Zane Safrit

When Things Get Tough ... Engage

"When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too." via Make Good Art: Neil Gaiman's Advice on the Creative Life

Neil's talking about art, life, to a graduating class of 20-somethings.

Lexicon aside, he's also talking ... engagement.

When things get tough ... engage.

Boss ignores you ... engage. Desktop crashes and the Help Desk can't get to it until tomorrow ... engage. How? I don't know. That's your job, that's your challenge. Your other option is to pout and sulk. I've done both. I prefer to engage.

Someone on the internet thinks your post or ad or slogan or new website is rubbish ... engage. Engage with them, engage with your team, engage with your spouse and ask them "what do you think?"

Probably things will work out ... they always do. The trick is not to backfill realities and justifications and revise memories to meet today's reality. The trick is to engage. Right now. And the next now. And the next and the next.

It's not your manager's job to get you engaged; nor is it HR's. It's not their job to spoon-feed your meaning and purpose. Sure, it's great if they do. (Enjoy it, too.) It's your job to define your job's meaning for you, your life, your family and their lives, your community.

It's your job. It's our job. We're all adults. I don't care if you have a roomful of trophies for all the days you just showed up, all bright and shiny. You're an adult, now.

When things get tough ... engage. Do what you do best. Engage. Do what only you can do in ways only you can do it.

And engage on those days that are best described as "sucked" and those days that are best described as "wow, amazing."

Engage.

* And after you engage, while you're engaging, be sure to subscribe to BrainPicking's newsletter. There's lots to keep you engaged creating "wow, amazing" days and lots to inspire you to keep engaged when yesterday "sucked."

Here's Where Employee Engagement's Been Hiding

"According to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research in a report released in March, “corporate debt outstanding has risen to $7.4 trillion, up from $5.7 trillion in 2006,” noting that a significant portion of that was spent on share buybacks. The report goes on to note that “Although this financial engineering has contributed to higher stock prices in the short run, it detracts from opportunities to invest capital to support longer-term organic growth. Credit conditions remain favorable today because of the positive trend in earnings, but once the cycle turns from expansion to downturn, the buildup of past excesses will eventually lead to future defaults and losses.” via wallstreetonparade.com

That rise in corporate debt of $1.7 t-t-t-rillion (That's 1000 x a billion which is 1000 x a million.)  has been invested in almost everything but the employee's wages, benefits, wage increases, training, did anyone say training, upgraded tools and resources.

No matter how many Chief Happiness Officers and balloons and bring-a-pet to work days or casual Fridays or ping pong games and dodgeball leagues you offer ... the employees see where the company is investing. And it ain't them. And the returns on those investments don't come to them.

Sure, you say it provides them their jobs. Okay, great. But then why do the other stakeholders get so much more? Why are the executive compensation packages so much more, 3-400 times more than the average employee?

And when the cycle turns from expansion to downturn, the buildup of past excesses will eventually lead to layoffs, first. Before the future defaults and losses, the first idea to save the company is always ... LAYOFFS. RIFs, downsizes, outsourcing ...

So the next time you consider a survey, give yourself a one-question survey:

Do we invest more in stock buybacks than we do in their salary increases, training, new hires?

And if the answer is "yes," then ask yourself what's the point of the survey. The employees know you don't care. You show it to them everyday in where you invest what you think is your most important asset, cash, on behalf of your most important asset: no, it's not your employees, it's your shareholders.

And if the answer is "no," why are you surveying your employees? Go talk to them. Go listen to their ideas. You've earned the right, their respect, by investing in their success.

 

"It's not a water park …"

"Borland says he loved football but never considered it "fun." "It's not a water park or a baseball game," he says. Clayton Hauck" via espn.go.com

There's some mostly meaningless debate around how happiness and love and employee engagement mesh.

• Can you have one without the other?

• Are happy employees engaged employees?

• Are engaged employees happy?

• Can you be considered 'engaged' if you don't love your work?

Honestly, people that debate these questions might have too much time on their hand.

Anyway, I was reading this story about Chris Borland, whose decision to retire from the NFL makes him very dangerous to the NFL, and I read this line.

Borland says he loved football but never considered it "fun." "It's not a water park or a baseball game," he says. Clayton Hauck

And I thought, BAM, there it is.

It's work, it's not a game. It's not playtime. It's work. It's work that matters. And with things and people that matter we will eventually experience an entire range of emotions. Digression, maybe: That might have something to do with the intrinsic motivators, the freedom and power and right and opportunity to experience and share an entire range of emotions because those and thats that matter stir things up.

But back to topic: Employee engagement is an enabler and an indicator for and of work, key word, that matters. You care. You're connected. And when things interfere ... well, you care about that, too, about getting them out of the way. Friction and sparks and a wee bit of personal fire and a much bigger bit of smiles and happiness and laughs when you succeed.

"It's not a water park or a baseball game."

It's not a video-game, it's not a walk in the park. Definitely not a free lunch even if it's catered by your very solicitous owner. It's not a program, a survey. It's you and work you care about, results you care about, people you care about. It's all that wrapped into one moment, one day, one team, one company.

Here's the whole quote:

"IT'S INTOXICATING, IT'S a drug, a drug that gives you the most incredible feeling there is," Borland was saying. "Outside of sexual intercourse, there's probably nothing like it. But fun is the wrong word for it. I don't consider football fun. It's not like a water park, or a baseball game."

I laughed when I read this because I agree. Working with a group of people who care passionately, who work - operative word - to do the right thing for the right reason for the right people and supported with the right tools and incentives "gives you the most incredible feeling there is ...Outside of sexual intercourse, there's probably nothing like it."

Employee engagement, when it's real and genuine and unscripted and often not politically correct with happy emojis ... there's nothing like it.

You Can't Engage if You're Exhausted.

"In sum, the story of overwork is literally a story of diminishing returns: keep overworking, and you’ll progressively work more stupidly on tasks that are increasingly meaningless." via The Research is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and Companies

"In sum." Yeah, hello?!!

Bob. Turns out we do need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Or, in this case, we need a series of studies and research papers to convince us that the more hours we work the less engaged we are with our work, with each other.

As we grow exhausted, we engage less, make more mistakes, make worse decisions. That starts the cycle of more meetings to fix the problems we create in this toilet-bowl spiral of facetime over productive time.

Here's the funny part, okay it's funny to me, the skills needed for these meetings aren't available because we're exhausted. Yeah, that's right. Funny, right? Darkly funny, but still funny. (Confession: I love dark humor.) Okay here's what the weatherman, researchers, say:

"If your job relies on interpersonal communication, making judgment calls, reading other people’s faces, or managing your own emotional reactions — pretty much all things that the modern office requires — I have more bad news. Researchers have found that overwork (and its accompanying stress and exhaustion) can make all of these things more difficult."

I worked at one company where we grew from 13 employess, I was lucky 13, to over 700 employees with offices around the world. We did this in about 8 years. And our headquarters was in rural SE Iowa. But what was really cool about this was we did this on the basis of working oh, say, 6 to 6.5 hours a day.

NO! I kid you not. The CEO and President, and managers as they were hired, all encouraged us to stay rested, healthy, go home at the end of the day, don't work nights or weekends. So we didn't. And we grew like wildfire, once being named to INC 500's fastest growing companies. We worked hard, focused, laughed a lot, had no time for slackers or ... meetings. We were busy getting stuff done.

But then … people started working longer hours, were praised for working longer hours. We, as the article points out, "logged too many hours because of a mix of inner drivers, like ambition, machismo, greed, anxiety, guilt, enjoyment, pride, the pull of short-term rewards, a desire to prove we’re important, or an overdeveloped sense of duty."

New managers recognized those who came early, stayed late. More of them preferred face time over productivity. Turned out they preferred being at work over being at home. That set the tone.

What needed about 8 years to build only need oh, 1.5 years to flush down the toilet in a spiral of more and more meetings and less and less focus, purpose, mission, sales, good decisions, laughter, getting stuff done. One clue was in the 'early days' people were rarely sick. If they were, they were encouraged to stay home. In those last months, people sick with the flu came to work. Yeah.

I was CEO of a small company. Everyone worked about 6 - 6.5 hours a day. We grew our topline revenues by 80% while competitive pressures forced prices down by over 70%. We found ways to sustain our positive cash-flows. Sales conversions rose from 50% to over 80%. That was because our customers were evangelists. That's because our operations were smooth, efficient, accountable.

People might come to me with worries about 'stuff in their inbox.' I'd tell them to go home. "I promise it won't go anywhere. It'll be there when you come back." I'd tell them that stuff I obsess over turns out to be not important after a good night's sleep or a I find a better solution.

You don't need a weatherman to know the way the wind blows. And you don't need research studies and reports to know you can't engage if you're exhausted.

Here's Bob to explain more about weathermen and wind direction, leaders and parking meters.

Jobs Reports: Instead of Hiding the Numbers Let's Not Even Find Them

"Confusion about today’s labor market, anxiety about the future of jobs, a rapidly evolving economy and so many other reasons make now exactly the wrong time to diminish the government’s ability to collect and construct labor market data. But that is exactly what is happening, and may continue to happen." via Congress is Making It Harder to Know How the Economy is Doing

Ignorance is bliss. While the rest of the world gobbles up more and more data, seeks ways to gobble up more and more good data, to make more and more decisions based on data … it seems our Congress wants to dress the BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, as an ostrich and push its head, our head essentially as its our labor they are gathering statistics for, farther down a deep hole.

Makes me think some members of Congress have already donned their costumes as fainting goats. You know, every time these goats perceive a threat enough to cause it to feel panic its muscles lock for ten seconds or so and it falls over. Hence the fainting name. I guess the thinking here is that this behavior would either startle or bore an approaching predator enough to cause it to lose interest and it'll just go away. Poof. Magical.

Which given our jobs situation is sorta what Congress has done. Now by incrementally defunding the BLS they can hide the evidence. Baaaa. It's a pre-emptive strike to hide the data to avoid voter outrage that would cause panic in the member of Congress causing them to faint at awkward times like in a presidential debate or on the news or eating a philly steak sandwich or a corndog.

You see the unemployment rate of 5.3% is a bit misleading.  Here's a brief description of the statistics, damn statistics and ... an unemployment rate.

" The tricked up unemployment rate helps explain why the labor force participation rate is at a 38-year low of 62.6 percent. According to the BLS, July 2015 seasonally adjusted data show 93,770,000 individuals not in the labor force. That compares with 91,975,000 not in the labor force in July 2014. How can the economy and unemployment situation be improving when droves of workers are dropping out of the labor pool? Blaming the anomaly on retiring baby boomers does not explain what is happening to working age men and women.

In July 2014, there were 35.5 million men aged 16 and older not in the labor force. Today, that figure stands at 37.5 million not in the labor force, an increase of exactly 2 million men of working age. For women aged 16 and older, in the same span of time, their non-participation in the labor force has grown from 54.9 million individuals to 56.2 million." How the U.S. Achieves a 5.3% Unemployment Rate

 So, since July 2014 the world's greatest economy has inspired 1.795 million individuals to leave the labor force. Leave it means they are not even filing for unemployment benefits. That's a key criteria for determining if you're unemployed. If you're not filing, if your benefits have run out, then poof, magic, you're employed. Baaaa.

This isn't my first rodeo,  riding the buckin' bronco called the BLS report. I wrote about in February of 2012. Unemployment Stats - Do They Add Up?

 Looks like they still don't or they do and they want to hide them in obscure definitions and stats that business journals like Bloomberg's etal are too lazy to filter through; I guess it's easier getting the big bucks of a journalist while shoveling to the public the press releases you're handed.

But, somewhere in that vast conspiracy ... the data is collected. So, that's a start. But now, Congress wants to make it impossible to even collect the data. Looks like they're scared of what the data's going to show soon. And for once they're being pro-active, not shooting the messenger just killing the messenger's steed and breaking the rider's legs, taping its mouth shut. Just to be sure. Baaaa.

Creative, Messy, Engaged

At the end of the day, the ability to broaden attention and the ability to narrow attention are both key contributors to creativity. A recent neuroscience study led by Roger Beaty (and which I was a collaborator on) suggests that creative people have greater connections between two areas of the brain that are typically at odds: the brain network of regions associated with focus and attentional control, and the brain network of regions associated with imagination and spontaneity. Indeed, the entire creative process—not just the moments of deep insight— involves states of euphoria and inspiration as well as states of calm, rational focus. Creative people aren’t characterized by any one of these states alone; they are characterized by their adaptability and their ability to mix seemingly incompatible states of being depending on the task, whether it’s open attention with a focused drive, mindfulness with daydreaming, intuition with rationality, intense rebelliousness with respect for tradition, etc. In other words, creative people have messy minds.

via hbr.org

I'm touching the live wire of copyright infringement sharing this much of a very good article. It's very good for all the usual reasons: well-written, well-organized, supported with data and links to data, and it's logical. I like that. The author respects the topic and the audience.

But what I LIKED about it was it triggered motivational intensity, that's the word, to share it and to share some quick off-the-bald-head threads of connections* about creativity, messiness and employee engagement.

I read how companies are seeking more creativity, that creativity is the key to innovation and the challenge is how to corral creativity in an organized, linear, project-management friendly timeline. Cause without creativity brands and companies get stale, their customers and employees leave them behind and they become like Microsoft, too big to fail and too weak to offer anything of real value. ( Ba-Boom! I"m here all week.)

Yes, William, therein lies the rub. Creativity is messy. It's not linear, it's not turn-on, turn-off. Creativity is a source of and the result of constant friction between the brain network of regions associated with focus and attentional control, and the brain network of regions associated with imagination and spontaneity. It's the old left-brain, right-brain conundrum, deja vu all over again. Right? Right.

However, the pressures on business units, managers, employees doesn't allow for imagination and spontaneity. Mmm. Maybe that's why we're seeing a rise in cases of depression, mental illness, depression, bi-polar schizophrenia. Both sides of the brain are not being allowed to breathe, to act ... to engage.

There's no sign that this is going to change. Our educational systems are ratcheting down the development of creative, synthetic thinking in favor core competencies. What's more core than the able to communicate, collaborate, create? And any spontaneous, imaginative behavior is too often met with not smiles of tolerance for the excesses of youth but with detention or worse.

But back to work. If you're going to engage, you need to expect these conversations and interactions to sometimes be messy. First, there's a latent demand for that part of the brain, the one associated with imagination and spontaneity, to come out and play. Second, we've lost our skills - empathy, patience, tolerance ( not buzzwords) for different opinions. Third, well, our organizations are designed around such rigid hierarchies that any imagination and spontaneity is going to … mmmm be considered disruptive, distracting. Threatening.

Patience and empathy and the willingness to allow for mistakes and learn from them.

It'll be messy. It'll be creative. It'll be engaging.

Kinda like this post, I hope.

*That's like a thin intellectual comb-over but with new, conceptual, threads. K? Writing blog posts is kinda like that, I add some new thread of understanding, weave it in amongst those I've added earlier and presto I have a whole new understanding. That's called learning. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

 

Digital Advertising's Self-Deluding Echo Chamber

With 200 million downloads and counting, ad blockers are quickly growing in popularity. In my experience from working at an advertising technology company, the reasons are clear: they are easy to install and immediately effective, they make the web look cleaner and load faster, and they prevent advertisers from tracking user activity online. They are so effective that even advertising giants such as Google and Facebook are unable to get past them.

The debate on ad blocking is becoming increasingly polarized. Those who oppose ad blocking liken it to content piracy, arguing that exposure to ads is the price that readers must pay for free content. The other side of the debate is championed by companies who create ad blocking software, as well as online privacy activists. via Ad Blocking's Unintended Consequences

The reasons are clear. Ah yes. The reasons, all of them, except those of the user, you know, the readers whose time is wasted with constant interruptions and distractions, their intelligence patronized with bad design, clumsy wording and outright, ahem, deceptions. Kinda like this article. It really needs a "Sponsored Content" tag, you know if we're doing this transparency thing he talks about in his "article."

Here's why ad-blockers are so popular, from an end-user who just ignores ads, tries to wipe my browser clean of cookies those advertisers place on browser so they can track me across the internet and my travels if I'm browsing with my smartphone (which, generally, I don't except on flipboard.).

* Ads are irrelevant. The relevance of nearly every ad I see is ... minimal, superficial and that's being generous.

* Their destinations are not trustworthy. Hover over an ad and you rarely see the destination. Instead you see a tracking a URL but even that's not trustworthy.  How many sites have been hacked with malware inserted in adlinks, etc.

* They're arrogant. I'm reading an article and suddenly the whole displayed page scrolls down so one more irrelevant, untrustworthy ad can display itself for me. It's like the article's there for the advertiser not the reader.

* They're boring. I'll watch an ad on TV if it's entertaining. I won't buy it. I buy nothing from advertising even if the ads entertain me. But, if you're going to interrupt my reading and insult my intelligence with vague misleading claims at least entertain me for a minute.

* They're are SO MANY!

* Have of them are never even seen yet you charge the client for them. Link

Course, you can do that because the client never asks you to connect your charges to their results. They have no idea what works, where their leads come from, because ... well, I have no idea. That's like buying a delivery truck, paying for its insurance, gas, and never checking back to see if it delivered your packages.

* Privacy? Americans have shown their willingness to sell our souls for a cheap deal on a digital plaything. It's not about privacy, sadly. It's you waste our time, interrupt our reading, insult our intelligence, distract our attention and all for ... your purposes not even your clients.

So when one of you representatives climbs up on the digital platform at HBR and announces ...

Diminishing ad revenues in the publishing industry should be a cause for concern for web users. First, it is likely to force websites out of business, hurting competition and reducing available content choices. … Second, it will almost certainly increase user costs as websites are forced to charge for content previously supported by ad revenue. Third, it may force the industry to push for regulation, placing the future of the web in the hands of legislators.

That's a threat. Unlike your ads you're not wasting time hiding your threat with terms of obfuscation on a background of pastel colors with smiling faces floating around.  You're twisting the arms of the publishing advertising to force them to yield to your demands not the desires of their audience. It's blackmail, ultimately. Get those ad blockers removed or you'll lose 9% of your advertising revenues.

And this?

 Large publishers are carefully vetting ads placed on their sites and employing teams of usability experts to manage their impact on user experience.

No, they're not. If they were then users wouldn't need to use ad-blocking software. Hello?

They’ve subscribed to self-regulatory programs such as the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), which aims to set consumer-friendly standards around behavioral tracking.

How's that worked out for consumers? Self-regulatory policies. Name an industry where 'self-regulatory' policies have mattered. One.

That part about "which aims to set consumer-friendly standards around behavioral tracking." … yeah, did your lawyers choose that phrase - "which aims to set consumer-friendly standards" for you. It's pretty empty. And that other phrase "behavioral tracking" ... mmm, yeah, if your teen-age daughter has someone engaged in "behavioral tracking" of her behavior ... yeah, that's called stalking. It's creepy. Are you creepy? It sounds like you are.

The DAA mandates that advertisers and publishers disclose what data is collected and for how long, and asks that advertisers provide users with clearly visible methods to opt out of tracking altogether. Most large publishers now require advertisers to comply with DAA guidelines.

Yeah, okay. Sounds great. Except in the previous paragraph you described the DAA as the combination of a bunch of "self-regulatory programs which aims to set consumer-friendly standards around behavioral tracking."

When you use terms like "self-regulatory programs" and "aims to" in a sentence you hit your own bullseye which in your world is a clueless consumer and reader. Consider this sentence.

One reason why ad blockers are popular could be that they let users exercise an immediate choice, albeit one that may be damaging to their own interests.

See? You think consumers aren't smart enough to "exercise an immediate choice, albeit one that my be [aligned] to their own interests." And I guess that means only you can make the right decision for them. Only you can decide what's best for consumers. Seriously, if you could, we wouldn't be downloading 200 million copies of ad-blocking software. Right there's the data the blows through your arrogant assumption.

Ultimately, users will decide whether advertising remains a viable business model for digital content. Unlike print and television, the web affords users the power to democratically shape the future. But to move beyond the current impasse with ad blocking, it is important that consumers understand the impact that it has on the publishing ecosystem. Websites should do more to educate their users about the consequences of using ad blockers and help them make an informed choice.

Actually,  no. That's not true. Advertisers are killing this very viable business model because they forgot to care about the ultimate audience for their product: consumers. They failed to respect our intelligence. You literally are killing the once golden goose. You stayed in your echo-chamber and talked about things that were important to you, then you tried to sell us on that. For awhile we bought it. Ate it. We ate your dogfood until we realized ... you know I don't want dogfood. I want good food and I don't you want to interrupt me every time I sit down to consume what I want to consume.

So, with all your creativity and word-smithing skills can't you come up with an ad that is honest, true, relevant, doesn't insult me, doesn't stalk me I mean track my behavior, and doesn't interrupt me from doing what I want to do?

Can you do that? If not, can you not blame me for not re-aligning my interests in favor of yours?

Thanks for listening. Oh wait, you didn't.

Guest Post: Conversation - an operating system to talk about

By Brady G. Wilson

You may not realize it, but your organization is home to an incredibly powerful operating system (O/S).

Think outside the realm of technology. What has the potential to engage and energize your employees, bring teams closer together, and create a high-performing workforce?

It’s conversation.

Conversation is the common denominator behind “apps” like customer service, feedback, coaching, strategy and innovation. Conversation—that is, quality, meaningful conversation between leaders and employees—powers up all the things that make a business successful.

Not sure you agree that conversation is your organization’s most mighty O/S? Consider what would happen without conversation. All those apps would crash—and your business would fail.

Talking heads

Let’s go a bit more “micro” and look at the human brain.

Conversation is, essentially, our brain’s O/S. This is because every single message transmitted from one neuron to another enables us to see, hear, move...and think. If all those 100 billion neurons were to stop talking to one another, our bodies and ability to process information would cease to function.

Meanwhile, science shows us that our own brains are significantly strengthened and enhanced by social conversations “between brains.” This is our native wiring: and consequently, the perfect O/S that we need to connect, understand and harmonize with others.

So, as neuronal conversations are the way the brain gets things done, employee conversations are the way that organizations get things done.

With this in mind, then, why do organizations not integrate conversation into their own employee engagement initiatives?

Ignoring conversation = missed opportunities

Using engagement surveys as an example, consider how organizations often deal with results.

Rather than pause to consider the “why” behind results, leaders will rush to create strategies—one-size-fits-all, broad-brush strategies built on nothing but numbers.

But employees do not respond well to global solutions. They want to know that they have been listened to. Leaders who draft plans without taking time to consider context or “backstory” practically guarantee employee non-compliance to any engagement initiative.

Organizations that ignore the importance of conversation are missing out on a range of opportunities to create a higher-performing workforce.

Here’s why: science shows that when you have meaningful, face-to-face conversations that demonstrate value, respect and care, this boosts the brain’s processing power—forming a feel-good energy cocktail of connection, calm, concentration, creativity and curiosity. Essentially, conversation can deepen the leader-employee relationship, energize employees, and power those apps that make a business so successful.

No time to talk?
Don’t feel you have time to talk to your employees?

Consider this: concerns that are unaddressed tend to fester and simmer. And then...they turn into “crucial,” “fierce” or “difficult” conversations—consuming multiples of energy, time and mind-space from everyone in the organization.

Leaders save themselves a lot of headaches when they move beyond engagement as we know it today, and honour how the brain works.

And not only that: conversations don’t have to take up a lot of time.

Short, simple “Energy Check” conversations are a proven and effective way to unlock insight and possibility in your employees’ minds. It can be as simple as asking employees what is energizing them at the moment, and what is depleting their energy. Done systematically, this technique can catch issues before they become calamity-based, saving time in the process.

Easy to install

Conversation already exists in your organization. It’s simply up to leaders to embrace it as the key operating system that drives the business—and shifting their mindset to include conversation in all engagement endeavours. This generates energy, fueling a great customer experience as well as business results.

Brady Wilson is co-founder of Juice Inc., a corporate training company that services organizations from Toronto to Los Angeles. This article is based on principles from Brady’s latest book, Beyond Engagement: A Brain-Based Approach That Blends the Engagement Managers Want with the Energy Employees Need. Follow Brady on Twitter (@BradyJuiceInc) or visit www.bradywilson.com.

****

Me: I like this post a lot. I like the perspective. I've mentioned that employee engagement is a conversation with employees not about employees. You can't have that conversation with employees if you're always talking with consultants or reading surveys or meeting with everyone but your employees.

It's not rocket-science. Just go out and engage in a conversation with your employees.

Employee Recognition? It's Personal and Peer-to-Peer

" Feeling appreciated improves employee relationships – The survey results emphasized the importance of peer relationships in the workplace.  As the report noted, “Employees want to recognize their peers. When someone feels valued, they’re more likely to rate their colleague with a higher score.” 70% of employees felt their peers were the most important factor in creating “an engaging environment.” In contrast, official perks “such as work functions, parties, or amenities” received only an 8% score.  The bottom line is that goodwill is contagious; appropriately high levels of management recognition can have a positive ripple effect." via New Management Research Analyzes How Recognition Effects Retention

Questions?

Okay, I see a hand.

"What's the role of a manager, then?"

The manager, direct supervisor, sets the tone. They show how to walk that talk by recognizing everyone in ways that person values. The article describes this in a more academic manner:

"These survey results add to the vast body of research confirming the fundamental importance of the relationship between direct manager and employee.  Employees want to work for managers who recognize their contributions.  “Our research validated that point,” the report noted.  “There’s a relationship between how valued an employee feels and how highly they would rate their direct supervisor."

It's personal. And it's peer-to-peer.

Programs and surveys and slogans and buzzwords ... y'know they're nice. I think their organizational champions are very engaged in their delivery. However, if they worked, well, employee engagement scores would be rising throughout our economy. But they're not.

Warning: What follows is a shameless self-promotion. I have two books that address this challenge.

First, Engage Yourself. As the title suggests, before launch an "engagement" program or try to engage those around you First, Engage Yourself. It's 30 pages, 7 simple steps to first engage yourself. There's no budget meetings required for these steps, no PowerPoint slides or presentations. You can take them in the comfort and safety of your office.

Recognize THEM: 52 Ways to Recognize Your Employees in Ways They Value. The title says it all. Again, these are ways that require no budget (okay, one or two do) and no prior approval (okay, maybe one does.).

Built in with taking each step is a learning lesson that further accelerates your ability to continuing engaging with those around you.

Oh. Most of these are ways and steps I took to drive revenue growth, cashflows, testimonials, referrals, higher sales conversions, greater customer loyalty, that came from the higher employee engagement (we didn't call it that). We called it "Our company."

 

Related articles

First, Engage Yourself: It Has to Be a Daily Habit

First, Engage Yourself: Keep A Journal

Nine Things My New Book on Employee Engagement Lacks

9 Reasons Why Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Is So Effective

Why I’m Selling My Latest Book at ContactCenter Pipeline

ContactCenter Pipeline

Every Contact Center needs a pipeline of training, knowledge, perspective and ContactCenter Pipeline provides it ... for a few hundred thousand viewers a month. Linda Harden, the Publisher, and Susan Hash, the Editor, thought my book added meaningful content to that pipeline for their readers.

I wish they’d started this site about 25 years ago. It would have made everyone’s life a little easier. Why? Well, they offer so many great lessons and tips and education and knowledge about ... contact center operations and procedures and technology to their readers.

Back in the day we had little to no training. Okay, we had a half-day with two people and other than being entertained I can’t remember a thing. We used the Telephone Doctor video tapes a bit.

That was it for outside training.

That meant we trained in the trenches. Each other. Those who learned fastest, taught the best, stuck our necks out moved up.

Had ContactCenter Pipeline been there, we could have moved up faster with fewer neck burns.

Me

I’m a contact center veteran.

Over 20 years experience, rising through the ranks of call center operations, from entry level customer service rep to team leader to country manager in Germany and finally CEO.

I want to help my industry colleagues grow faster, avoid some of those neck burns and mistakes. I also want to see employees in the trenches get the culture they deserve and that drives a company’s growth.

The Book

The book is First, Engage Yourself. It’s seven steps to take before you march out your office door and start demanding everybody start engaging. It’s leading by example.

They’re actionable. Immediately actionable. There’s no budget committee approval needed, no PowerPoint slides to prepare or watch or debate.

You can take them in the safety and comfort of your own office.

They’re ones I took or wished I’d known to take.

They’re cost-effective because there’s no cost to take them other than a few minutes every day. There’s a cost to not take them but you’re paying that every day so it’s like you’re a frog in a pot of water being brought to boil, slowly. You won’t notice it until it’s too late.

I love theory, abstract ideas. My first choice for an undergraduate degree was philosophy. ( Um, but those guys never laughed and I never saw them go out on dates. “Dates,” they sound so quaint in a Tinder-world. Anyway, it didn’t align well with my priorities then and Tinder doesn’t now.) However, there’s enough books written on employee engagement theory and buzzwords and programs and surveys. They aren’t moving the needle for employee engagement.

As a Team Leader, Country Manager and CEO I came to like, even need, real-world, actionable steps I can take today, without first pitching it to an executive committee who’ll need to think about it or the budget I need to take that step.

That’s what I offer: actionable, real-world steps and tips and advice.

That might be a problem for some. It’s comfortable talking about theory and tossing around buzzwords and waiting for the results of the next survey that’s given sometime next quarter. It’s easy to blame a committee or HR’s policy for inaction. However, after reading this book there’s no excuse. That might bother people enough so they don’t want to read it.

However, I think there’s a yearning among managers and leaders and employees for simple steps to take, the kind where when they read them they’ll nod their head and go “of course” and then they’ll remember some of their own, That’s what I wrote.

The Format.

I offer the book to ContactCenter Pipeline readers and now you as a PDF not an ebook for a Nook or a Kindle with DRM restrictions that prevent you from sharing it with others.

You can buy one copy and share it as you do any PDF with each member of your team. For the cost of one book, each member can have a copy.

So, if you have a team of five every member will have a copy, all for the price of one.

Why a PDF That You Can Share?

Well, ContactCenter Pipeline people are my people. I understand their challenges having lived it every day for 20 years or so. I want to help them. And, I also know with experience and success and few gut-wrenching mistakes that creating an engaged culture is simple, not simplistic. And, it starts with you, each one of us. Surveys and consultants and meetings don’t count.

Get started but First, Engage Yourself. And, then engage your team with the book you can download as PDF at ContactCenterPipeline.

What’s It to You?

All the employee engagement buzzwords, data, reports, s-s-s-surveys (gag), programs, principles, guidelines, books, blog posts, articles, podcasts, webinars ... about 20 million links on Google and 7500 books on Amazon boils down to this one question:

What’s it to you?

"You" is not “the employees” or “those employees” and not “the manager” and not “HR”. "You" is you, the one reading this right now.

“It” is ... well, everything. 

"It" is where you work, why you work, what do you do, why do you it, where are you going with this ... it, why are you going there, is doing this going to get you there assuming there’s a there there.

"It" is who you’re working for - your family, your boss, your company, your community, you kids, your parents. You. 'Cause we all gotta serve somebody.

"It" is your opportunity cost of working here doing this versus working there doing that. Cause if you really, really, want to be there doing that you’re less likely to be fully engaged here doing this. That’s true no matter how many ping-pong tables you have or games you can play or Chief Happiness Officers wander your company’s aisles or your executive team prays over you or your communications department patronizes you with messages to ‘align’ with the company’s meeting and purpose or HR writes up policies to insure diversity or respect or harmony or ‘engagement’ and god bless ‘em cause if you think a manager’s caught in the middle between executive and frontline employees you should sit in their desk for a day or week.

So, before your next meeting about ‘engagement’ and how to bump it up, before your next s-s-s-survey whose results you won’t finish tabulating until next quarter when by then you’ll have forgotten why its questions were so relevant and those answering will have forgotten their answers to make you happy and their jobs safe, maybe take a minute, look yourself in the mirror and ask that image:  “What’s it to you?”

 

Stop Categorizing, Start Engaging

"Employee engagement is a hot topic in many organizations. And understandably so: Gallup estimates employee disengagement costs the U.S. $450 billion to $550 billion annually ... Statistics are useful diagnostic tools, but what do they tell us about what engagement and disengagement actually look like in a real workplace? I like to keep things simple, and have condensed the workplace into four employee styles." via How To Engage The Four Kinds of Employees in Your Organization

Mmmm. There's a difference between simplifying and being simplistic. Categorizing employees into buzzword cliches is not how you keep things simple. It is how you reduce a whole person into a one-dimensional 'asset' that you can manipulate with scripted responses carefully prepared for their categories. 

Look, to engage with those around you is simple. You engage with each individual. Lumping them into groups, generalizing their passions and motivations and interests, and turning to a script for how to 'deal with them' is not engaging.

The author goes on to write:

"The problem is not that we all move between these four styles—it’s that our employees get stuck in boxes other than Rock Star.

Take a moment to think about your team and your peers. Which of these four boxes do they fit into? Where would you (honestly) put yourself?"

Um, the 'reason' employees get stuck in any box is because you put them there. You shoe horn them there for your labeling and handling convenience.

The bizarre part of that point is that outside that author's head world those people aren't in that manager's boxes. No. Seriously. They're not. These boxes are a mental construct that only lives in the head of the manager who built them and deludes themself into thinking their employees 'fit' in one of these boxes and that engaging with the parameters of the box is engaging with those he believes live and work in their imaginary boxes.

Get out of your head, get out of your management buzzwords and cliches and categories and boxes. Get out of your office and your reports and go engage with that person, that individual employee. Look them right in the eye and ask "How are you?" The emphasis is "YOU" not your box.

Ask them "What can I do for YOU?" not your box, nor your category.

That's how you engage.

 

 

Employee Engagement: Stop Measuring, Start [Engaging]

"We’ve all heard the cliche: “What gets measured, gets done.” In the case of employee engagement, I say maybe not. For years, organizations have been measuring employee engagement. Organizations like Gallup and Towers and Hay Group have made millions of dollars administering employee engagement surveys that ask hundreds of questions and measure how people feel at work at some given point in time. Don’t get me wrong — it’s what organizations are asking for — and I’ve done it too, for years and years. But my question is this:

How come, after all these years of measuring employee engagement, we still haven’t moved the needle on the very basic service profit chain?" via www.workboard.com

I'll tell you why. Companies are too busy surveying and measuring their employees. The controlled settings of surveys and measurements and reports are safe, comforting. But they're not engaging. As I wrote yesterday you can have trust or control, engagement or control. But you can't have both. 

Now I have to add: You can survey your employees or you can engage with them.

You can measure your employees, survey them, meet 'about' them. Or you can pull your head get up out of your chairs and leave the friendly, controlled confines of your offices and meeting rooms and go out and have a conversation with your employees.

• Ask them questions.

• Listen to them.

• Make eye contact.

• Help them.

• Serve them.

• Trust them.

• Let them teach you.

• Take the money you spend surveying and measuring and instead invest it in their training, their incentives, their equipment and resources.

You can survey your employees or you can engage with them. Stop measuring and start engaging.

Trust or Control, Engagement or Control. It's Either/Or

I wrote last week that [Engagement] Is About Letting Go.  I shared a quote from the CEO of Accenture.

"What I learned is that leadership is about letting it go. Trust people. The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating. It’s all about selecting the person. And if you believe you selected the right person, then you give that person the freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and to lead with some very simple measure."

I realized you could change "Leadership" with "Engagement" and the truth still rings.

"What I learned is that [Engagement] is about letting it go. Trust people. The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating. It’s all about selecting the person. And if you believe you selected the right person, then you give that person the freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and to lead with some very simple measure."

Then I read How to Get Over Your Controlling Ways:

"But here is the real trick when it comes to giving up control. No one ever gives up control unless they can replace it with trust.

We give up control when we realize that we can trust others to be more independent. So understanding exactly what drives that trust becomes more important than making any single decision about keeping or relinquishing control."

Made me think that "No one ever engages unless they can be trusted." Engagement is about heart and mind. We only give our hearts and minds to those we know trust us.

So that means the only way to engage, inspire engagement, is trust and inspire more trust. That means … letting go.

We can have trust or control. But we can't have trust AND control. See? The illogic is obvious. If you trust someone why do you need to control them? If they know you trust them why do they need you to control them?

Ergo, We can have engagement or control. But we can't have engagement AND control. See? The illogic is obvious. If people are engaged why do they need someone to control them? If you're colleagues or peers or direct reports are engaged why do they need you to control them? And is your controlling them ever going to allow them to engage? Yeah, no.

Review: Dale Partridge's "People Over Profits"

I first heard of Dale Partridge when I agreed to read and review his book: People Over Profit. I scanned the agent’s pitch, an agent I trust, glanced at the title and thought “Yeah, sure. I’ll do it.”

The book arrived. I liked the packaging, it came in a burlap sack. “Interesting,” I thought. “I’ll read it … soon.” Yawn.

A few days later I read the nicely-prepared press packet that came with the book. That’s when I realized Dale Partridge is a do-gooder and his company’s a do-gooder company.

He’s co-founder of Sevenly where "People Matter." Says so right on their website, right where old-school for-profit companies might put something like “Our employees are our greatest asset.” His profitable company has raised over $4.4 million for charities decided on each week by customers’ purchases, employees and followers.

I’m wary of do-gooders. In business, the politically-correct term I believe is “Social entrepreneur” and “Social venture” - I could be wrong.

It’s not their goodness and not their doing it that makes me wary. It’s their timeless fashion of passive-aggressive self-righteousness and self-censoring politically-correct speech that annoys the bejeezus out of me. So, when a company emblazons their website with pretty colors and a slogan of “People Matter” … my skepticism rockets to DEFCON-1. Maybe I should call it SKEPT-CON-1. “Sarcasm and mocking humor ready to launch, sir.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. I agreed to read it and review it. I moved forward. I looked at the book’s cover and saw the full title People Over Profit: Break the System. Live with Purpose, Be More Successful.

Been there, done that. Read the book, saw the movie. But then I thought, “Wait a minute. He said ‘Break the System.’ … Maybe Dale’s rebel soul remains alive and kickin’ and he really does believe "People Matter” that you can put "People Over Profit" and achieve higher profits by seeing and celebrating the best in people. 

I flipped to the Foreward from Blake Mycoskie, found of TOMS Shoes where he writes:

“In today’s ever-changing business world, the idea of “people over profit” might be one of the easiest things to say but one of the hardest thing to actually do. Yet in the right hands and from the right heart - such as Dale’s - the words in this book can become incredibly powerful and galvanizing.

The beauty and brilliance of what Dale strives to achieve day in and day out, and what he has written about here, combine some of the most powerful and time-resistant business ethos - such as quality, authenticity, and transparency - with other essentials that resonate much deeper.”

That’s pretty good. Otherwise why have it as your foreward, right? Okay.

Then I turn the page and there’s this:

"In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."- George Orwell.

Whoa. How many business authors start their book with a quote from George Orwell? Not many. Matter of fact, Dale’s the first one.

The next quote he shares is from Shirley Chisholm. Shirley Chisholm?!!!As a Congresswoman from Texas Shirley Chisholm ran for President back in 1968, 1972? I remember her standing about 5’0” and speaking truth to power over and over. You may be asking “How’d that work out for her?” I imagine for her it worked out okay, because she knew her audience and she knew her job was to speak the truth to us. Our job was to listen, hear it, and act on it. We didn’t. And here we are.

Here’s her quote: "When morality comes up against profit it is seldom that profit loses."

Who IS this guy? Now, I’m suspicious that Dale’s got something to say. Turns out he does. My favorite data (datum?) he shared was this:

"In 1965, CEOs at America's largest companies earned about 20:1 what their average workers did. The ratio climbed to approximately 59:1 by 1989 and 199:1 by 1994. At the turn of the twenty-first century, these CEOs were earning more than their average workers at an approximate ratio of 411:1." - Page 38

The CEO’s salary is the sacred cow standing on the conference table during the meeting about employee engagement. He’s mooing loud and proud: “Feed me. Feed me.” Maybe that’s why no one in those meetings ever hears the others. So, I guess it’s okay that employees are never invited to those meetings “about” employee engagement. Wouldn’t matter. No one would hear them.

Sharing that tidbit about his fellow CEOs shows Dale walks his talk: He’s breaking the system. He’s living with purpose and heck, he’ll make a better profit by not walking in line, nose-to-tail, with the other CEOs and their Boards who pay them 411 times more than that of their average employee.

Oh. But there’s more. Dale weaves case studies, data, personal stories and yeah those inspiring quotes into - no, not a manifesto - but a well-reasoned business plan to put people over profits, bring greater profits to the company and greater benefits to the people it serves: customers, followers, investors, employees, charities it supports and those the charities help. People Over Profits isn’t some eye-in-the-sky, hosannah to living the life of your dreams, one full of promise and purpose ... and all you have to do is click your heels, Dorothy and keep saying “People Over Profits, People Over Profits …” No, it’s hard work. It’s disruptive. It’s done by breaking the system that failed to serve its constituents. Breaking systems, disruption, is hard work - the hardest, most demanding, most exciting work you’ll ever do.

But while it’s hard work he shows how it’s, well, simple. Simple isn’t simplistic or even easy. He offers 7 Important Lessons, core beliefs to help you first “Break the System for Good.” He devotes a chapter to each. It’s one thing to break a system. It’s an entirely different thing to “Break the System for Good.”

The first one is People Matter. The next 6 are all about ... well, being honest, transparent, genuine, maintaining integrity and courage. These are all the qualities that a leader, a spouse, a schoolteacher, a parent, a coach, law enforcement, employees, teammates … embody to show the people around them that they matter. Since we’re being honest, that’s how you break the system for good: you be honest, transparent, accountable, humble, a servant to those you lead.

As Mother Teresa said:

"Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway."

Yes, that’s a quote from Dale’s book. That’s how we - leader, friend, spouse, teammate, partner and/or parent - show people they matter. That sets us apart as leader, friend, spouse, teammate, partner and/or parent. It’s scary as hell, too, and sometimes I chicken out or make the wrong choice of discretion when blunt force trauma would work better and vice versa.

Had I read Dale’s book say, 10 years ago my journey would have been easier, smoother, my progress would have been faster and I think I may have helped others be more profitable. So, Dale, where were you buddy? I needed you then. SMILE. And lots of CEOs and leaders need you now. I hope they find you, find your book.