Forum #6: Employee Engagement Advice in One Sentence

[David Zinger]

In one sentence only, write the best employee engagement advice you would give to an organization.

[Gary Irland]

Authentic engagement is not a “motivational technique” it is a survival strategy and requires the importance, priority and commitment usually reserved for capital planning, product development, expansion planning, product line implementation and other high impact business activities.
Thanks, Gary

[Gurprriet Siingh]

Gary, I personally believe Authentic Engagement is neither motivational technique nor a survival strategy. It is a principle of leadership or a fundamental value. And people who embody this value/principle are engaging leaders, fathers, spouses, friends...

[Gary Irland]

If you are saying that engagement is not just something you do when desperate, I agree. It must be "the way we get things done", not a special extra activity. I went through the Quality Circles and Self Directed Work Teams era and saw too many of them that were seen as an addition to the organization, not the organization itself. Work teams still have great potential, but if you can deliver your service or product equally well if you suddenly drop the teams then they were never really an authentic engagement of the workforce.
Engagement is not like bolting a spoiler on your car to make it look different, it is more like swapping the engine for a hydrogen fuel cell, you change what moves the organization forward.

[Deri Latimer]

I like what you have written, Gary! "Engagement is ....changing what moves the organization forward." I am working with an organization to move toward a culture of teaming and that is our greatest challenge...ensuring that mindsets change in order to truly benefit from teaming; so that teaming becomes the culture (not just an addition to the culture). Otherwise, it's another 'flavour of the month' and the benefits (enthusiasm and engagement) are lost.

[Gary Irland]

If you draw a circle to represent the organization, and a bump on the outside of the circle represents the organizations "team approach" then it can easily be removed without affecting the mission of the organization. I have struggled with organizations where the leadership looks upon teams and teamwork as something that everyone else does, but they don't need it. They don't realize how closely the people in the organization watch what they do and take their lead from what they see. Implementing teams does not guarantee teamwork, but modeling teamwork in word and deed will help get you teams.

[Deri Latimer]

I could not agree more, Gary! It certainly comes down to leaders modeling the way...that is the greatest challenge for organizations!

[Ann Andrews CSP]

Listen to your emplolyees when they bring you an idea - the idea may not work but if you don't listen, they won't bring you another. The next one might give you a giant leap in thinking! Ann Andrews

[Gurprriet Siingh]

On a daily basis, respond appropriately.
Easy to say, hard to do!

[Vinti Mehta]

Listen. Dialogue. Respect.

While these may sound like platitudes, any collective that lives these is, to my mind, bound to be a space that engages its members. Easier said than done, of course!

[Bob Gately]

Hire for talent.

[Peter A Hunter]

Find out what you are doing that disengages your workforce, then stop doing it!

Peter A Hunter
www.breakingthemould,co.uk

[Adam Hibbert]

Think aloud, listen, and be seen to listen.