Tag Archives: leadership development

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Sad for Siemens’ Employees

Last week Siemens paid a $1.6 billion fine for its bribery violations. The New York Times’ writers Siri Schubert and T. Christian Miller wrote an excellent article about it entitled “At Siemens, Bribery Was Just a Line Item.”

Corporate identity is a source of pride in the best organizations. It is a factor that contributes to connection and employee engagement. When a company’s identity is tarnished like Siemens has been, it rubs off on employees’ identities too. Siemens’ leaders can recover provided they develop a culture that places a high value on integrity, honesty and justice. If they do, it will improve employee and customer engagement. If they fail to do this, I would not be very optimistic about Siemens’ future.

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How to energize your organization

I just discovered a fascinating article that appeared in the Sloan Management Review about how individuals increase energy in organizations. Several of the practices are germane to employee engagement and Connection Culture Theory. Here’s a copy of the article what-creates-energy-in-organizations

Note: The free download of this article was available on co-author Professor Wayne Baker’s website at the University of Michigan.

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Q&A from My AMA Webcast on Employee Engagement

During the recent webcast I did for the American Management Association, participants submitted more questions than we were able to answer in the allotted 15 minutes for Q&A. The AMA sent me the questions so that I could answer them on my blog. Although I am not able to answer them all at once, I will continue to chip away at the list and post all the answers below.

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Speaking at a Social Media Conference in San Francisco

I wanted to let you know that I will be presenting at the Advanced learning Institute’s “Social Media For Internal Communications Conference: How To Engage Employees, Drive Change & Improve Your Bottom Line Using BLOGGING, PODCASTING & The Latest WEB 2.0 Technologies,” November 17-20, 2008 in San Francisco, CA.  This conference will focus on how to use social media for internal communications and leverage the latest interactive tools and techniques to advance your organizational goals. You can save $200 by mentioning email code “SPK” when registering and another $400 on top of that if you register by October 2nd (the “early bird” registration deadline).

My session topic will be:“Giving Employees A Voice: How H&R Block Built An Online Community”

For more information or to register, see below or click here to go to the conference website. 

Hope to see you there!

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Do Your Company’s Mission, Vision and Values fall flat?

A well-articulated mission, vision and set of values increases employee engagement. It’s the responsibility of an organization’s leadership to understand and communicate mission, vision and values. Sadly, most leaders dismiss it as window dressing. Great leaders, however, are serious about this responsibility. Howard Schultz of Starbucks did a remarkable job when he wrote the book Pour Your Heart Into it. Here’s another outstanding example below from the commander of the nuclear submarine, the U.S.S. Montpelier. Next month Jason Pankau and I will holding a training session for managers at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics. They build nuclear submarines. When I recently read Montpelier Command Philosophy, my thoughts were on the people I’ve met and worked with at Lockheed Martin Aerospace and who build and maintain military aircraft and those I’ll meet who build nuclear submarines. Their work is so important to protect liberty on the world. I hope they appreciate it.

The USS Montpelier Command Philosophy

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Webcast: Beryl Companies’ Remarkable Corporate Culture

Tune in on Monday September, 29 at 11:00 AM Eastern to hear my guest Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl Companies, talk about the remarkable corporate culture at Beryl and how it has resulted in high levels of employee engagement and retention.  This organization is one of the best examples of a Connection Culture that I am aware of and Paul is an extraordinary leader and author of Why is Everyone Smiling?  

For more about the webcast click on employee engagement.

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Great News Today From Katie’s Oncologist

katie-on-swing.jpg Forgive me for this self indulgent post but I feel like shouting to the world what my wife Katie’s oncologist just told us today:  Katie is not likely to have a recurrence of ovarian cancer after being in remission for nearly five years now.  We celebrated the good news with Dr. Hensley, our oncologist, and Nick the doorman (and now receptionist) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who I’ve written about.  

In honor of the occasion, I’m posting an essay I wrote about our experience, how our family members and friends helped us through a difficult season, and how the experience changed my life.  Feeling that people really cared for Katie and our family helped me see how important relationships are in life and to employee engagement in the workplace. Here’s the essay:

Many inspiring articles have been written about cancer survivors and how the experience of facing cancer and overcoming it changed their lives.  Fewer are the stories of those who walk beside them. Just as a stone tossed into still waters sends ripples to every shore, the impact of a cancer diagnosis stirs up the lives of more than just the patient. This is my story of walking beside my wife Katie during her battle against first one cancer and then a second a year later, a journey that has changed my life in expected and unexpected ways.