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.

[Terrence Seamon]

This is the essence of the message in the book The Dream Manager.
Terry

[Raven]

Nicely done - I don't know how I'd top this one!

[Mark Tisdale]

I would like to echo this. Three simple words stand out for me "understand your people". In my personal opinion, the deeper and more complete the understanding, the better.
Mark

[Julie Noonan]

Good one, Lisa. Understanding and enabling uniquenes/aspirations is a powerful thought and tool.

[Rod Barnett]

Make it an essential work of the role of all leaders in the organisation to create the conditions that encourage, maintain and improve employee engagement.

[Judy McLeish]

Provide direction, purpose and inspiration.

Judy

[David Zinger]

I love this one sentence forum. You don't have to take a long time to post but your sentence packs a lot in it. I will certainly make a PDF of this for us and feature it for new network participants in the future. I'll take a stab at this and as I do I realize I am idealistic, but given the alternative, it seems reasonable to me:

Create caring and robust connections between every employee and their work, customers, leaders, managers, and the organization to achieve results that matter to everyone in this sentence.

[Skip Reardon]

David - I think you've hit on the issue that was missing in some of the prior "sentences"....

That issue is... the connection between the employees, their work - AND the articulated strategy and goals of the organization.

It's not enough to find strengths, pat people on the back, make people feel free to seek their own personal goals, blah, blah, etc.

If people's daily activities (and mindsets) are not aligned with the strategy and goals of the organization - it's not going to happen. (That is, execution of the organization's plans - is not going to happen.)

We must find systematic and repeatable ways to enable employees to engage - so they can internalize their own personal purpose, and find inspiration in not just participating, but contributing - to the organization's goals.

[Robert Morris]

Skip:

You make an immensely important point. By all accounts, there was perfect execution of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Cardigan during the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854, during the Crimean War. All of the 673 troops were fully engaged and most of them were blown to bits by the Russian guns. This is an excellent example of fully engaged participants in the execution of a flawed strategy. In terms of relvance to the business world, Peter Drucker probably said it best -- with only one sentence -- in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

Best regards, Bob

[Cheri Baker]

The variety of stakeholders involved in decision making should be proportional to the importance of the issue being worked on.

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

love this!

[Kris Robinson]

Have a communication strategy that includes just as much listening to employees as it does sharing information with them.