Leadership

Secret Sauce of Employee Engagement

One of my clients in rural Massachusetts wanted a team of mid-level managers and professionals to work nights and weekends to implement its new computer system. This caused the team members to miss their kids’ soccer games and other special family times. When the system was successfully implemented, the owner planned to pay for the new system by laying off half the team. The company was too far from any major population center for the laid off employees to commute to any new jobs, and the company was the only employer in town, so houses were worth almost nothing and could not be easily sold. Not so surprisingly, the software never met its goals, so the owner was not able to lay off any of the team.

The problem with employee engagement, as it is commonly viewed, is this: it’s all company-centric. Companies use every tool and technique in the book to try to engage their employees into enhancing the company’s well-being.

This also used to be true of how companies treated customers – customers were supposed to buy what the company wanted them to buy. However, companies finally learned that customers will buy what they want to buy, so companies have gotten much better at listening to their customers, so they can sell what the customers want. However, companies have not yet realized that they can do the same with their employees – that they can ask their employees what they really want, and help them get it.

In my consulting on 4 continents, I have found that there is a common thread the grounds what most people want: they want a good life for their children and their grandchildren. If that is the case in your organization, the question that would truly engage employees would look like this: “How can we use our products and services to help make the world a better play for our children and their children?”

Do you agree? Disagree? I would welcome feedback and pushback. I learned a long time ago that I only learn when somebody disagrees. My e-mail is gary@portlandconsultinggroup.com  Hope to hear from you.

Gary

1.971.221.8155

How To Build a Culture of Purpose

How To Build a Culture of Purpose:

What Erika does is very simple. She asks people if they had a good day. If they say yes, she ask them to identify the moment that made it good. She is basically asking them to name the purpose moment they experienced that made their day positive. That was the first step.

GET YOUR OWN DAMN DREAM!

GET YOUR OWN DAMN DREAM!

Stop following someone else’s plans and start training dreams.

Stop listening to what other people tell you and just follow your dreams.

Stop going through the motions and work through your dream.

Stop trying to be perfect and stumble your way deliberately through your dreams.

Stop starting and stopping and starting and just keep moving towards your dream.

Stop comparing yourself to everyone else around you and just follow your dream.

Stop believing that someone else’s formula can replace hard work and relentlessly follow your dream.

Stop avoiding what needs to be done and live your dream. Not someone else’s.

Stop learning what you need to do and start doing what you need to do. Follow your dreams.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of going through someone else’s motions — doing what everyone else tells you you should be doing in order to be successful.

You’re told that you need to have a strong social presence. That you need to build a following. That you need to write a book so that “people take you will take you seriously”.

You’re told so many things by so many people that it’s easy to get whiplash — flailing from tactic to tactic, hoping that this time for one bit of effort you might actually end up achieve success.

But that’s not how success works. Never has been. Never will be.

And unless you’re one of the lucky few who happen to get lucky doing one thing, one time, someone else’s get-rich-quick tactics (or doing whatever one else tells you you should be doing) aren’t the answer to achieving breakthrough. Dreaming is. Dreaming big dreams.

Not sleeping. Not thinking. Not procrastinating. Dreaming is different than that. Dreaming is all consuming. All empowering. It consumes every fiber of your being. Your dream is what gets you up in the morning. It’s your reason for existence. It’s your light when the day is dark. Your sunshine when the days is cloudy.

You can’t copy someone else’s dream. You have to have your own. And, while it’s easy to follow the tactics of someone else who happened to be successful using those tactics, don’t be fooled for a moment that any tactic is a replacement for audacious dreams.

Dream big. Live big. Fight big. Believe big.

From Edgy Conversations 3/18/14 by Dan Waldschmidt