Employee Engagement Zingers

THE ONE BALL post is coming on Tuesday January 13.

One origin of THE ONE BALL is from a post I wrote at Joyful Jubilant Learning on Success-Less Version 2.009

In 2009 I don’t want to be successful…I want to be success-less. Success to many means to add, to get more, to have. I will consider 2009 a success if I do more on less rather than more with less or more on more.

Photo Credit: All my superball in one mosaic by http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/463524583/

What are your 3 words for 2009?

How focused are you for the year ahead. This post will help you move into the year ahead with just 3 words. A post next week will focus on the Art of the One Ball.

Chis Brogan offered this advice on framing 2009 with just 3 words:

Look for three words that will help you frame your challenges and opportunities for 2009. Don’t think about where you are this exact moment. If you’re without a job, setting a goal in 09 to get a job might not be very useful. Once you’ve got the job, then what? Instead, you could think about setting the goal of “Alignment,” where you ask yourself, “does this fit with everything else I intend for myself in this year?”

Try setting your three words far out on the horizon, but such that they can lead you to your goals every day. Meaning, can you use the same word to get you started, but have it still be relevant when you’re almost at the big goal?

His 3 words for 2009 were: equip, armies, and needles.

If you need to see what dozens of other people declared as their 3 words or you would like to read the full article by Chris, click here.

My 3 words for 2009 are: authentic, connect, engage.

My 3 words even create an acronym: ACE. So my plan is to ACE employee engagement for 2009.

What are your 3 words for 2009?

Here are my 10 favorite articles/posts from 2008:

21 Sure Fire Ways Leaders Can Energize Themselves for Work. How do you energize yourself for work? How do you ensure that you can make a full contribution to employee engagement.

300 Free Employee Engagement Ideas and Keys from A to Z. Are you looking for lots of employee engagement ideas? Click here and download this great resource.

Free 10 Page E-Book: Employee Engagement Advice in One Sentence. A nice short e-book where 50 authors from the employee engagement network distill their advice down to one sentence.

What we can Learn About Employee Engagement from Gamers. I think we have much to learn about creating and sustaining engagement from gamers and game designers. Look for more of this in 2009.

10 Principles of Employee Engagement. Read 10 principles of employee engagement.

6 Employee Engagement Mini Rants. What gets to you about employee engagement? Do you have some employee engagement rants?

Zengagement: The Holographic Organization. Employee engagement will be successful when we fuse individuals with organizations.

Improvising Employee Engagement. The field of improvisation has much to teach us about employee engagement especially during these turbulent times that is turning all of us into improvisers.

2 Interviews with Jerry Pounds on Reinforcement and Positive Influence. Jerry Pound helped me to appreciate the contributions and strengths of a behavioral model to employee engagement.

Employee Disengagement Does Not Exist. What if there was no such thing as employee disengagement?

Thank you for reading Employee Engagement Zingers in 2008.

This site had over one million page views in 2008.

I look forward to an even stronger and more helpful 2009.

Happy New Year!

I just returned from a week’s vacation with my family in the Dominican Republic.

I loved the Island art and went to a one hour art session at the resort. I decided to do my own thing even though everyone else was trying to copy an Island scene. I was encouraged by a nine year old boy who said, “good job.” We should never overlook the power of encouragement at work even from a nine year old.

It was intriguing to see how engaged I could be painting for an hour. It didn’t matter if it was good or bad — I fully enjoyed the process and was completely engaged in the painting.

It made me realize how important it is that we find or create work that capitalizes on intrinsic engagement.

How much do you enjoy your work and how well does it sustain you?

I trust that you will be fully engaged in your work in 2009 as your work becomes your art (even if in my case, my art will never become my work).

All the best in 2009.

Here are 6 questions about employee engagement for 2009.

I would love to read your responses as I ponder my own responses to these questions.

1. Given the current economic mayhem, what will the challenges for employee engagement be in 2009?
2. Do you think employee engagement will trend upwards or downwards in 2009?
3. What will organizations need to do to foster higher levels of engagement in 2009?
4. What will individuals need to do enhance their own engagement?
5. Leaders and managers will have increasing demands on their time in 2009…how can they find time to ensure that employee engagement gets both the energy and attention it will require in 2009?
6. What do you personally plan to do during 2009 to improve your personal level of engagement for work?

We have had a challenging fall season in 2008. I sincerely hope you will be able and willing to fully celebrate this holiday season as you prepare yourself and others for 2009.

Carry on caring…

Stay engaged…

Take care…

Photo credit: 402_2008 by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmydavao/3090895407/

I have been very moved by Thich Nhat Hanh’s approach to peace and life. One of his statements that will always stay with me is: there is now way to peace, peace is the way.

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Di Smith wrote an article on engagement: Spending on employee engagement set to rise in 2009. But only a third of workers believe their organization engages them to perform well. I was writing a comment on this post when I found myself paraphrasing Hahn’s approach to peace by stating: There is no way to engagement, engagement is the way.

I believe we are too quick to look for external measures, fixes, tips, techniques, methods, and solutions to engagement. This tends to simultaneously blind us to the engagement that resides within us.

We must change the question from how do we engage employees to how engaged am I and how does my engagement create engagement in others?

Here are 5 invitations on how to engage engagement:

1. Take time each day to be centered, balanced, and mindful.
2. If you are working with someone who is disengaged don’t catch their disengagement contagion.
3. Ensure that you keep renewing your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual energy.
4. Notice the power and impact on others as you model authentic engagement.
5. Keep engaging others and don’t make your engagement contingent upon their becoming engaged.

What do you think? Are you ready to take full ownership of engagement?

Engage along with me, the best is yet to be.

David Zinger