Monthly Archives: November 2010

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Maximize Employee Engagement, Alignment and Productivity

Jason Pankau and I are speaking about maximizing employee engagement, alignment and productivity on several upcoming webinars. The webinars are based on ideas in our book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity (Thomas Nelson).

Here are the names of the organizations hosting the webinars along with the respectives dates and links to sign up:

December 7, 1:00 PM EST for Linkage

December 7, 3:00 PM EST for the Human Capital Institute sponsored by the ITAGroup

December 15, 12:00 PM EST for the New Talent Management Network

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Strengthen Your “Critical Connections”

Research has shown that people perform better if they take time to create checklists that break their work down into necessary tasks. Here is an approach we recommend. Make a list of those individuals whom you count on you in order to do your work well and the individuals who count on you in order to do their work well. Think of these people as your “Critical Connections.” Strengthening your relationship with them is, in addition to making checklists, another key to achieving excellence in your work.

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Cartoon Boosts “Voice” in U.S. Military

Doctrin Man“Doctrine Man,” a popular cartoon on facebook, has, in essence, become a means to boost the Connection Culture element of Voice in the U.S. Military.  It’s odd, I know, but it’s working.  To learn more, read this New York Times article entitled “Masked Military Man is Superhero for Troops.”

Earlier, Jason, Carolyn and I wrote an article about the element of Voice (also know as “Knowledge Flow”) for the award-winning Perdido magazine that you can read at this link.  Voice exists in an organization when everyone seeks the ideas and opinions of other, shares their opinions honestly and safeguards relational connections. Voice reflects a culture that values humility, open-mindedness, curiosity, continuous learning and experimentation.

Voice strengthens organizations in three ways.  First, it boosts employee engagement when people are informed and have their ideas and opinions considered. Second, decision makers make better decisions when they learn from the ideas and opinions of others.  Third, a culture that has a high degree of sharing opinions and ideas creates a marketplace of ideas that fuels innovation.

With those benefits in mind, I say to Doctrine Man, whoever he may be, live long and prosper!

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Gamification in Everything?

Every once in a while I come across an article or blog post that jumps out at me for its sheer brilliance or insight. Deb Mills-Scofield’s blog post entitled “Gamification in Everything” is a recent example. I encourage you to check it out and post your thoughts on Deb’s blog. I’m headed there right now to post some thoughts. I hope to see you there!

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Employee Engagement: 2010 Research Insights

Employee engagement research this year produced several insights about serious problems we presently face in America.  Now this may sound bleak to some but for wise leaders and organizations it presents a huge opportunity. Below, I’ll explain.

In January, our friends at The Conference Board published a report entitled “I Can’t Get No … Job Satisfaction, That Is.”  The report’s subtitle, “America’s Unhappy Workers,” captured the essence of The Conference Board’s message. Consistent with the report’s tone, its cover featured a picture of an impending storm.  The report stated that job satisfaction and employee engagement had fallen to the lowest levels since The Conference Board began surveying more than 20 years ago. The report explained that the decline in employee satisfaction and employee engagement began long before the Great Recession and should therefore not be viewed as cyclical in nature. Looking forward, The Conference Board expressed concern about the impact of declining employee engagement on American competitiveness.

In July, Hewitt released a report showing that for the quarter ending June 2010, 46 percent of the 900 organizations it tracks experienced declines in employee engagement versus 30 percent of the organizations that experienced improved employee engagement.  Hewitt noted that this was the largest quarterly decline in employee engagement it has witnessed in the more than 15 years Hewitt has been researching employee engagement.

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Serving a Cause Greater than Self

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Recently when Jason Pankau and I spoke at an internal meeting of the ITA Group, we learned that one afternoon their employees split up into teams and went out  into their community to serve non-profit organizations.  One group of employees went to help a food pantry, others went to serve the Boys and Girls Club, etc.  Some teams painted walls or performed other much maintenance-type projects while others just spent time with children or adults who longed to connect.

By doing this, ITA Group employees were serving a cause greater than self.  They were exercising compassion, kindness, empathy and other emotional muscles of the heart that make them better connectors and will help them develop a Connection Culture. I’m encouraged to see that more companies are doing these types of service projects.

Later this week at the United Nations, several organizations are gathering to talk about serving a cause greater than self.  The conference is organized by the Foundation for Social Change, a group that is lead by super connector Louise Guido.  I encourage you to learn more about the Foundation and its conference entitled “Global Conference for Social Change: How Profitability Can Change the World.”  In addition to the many fine organizations participating at this conference, there are certain to be a lot of movers and shakers, including this year’s honorees, Sir Richard Branson and Shakira.

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We Need More “Heart and Soul” in the Age of “Mind and Strength”

Wise organizations distinguish themselves from competitors by developing their heart and soul. Organizations that have heart and soul enrich their owners, customers and communities in both economic and non-economic ways.

What do I mean by heart and soul?  Let me explain.

While out running errands one day when we were relatively new to town, my wife stopped in at one of several jewelry stores on the main shopping street.  The cases were filled with beautiful pieces, new and heirloom.  The salespeople, however, were more than aloof.  They ignored her.  No eye contact.  No smile.  No “hello, my name is X, may I help you?”  This lack of connection made her feel as if they thought she was unworthy of their attention.  Not surprisingly, she has never gone back. These salespeople lacked the qualities I describe as heart and soul.

The absence of heart and soul in the workplace is not unusual.  This is the age of mind and strength. So often we focus on the tasks of our work and neglect the relational aspects.  As human beings we have emotions, hopes and dreams, a conscience, and deeply felt human needs.  Research from a variety of fields has shown that when we recognize these realities and treat others in ways consistent with them, we thrive. When we don’t, it is damaging to our mental and physical health and to the health of those around us.

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Get to Know Colleagues’ and Customers’ Stories





Here’s a stirring video from Chick-fil-A to remind us that every human being has a story. In our endeavors to develop Connection Cultures we encourage people who work together to get to know one another’s stories and to reach out and learn customers’ stories, if at all possible. Learning the stories of the people in your life is just one aspect of Human Value, the second element of a Connection Culture. When you know a person’s story, it helps you empathize and connect with them. It’s also more difficult to grow extremely disconnected with someone when you know their story.

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Speaking at the New Canaan Society

Here’s an article entitled “Worker Engagement Holds Key to Success” that appeared this morning in The Connecticut Post, The Greenwich Time, The Stamford Advocate and The Danbury News Times.  The article briefly describes the “Connection Cultures” we wrote about in our book, Fired Up or Burned Out, and mentions that on Friday morning, November 5, I’ll be speaking about how Christians can help improve the workplace at the New Canaan Society’s Darien Connecticut Chapter.  Breakfast begins at 6:30 AM and my talk will start at 7:00 AM.  For details, click here.

logo_ncs The New Canaan Society is a group of men who meet to encourage one another to live out Biblical values. It was founded in 1995 by Jim Lane, a partner at Goldman Sachs, and has grown to 30 chapters across the United States.

On a related topic, Jason Pankau will be speaking at the New Canaan Society’s New York City Chapter in Manhattan on January 19th and at NCS’s Annual Retreat at the Homestead in Virginia on March 4-6.  You might also be interested to know that in the coming weeks, Jason and I are doing a series of webinars on leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation for Linkage, the Human Capital Institute, the DNA Global Network and the New Talent Management Network.  The webinars are free to the public.  Details and sign-up information will be posted in the upcoming engagements section on the left-hand side of the front page of our book website at this link.