co-writing Slacker Manager. Back then, it was Good Enough, I moved on. Now, I have returned to discuss GEMO as a an employee engagement tool.