Culture to Engage

Story, Story. Who's Got a Story?

Uh, everyone! 

Everyone wants to share their story/stories.

Everyone wants to experience success.

Everyone wants to make a difference.

Those three facts definitely link to one another. The stories reflect successes--even/especially stories about failures that lead to later success. And a strong motive for sharing stories is to provide insights to others, to make a difference for them. Do you sense how engaging in a little story-sharing can unleash engagement among the participants?

All you have to do is provide opportunities for you and your team to unleash those desires.

Here is the first example (of who-knows-how-many) ways you can make sharing of people's stories a key part of your organization's culture. NOTE: Story-sharing is a specific form of engagement.

Introduce Story Power to your organization's culture. Here's a simple summary of the process you can follow:

1. Communicate the reasons for everyone having their own story or stories...and being willing to share them.
2. Provide ample time and resources for your people to develop (and become comfortable with) their stories.
3. Offer non-threatening opportunities for team members to share their stories.
4. Celebrate the infusion of stories and story-sharing in a variety of ways.

So, here's a bit more detail on the how-to of each of those 4 steps:

Communicate

• Review the reasons stories and sharing those stories make a difference in an organization.
• Develop your own story and be willing/eager to share it as a lead-off example.
• Invite informal, open-ended discussion from your team about values they know and have experienced from sharing stories with others.

Resources

• Provide every staff member a copy of the Build a Story tips.
• Make how-is-it-going discussion time available for people to discuss their success/difficulty in developing their stories. (A staff-meeting agenda item?)
• Make books and other information about the art and value of storytelling available. You may check this bibliography.

Opportunities

• The Story Hour: once a month hold a one-hour, informal reception in which just a few of your members share their stories. Refreshments are a good idea.
• The Story Magazine: stories can be written and shared as well. Invite members to write their stories, edit them, and submit them to an office publication.
• The Story Celebration: once story-sharing has become an accepted and practiced element of your organization's culture, build to major story-shares. Volunteers might share a holiday story at the holiday party. Individuals might recall and share stories brought to mind by memorable events such as moving to a new location, a change in leadership, the loss of a loved team member. These are only examples; your team's ideas will be much better.

Celebrate

• Encourage continuing reference to the stories shared. (Paul, thank you for sharing your story with us this morning. I've enjoyed reflecting on it.)
• Express thanks that individuals are willing to share both personal and professional stories.
• Offer encouragement to stimulate more story-sharing. ($5 gift cards are good encouragers.)
• Post recognition on bulletin boards. (If you didn't hear Patsy's story about her childhood victory, ask her to tell it to you.)

And b/t/w...next Thursday, 5/22, 4-5:30 EDT, I'm offering my Manage Magic with Stories audio
conference. We'll cover so much more than is here!

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aprilbmoore/2266391264/

When Time and Place Become the Opportunity

Working with clients who want higher levels of employee engagement, I've learned...

You can tell your people you need to see more engagement. Those already engaged will satisfy your request. The others will look engaged for a short time, then return to previous levels of engagement (non-?)

You can offer an engagement incentive. Many will actively engage to earn the incentive. Once that's done most will return to previous levels of engagement (dis-?) You can do that over and over and over, but do you want a culture based on incentives...or engagement?

You can threaten to bring performance evaluation into play. You can mark down those who demonstrate less than satisfactory engagement levels. But if you hold your evaluation meetings only at year's end, many will forget your threat. The ones who remember the threat are those you did not need to threaten in the first place.

So you ask, "For crying out loud, what am I supposed to do to engage my employees?"

Nothing.

OK, that's a cute answer and only partly true. You are not supposed to engage your employees because they must be responsible for their own engagement.

You are, however, supposed to make engagement available, attractive, appealing. That's the manager's job: provide situations that make the employees want to engage. By the way, these situations can stimulate engagement while having other objectives: performance improvement, learning appreciation, community respect, for example.

You can provide your folks ample opportunities in which they can experience engagement.

The secret to making an opportunity available is not its topic or theme or content or activity. The real key is the opportunity's timeandplace . Commit to a specific time and a specific place every _____ (fill in the blank with week or month or quarter) that you will dedicate to an engagement opportunity.

When you schedule the Time and the Place, you actually put them "in the way." it will surprise you how quickly ideas about what to do, to discuss, to explore, to engage come to you.

After just one or two repetitions of regularly scheduled Opportunities, you'll discover you can invite your people to suggest content for Opportunities. I/O/W you can engage them in planning Engagement Opportunities. How cool is that? 

A Challenge: Commit to providing one Engagement Opportunity every one of the next six months. Schedule the day/time. Select the place. Then watch the rest of the planning fall into place easily.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10085373@N08/

Listening For and/but/or Listening To

Right before last week's LISTEN! Audio Conference, it occurred to me that listening resides in two distinct areas: listening to and listening for.

Both listenings contribute critically to building and maintaining a successful organizational culture. (My definition of a "successful organizational culture" is one that demonstrates and profits from the behaviors, attitudes, and values it commits to, visually and verbally.)

Why do these two listenings make a difference to your organization's culture?

• Listening for means anticipating what's to be said, attentively awaiting the message or information. A savvy manager is always listening for telltale signs of success or difficulty. Listening for can be a very proactive behavior, giving you the chance to take early action, whether congratulating an employee's achievement early or offsetting a pending problem before it occurs.

• Listening to means giving attention to what is being said/shared at this moment. A savvy manager listens to everything s/he hears. Whether an employee comes to ask advice, lodge a complaint, share an emotion, or offer a suggestion, fully listening to what you hear gives you the chance to demonstrate your engagement in your employees. You already know how (much) that contributes to their engagement.

How do we distinguish between the two listenings?

• Listen for by applying attention to what you suspect is coming.  You do want to be on the ready, yet you do not want create negative self-fulfilling prophecies.  How do you achieve the first and avoid the second?

Open up your receptors to either/or. Do not lock into, "I know what's coming. I'm listening for it. I'm ready to deal with it as soon as I hear it." Open your thinking to, "I'm listening for signals of Worst Case Scenario and I'm listening for messages that the best is about to happen. I aim to listen to either one that occurs." 

Example: A new physician-owned boutique hospital is planned for your community. Concerning information and opinions from your suppliers, patients and community leaders, you want to listen for whatever they say. Listening for the bad news can limit how clearly you listen to how new competition might engage your people in better service, greater efficiency, higher morale. Listening for how good the new addition will be can prevent your listening to information that might help you enhance your employees' engagement in the face of competition.

• Listen to by allowing yourself to listen without filters, distractions, and reactions getting in the way. Make time to know what prevents you from listening openly and completely to others and  you increase your listening skills. Some common  obstacles to clear listening are
  • I know what s/he's going to say...
  • I've heard this before....
  • This won't affect me....
  • I'd rather be doing (watching, hearing)....
  • I've got so much already going on....

You may have an obstacle or two uniquely your own. Objectively identifying what limits your effective listening increases how well you listen to.

Listen to what is said, identify your reactions (emotional, conceptual, practical), and then hold them. Unless absolutely necessary, refraining from voicing at once what comes to your mind (or feelings) allows you to continue to listen, to attend the entire message, and to determine the appropriate time and manner to present your response.

Listening for and listening both provide great ways to carry your organization's culture forward by engaging you (and your people) in that culture.

[A more spiritual, somewhat different take on the same topic is at my Prosperitee weblog.]

Photo sources:
Windmill ... http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3295/2323739125_a5c2a9e025_m.jpg
Waterfall ...www.flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/105507127/

Z to A and A at Last!

old Your Horses (as You Hurry). Engagement is an investment of self (emotion, energy, time, ability...) and may not be jumped into without some preparation. No matter how eager you are to manage a team of Champion Engagers, you may want to rein yourself in a bit. Allow the engagement to evolve as it will, with your nurturing encouragement.

uarantee Attention. Whether attention is your listening ear, your good morning smile, your specific job-question, or something else, your people thrive from your attention. Every survey that measures engagement, includes questions about the attention management give employees: the more attention, the more likely the engagement. Guaranteed.

un-da-mental-ize. First, fundamentalize employee engagement as part of your operations. Employee engagement can become a common way of thinking, a second-nature behavior that leads to desired results. Second, fundamentalize employee engagement. Make it something you and your folks enjoy, get a kick out of, and have fun doing/being.

ducate. It's not just two-year olds who want to know "why?!" When your personnel have to do something new, something different, their question--whether spoken aloud or not--is why? If they have clear understanding of the reasons, they more willingly, more quickly, more adeptly tackle the change. You, as manager, own the power to educate why.

ocument. Keep a notebook, journal, log of your employee engagement efforts and successes. You may hand your job over to someone at some point. You may derive new ideas from past successes. You may have to explain or defend engagement actions you've taken with your people. You may just enjoy reading about you've done.

ircumnavigate. A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it's not always fastest or easiest. Be prepared to go around obstacles. As you plan your engagement strategy (see Landscape), keep in mind contingencies that will get you past the situation, the policy, the individual that may hinder.

e Blessing Aware. Too many blessings come our way to ignore them. Along with your people express appreciation that good stuff happens (jobs, work associates, successes, and more). There are a number of good communication choices here: bulletin board, blast e-mail, staff meeting ice breaker, passed around Post-it(tm) notes....

dvertise. Take your good news outside. The more you brag and boast and blow your team's horn, the more good will occur. You'll attract new people more readily. Your team will continually increase its engagement. Your objectives will be met sooner, more easily. Your employee retention rate will increase.

QPONMLKJI ... or What Come Next

uicken..with Questions. The more questions you ask and participate in answering,the more you quicken employees' engagement. The beauty of a direction-setting question is its allowing others to direct themselves with their answers...and to take ownership of their direction.

ersist. Quite often the first effort to light a fire fails. Sometimes second and third tries, too. Persistence encouraging your people to experience engagement pays off. Persistence is often the key. Engagement can/should be with more than just one's job. Think of career, company, network, community, and personal development as engagement arenas also.

pportunize. Offer numerous engagement opportunities. Assuming that the job is where one should engage is natural. The job's why s/he was hired. However, there are many surrounding engagement areas that stimulate job-engagement. Let me repeat: Think of career, company, network, community, and personal development as engagement arenas.

ibble. Sometimes engagement is better experienced in small bites. To attempt an Engagement or Else in the Next 30 Days strategy may bite more than your team can chew or more than they will swallow! Small steps that establish familiarity and build acceptance ultimately produce greater strides.

astermind. Here's the perfect example of synergy. Engage your people in developing their engagement. Invite discussion, ideation, forums that generate ways to engage. You may call it something else, but the truth is this: every time your folks turn on their idea-machines, they engage themselves.

andscape. Make plans. See the blueprint. Design the beauty. Build your own Big Picture. What you want to happen is more likely to happen--and more likely to happen sooner--if you've painted in broad strokes the landscape of the employee engagement you desire.

nit. Truth: well-formed, strongly coached, and frequently energized teams do more than individuals. As a leader you can knit and weave team structure. You can knit it with the yarn of engagement. Just know not to knot things up.

oin in. Your communication with your people should not come from afar. As you participate (don't confuse with "micro-manage"), your credibility and authenticity increase. Join in with just as much concern and care for what goes on as those on the front line have. This means sometimes you may wish to drop your manager's POV.

nfuse. You cannot offer too much communication, encouragement, modeling, or examples of employee engagement. Concentrate on developing ways to let engagement flavor everything you say and do, every example or illustration you share, every compliment and congratulations you offer.