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Where do you go to learn about work, engagement, management and leadership?

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This last weekend I left Winnipeg and -33 degrees to go to Santiago and plus 33 degrees.

I am looking forward to learning about employee engagement, work, leadership, management, and Chile while I am there. I have travelled the world to teach about employee engagement but the reward for me has been to travel the word to learn about engagement. If nothing else, Santiago will unfreeze my view of work (and I won’t have to shovel snow for a month)!

The poetry of Pablo Neruda has opened my heart before I even touched down in Santiago. I invite you to read my short LinkedIN post about this.

You don’t have to be a world traveller but I believe it is valuable to ask yourself: Where do I go to learn about work, engagement, management, and leadership?

David Zinger is an employee engagement expert and speaker who travels the world in search of engagement.

Employee Engagement: What’s Cooking?

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I  recently  devoured Dan Charnas’ intriguing book, Work Clean: What Great Chefs Can Teach Us About Organizations. The book outlines the method of mise-en-place. Mise-en-place is a way of working, being focused and disciplined — many chefs believe it is a way of life.

I enjoyed reading the book and could not help but think of the important lessons for all of us as we engage in our work, either inside the kitchen or anywhere we encounter our work.

Work Clean Cover

The key take-away for me was a focus on preparation, process, and presence. These 3 P’s offer strong guidance for anyone wishing to enhance their engagement.

  • Chefs commit to a way of working where preparation is central. You always need to be thinking ahead as cooking cannot happen without the prep coming first. Charnas stated that preparation becomes, “a kind of spiritual practice: humble, tireless, and nonnegotiable.”
  • Process is how we execute the plan. Chefs pursue the best process to do just about everything. Dan says that process is about “becoming a high-functioning human being and being happier for it.” It makes both our work and ourselves better.
  • Presence is fully showing up for our work. It is about being fully engaged, becoming one with the work and being mindfully engaged in everything we do.

Preparation, process, and presence are not abstract concepts. They demand a fourth “P” – Practice. We need to make engaged work a daily practice. This fits well with my 8 word definition of employee engagement: good work done well with others every day.

Dan suggests three commitments for engaged work:

  1. Commit to preparation with a 30-minute daily planning session.
  2. Commit to a process that makes you better.
  3. Commit to being present in whatever you do.

I invite you to read the book to learn more, but even more importantly, I strongly encourage you to infuse your work with preparation, process, and presence as the essential ingredients in your employee engagement.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert who enjoys cleaning the kitchen in creating a culinary tabula rasa for the next meal.

 

An Employee Engagement Perspective on Tools From Croatia

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While travelling through Croatia I visited The Arena in Pula. It made me think about tools for work and engagement.

Wheel of Work

I invite you to visit my post on Linked In to read more about tools and engagement.

David Zinger is a global employee engagement expert and speaker.

An Easy, Simple, and Mindful Way to Employee Engagement

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I have always appreciated the simple and mindful approach to living that Thich Nhat Hanh has encouraged us to follow. His work has influenced me to proclaim one of my deepest beliefs and statements about employee engagement:

There is no way to engagement, engagement is the way.

I randomly opened his book, The Art of Communicating and chanced upon a short paragraph on greeting your colleagues.

Here are 3 engaging questions upon arriving at work:

  1. What is the first thing you do when you arrive at work?
  2. Do you smile at the people you see?
  3. Do you greet them?

Now, take a mindful minute to read the full paragraph on greeting your colleagues.

Tone and Greeting Colleagues

Tomorrow, when  you get to work, make the paragraph come alive by starting your day with engaged greetings for your colleagues.

David Zinger is a Canadian employee engagement speaker and expert who works around the globe and just returned from working on employee engagement in Istanbul, Turkey.

Employee Engagement: Beyond the Latte

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Let’s Focus on Work and Love our Labor.

IMG_2561

I have recently been looking at pictures of best employers and great places to work. There are so many pictures of fun that one could easily confuse engagement with just having fun, running on the workplace treadmill, and sipping away a morning with a lovely latte.

I love fun and I am fond of lattes but I think we need to keep a focus on the work itself and the people we work with. That is why I define employee engagement as: good work done well with others every day.

Engagement is less about lattes and more about labour, less about pizzas and parties and more about performance and productivity, less about a workout and more about getting into our work.

You just might find the more you get into work the more you will get out of it.

David Zinger is an employee engagement speaker and expert.