My career as and Organization Development practitioner has evolved out of a passion for helping people work better together. I started as a public school teacher and gradually found myself facilitating conversations and learning sessions that were more and more grounded in systems thinking and action research. I graduated from Fielding Graduate University in 2005 and have recently made my way to a small liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia where I serve as an internal OD consultant.
What is your interest or involvement in employee engagement?
I admininister the employee engagement survey initiative for our institution. I call it an initiative because we link the survey process and results to culture change, performance improvement, and leadership accountability.
At 12:27pm on November 10, 2009, David Zinger said…
Valerie:
It is such a big topic. I think performance feedback embedded in safety is very important and getting feedback of the improvement is too. Involvement and input from leaders/employees is always so important. I have always loved these lines from Margaret Wheatley:
We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change. We don’t succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way. You can scream and holler as much as you want, but if people don’t regard what you’re saying as important, they’ll just ignore you and go on with their own life. (In this way, all people behave like teenagers.)
It is impossible to impose anything on people. We must participate in anything that affects us. We can’t act on behalf of anyone, we can’t figure out what’s best for somebody else. If leaders or task forces refuse to believe this and go ahead and make plans for us, we don’t sit by passively and do what we’re told. We still get involved, but from the sidelines, where we’ve been told to sit and wait. We get involved by ignoring, resisting, or sabotaging all plans and directives that are imposed on us.
At 10:39am on November 10, 2009, David Zinger said…
Valerie:
Welcome to the employee engagement network. I appreciate how you link your results to culture change, performance improvement, and leadership accountability at University of Richmond.
What do you see as the most powerful links between culture, performance, and leadership accountability?
Thanks! It took me a while before I got to that name for the network.
True and good point. Participation is key for the network to be useful.
Presently, I work with Skills for Change, a non-profit that aims to help newcomers to Canada establish ...
One secret for managers and supervisors to successfully engage employees is to strive to be interested, not interesting.
Judy Nelson, JD, MSW
Certified Professional Coach
www.CoachJudyNelson.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
From the email where this was sent to me:
Our daughter-in-law, Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created, directed and choreographed this in Portland last week for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for b...
Engagement is about capturing the hearts and minds of your team, open your heart and show you believe in them and truly care about them as people and they will move mountains.
Hi Ravi
I like the name 'Stomping Ground'
Good that your presentation went well, and thanks for sharing your slides.
The assertions you've made in your PPT slides are not wrong but the issue is that achieving all of those things depends on parti...
The presentation went off really well. The demonstration of the network went really well too. So far 25% of the staff have signed up. Regrettably, there is virtually no activity on the network yet. I feel that there is a lot of hesitation in start...
Understand every member of your teams motivation, align their aspirations to a clearly communicated business direction, give them all the tools to do the job and then empower them to deliver.
Check your own engagement regularly. You need support, recognition and inspiration as much as your employees, in order provide an environment that will engage your people fully.
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It is such a big topic. I think performance feedback embedded in safety is very important and getting feedback of the improvement is too. Involvement and input from leaders/employees is always so important. I have always loved these lines from Margaret Wheatley:
We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change. We don’t succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way. You can scream and holler as much as you want, but if people don’t regard what you’re saying as important, they’ll just ignore you and go on with their own life. (In this way, all people behave like teenagers.)
It is impossible to impose anything on people. We must participate in anything that affects us. We can’t act on behalf of anyone, we can’t figure out what’s best for somebody else. If leaders or task forces refuse to believe this and go ahead and make plans for us, we don’t sit by passively and do what we’re told. We still get involved, but from the sidelines, where we’ve been told to sit and wait. We get involved by ignoring, resisting, or sabotaging all plans and directives that are imposed on us.
Welcome to the employee engagement network. I appreciate how you link your results to culture change, performance improvement, and leadership accountability at University of Richmond.
What do you see as the most powerful links between culture, performance, and leadership accountability?
David