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You are here: Home / Employee Engagement / THEM IS US: An Employee Engagement Rant

THEM IS US: An Employee Engagement Rant

May 26, 2009 by David Zinger 8 Comments

There is no them.

Broken Keys. I was reading a good book on employee engagement. It was well-written and informative but I got irritated with the authors’ 5 keys to engagement. I won’t give the title of the book because it is not my intent to be negative about the book, it is my intent to suggest we need to be more inclusive and connected when we talk about employee engagement.

From Know to Reward. Here were the 5 keys to engagement the authors used and each of these keys was also a chapter title:

  1. Know Them
  2. Grow Them
  3. Inspire Them
  4. Involve Them
  5. Reward Them

Us and Them? I have no quibble with the first words know, grow, inspire, involve and reward. It is the second word “them” that rankles me. Whenever I hear about them it makes others sound separate or different than us. We will not create engaged, connected, and authentic organizations if we talk about us and them. We may fail to see that “them is us.”

Community of Us. I believe a huge part of creating authentic and permanent employee engagement resides in organization’s willingness and ability to create authentic communities where all are connected to each other, results, strategic objectives, customers, etc…

Different roles but all employees. I also believe if you work in an organization, regardless of role – CEO to custodian – you are an employee of that organization. Employees are not “those people.” Those people are us. So know us, grow us, inspire us, involve us, and reward us —and that includes all of us — employee engagement for all.

No more them. Employees are not apart from the organization they are an integral part of the organization and we would be better served and of better service by not referring to employees as them.

Filed Under: Employee Engagement

Comments

  1. Wally Bock says

    May 26, 2009 at 7:15 am

    You’ve nailed it, David. Engagement is not something you do TO people. It is something we create together.

  2. Lori Douglas says

    June 10, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    I beleive that we are all pieces of the whole…a hologram

  3. David Zinger says

    June 10, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    I like the image of the holographic organization.

  4. Dan Hughes says

    June 10, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    I really like this perspective…blends well with a servant-leadership model.

  5. David Zinger says

    June 10, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Thanks Dan:
    I think we are joined in the workplace but often fail to notice it, act on it, or fully live it.
    David

  6. Mark Johnson says

    June 16, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    Well said. I just finished a whole series of engagement cafes and there was a whole lot of “them” and “they” stories.

  7. Gregory Ferris says

    July 20, 2009 at 8:26 am

    David – I also read the same resource as you with the same reaction! Makes me wonder how a powerful consulting firm missed the target.

    Fears of the command and control approach are seemingly present in the us & them thinking.

    Thanks for the clarity.

  8. David Zinger says

    July 20, 2009 at 8:48 am

    Mark:

    It seems like a challenge to recognize our connection to the organizaton and each other.

    Gregory:

    You wonder how this was not spotted and it makes me wonder if that is just the way they see things.

    Fear and lack of authentic connection are such employee engagement inhibitors.

    David

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David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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