Employee Engagement

Engagement is also about intimacy. Without getting upfront and personal, there will be no connection with the employees. Getting to know every aspect of what they think is important.

"Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request." --Lord Chesterfield

What we in todays world look for-- is the bottom line, productivy stat's, talk time figures, sales cycle etc., and never really stop to listen. 99% of enagement is listening. somewhere up the corporate ladder, the art of listening seems to diminish. Its only when the upper echelons breath and live this culture will the cascade effect take place within the work force.

TP has always harped about MWBA stratey. Why don't we see that happening in the real world ? It's because a lot of the mindset is caught up with "ivory tower" syndrome. The corporatation will not tolorate a manager speaking about business plans too a production worker on the floor shop- why ?? Because they have a supervisor who can do that.. thats a lot of crap and big big BS !

Lipservice is cheap !!

"After all that is said and done- more is said than done !"

Posted by /pd at September 6, 2006 06:41 PM

John O,

Maybe an initiative of a "if you build it, they will come" vision is a hammer to consider. Just playing around with some ideas on a "napkin", so I pre-acknowledge their limited practicality but imagine... a Tom Peters' Re-Imagine/Re-Invention University, or Tom Peters’ own research effort that might be likened to an "EPCOT" -with a twist- (Experimental Prototype Corporation/Culture Of Tomorrow) bringing together the "gurus", under one roof so to speak...to build the "hammer".

Basically, if the book writing gigs, speaking engagement gigs, short-term consulting gigs, and blog-sphere, still leave you with a sense that much work needs to be done, what other impact generating vehicles could be developed, launched, and engaged that complement and encompass TP's (and others) revolutionary ideas?? Result: Re-imagine/Re-invention type love spreading and transitioning more "Dilbert-like" institutions to Wow!-land, better, stronger, faster (Steve Austin-like).

Posted by JH at September 6, 2006 07:34 PM

JH : "Maybe an initiative of a "if you build it, they will come" vision is a hammer to consider"

Rephase Pls : "if you RE-build it, they will come" !! :)-

Posted by /pd at September 6, 2006 07:38 PM

Cross-reference: Thinking of John's insightful comments in terms of the service scripting observations I made above. Employees who are trusted to be themselves ... one way to engage them.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at September 6, 2006 07:58 PM

Being employee-centric not just customer-centric goes a long way to creating "engagement"!

Posted by Jody at September 6, 2006 10:51 PM

Love the Aesop quote, /pd. And the Tom Peters Re-imagine University idea, JH. How are you at fundraising?

Steve & Jody: this reminds me of the Southwest Airlines approach - a subject that deserves a blog in itself. Southwest focuses on inspiring employees who will then inspire customers. And they encourage employees to be themselves - spontaneously so. (Forget about scripts - the flight attendants will do safety announcements that are PARODIES of what you'd hear on United. "Anyone who is caught smoking will be invited to step outside on our wing for a viewing of Gone With the Wind.") For SW it ALL starts with the employees. And this gang has FUN.

Posted by John OLeary at September 6, 2006 11:20 PM

To me its all about *ATTITUDE* with a CAPS "A".

To quote the legendary A.H.Maslow "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like a nail."