Culture to Engage

Is There More to Engagement than a Story?

While the mind looks for proof, the heart looks for engagement. While the mind looks for information, the heart looks for passion. While the mind looks for answers, the heart looks for experience. The mind makes a decision, and it's the heart that makes a commitment.
                                                                               Terry Pearce

I want to take a micro-shift in focus on communication, communication as a component in the CORE of employee engagement. Please note that it this shift is of macro-significance.

As Terry Pearce's statement above (taken shamelessly from Crainer and Dearlove's article "Because They Take You At Your Word," The Conference Board Review March/April 2008) people make their engagement from their heart rather than from their head.

I'll add this: the heart says, "This is good. Let's do this." The head then adds its analytical approval with, "Yeah. It's OK."

And the magic of the story is the quickest and surest way to touch people's hearts.

I am not concerned with how well one tells their story/stories. Stage presence, gestures, dramatic pause, building to climax--while good and valuable if you want to both engage and entertain your audience--are beyond my focus here.

I want us to our share our personal experiences, our personal stories...and so share more of ourselves. Since that can happen in every setting imaginable, I'm just looking to raise our comfort level, not our expertise. (If you want to get good at telling a story as part of your presentation or from the platform, I can offer you several excellent coaches and resources.)

Whew. Here are 5.5 things I think it's good to know about story telling:

1. You Have Stories Aplenty. You have volumes and volumes of stories from your life. Plenty of these are share-worthy stories. Sometimes the best stories to share are the ones you don't have (or know yet) the specific reason for sharing. Keep a notebook with you all the time. When you recall something from last week or elementary school and it strikes you, write it in your notebook.

2. Experience Means More than Ego. Let go of any feelings like, "Oh, I can't talk about myself." or "No one wants to know that (or anything) about me." People want to know other people...much more than they want to know just others' thoughts. We know one another by knowing one another's experiences. Put ego (or ego-fear) aside. Just tell the story. If you're the hero of the story, congratulations. Those who hear your story will admire that. If you're the butt of the story, they will admire that, too. Because you shared it with them.

3. Serve a Full-Course Meal. Don't eliminate details or excitement or emotion. Don't assume people are in a hurry for you to finish. The setting, the situation, the emotion--the way the playroom sunlight made the dust motes sparkle at that moment in your eighth summer--add life and vitality to your story. Don't skimp. Skimping cheats the listener. It also cheats your story.

4. Share A Story; Request A Story. You have many reasons to encourage others to share stories with you. You'll learn something about that person. That person will appreciate your attention. You will both get enjoyment from the simple act of sharing. The story-telling will contribute to the culture of your relationship, making story-telling a natural component of that culture.

5. Know YOUR Story. While you do have an abundance of personal stories, for the specific major parts of your life (work, family, community...) one story is YOU. One story is the clear-view window by which others can see and understand you in that life-part. You may not need (or want) to script it or rehearse it or refine it. But you do want to know it. You do want it to be the story you rely on when you want people to see YOU immediately, clearly, completely.

5.5 Authenticate Yourself. The best way to let those who don't know you know you are authentic is to tell a story on yourself. Everyone of us as screwed up more than once. And some of those screw-ups have had wonderful results: instructional, grounding, insightful...and probably humorous. Comb through your mental file of stories. Select those about you and about your screw-ups. Pick the one(s) you are comfortable sharing that others might laugh at you, with you.

If you're interested in more information, more insight about making story telling a natural part of your communication skills, consider my Make Magic with Stories audio conference.

I Heard You. What'd You Say?

Does it matter how much you've heard or how well you've listened, if you don't retain a major portion?

Your people my love you for your listening skills, and they want to respect you for paying attention to (that means remembering) what they've shared.

Here are three quick Tips to Improve Your Verbal Recall:

• Wrap Up with Specifics. Ego too often prevents our telling the other person specifically what we have heard: I don't want them to think I doubt my own listening skills or my memory. I don't want to be way off in what I play back.

Those are not good reasons to avoid a verbal wrap-up. It proves you were listening. It proves you value what was said enough that you want to be sure you got it right. It provides you the chance to be accurate in the information you take away. And it never takes more than a minute or two.

• Create A Word Outline. Practice building and using organizational skills as you listen. Distinguish the words/phrases that signify the speaker's central idea. Make mental note of the speaker's main points. You can probably select a key word to label each main point. Support ideas and information then become more memorable. You more readily remember the two or three facts that support her point needing to design a new staffing strategy.

• Practice Heavy Listening. The more we experience and rehearse something, the easier it becomes. This is true of listening. This is especially true of listening that isn't easy. Heavy listening. It's easy to listen to, enjoy, and recall conversations that entertain, strike our special points of interest, and have emotional significance to us. Some listening, however, is weighty. That's not so easy to listen to; it can be even harder to remember.

Practice listening to books on CD, radio stations, or cable channels that deal with topics you would not normally listen to. Concentrate on listening > understanding > recalling. Start with small doses: 2-5 minutes. Gradually, increase your practice time. And be sure to recognize (and reward) your success as you notice how easily that kind of listening is for you, in real time.

These tips--and dozens more--will be explored in much greater detail on April 24 (4-5:30 PM, EDT) in my LISTEN! An Audio Conference.

 

The Opportunity to Engage

Managers and supervisors do not engage their employees. Employees engage themselves. Managers and supervisors can (and should) give employees abundant opportunities to engage. That engagement, please remember, can be in related areas: job, career, networking, company, community, and possibly more. All engagement benefits the business.  [If this sounds familiar, you read something very much like it in my Cutting to the CORE posting, 02/05/08.]

Some employees find engagement even without persuasive opportunities . However, a significant number of employees need the persuasion engagement opportunities provide.

Engagement opportunities produce “engagement benefits.” As you read each engagement benefit in the following list, pause a few seconds and consider how this can occur for your company.

Engagement Opportunities will

•  Generate employee engagement in general.
•  Generate employee’s engagement in a specific area.
•  Stimulate communication between employee and manager/supervisor.
•  Enhance teamwork among employees.
•  Improve customer/client/patient satisfaction and loyalty.
•  Encourage creative and innovative thinking.
•  Improve employee performance.
•  Provide tactical benefits: recruitment, retention, productivity, safety, and more.

So, what type of engagement opportunities do I mean?  Here are a few:

• Projects: Invite individuals/teams to involve themselves in job-related, career-enhancing, company-promoting, network-building, or community-supporting endeavors. These may be activities suggested/created by employees themselves. These should not be merely "add-on" assignments.
• Incentives: Material rewards for meeting performance goals stimulate short-term engagement. (See this posting.)
  
• Team Competitions: Human nature is competitive. Team involvement is motivational and fun. Create--or allow your teams to create--healthy competitive involvements.
• Celebrate Targets: Recognition of achievement can be its own reward. A visual display of progressive goal achievement, for individuals, teams, departments provides the opportunity for engagement.
• Forums: Meetings allowing individuals to share experiences, accomplishments, difficulties, etc. can serve any/all of the engagement areas: job, career, company, network, community. See the Opportunity Knox posting, for examples.

What else comes to your mind? Remember, your ideas are the best ones. You already own them.

Check out this Engagement Opportunity Template (pdf) for an easy-to-use tool.

If You Give a Hand, Why Only 'Lend' an Ear?

I asked my last 10 client organizations what is most instrumental to building and maintaining their business culture. Each answered, communication.

The more we worked on defining and designing their cultures, the more they understood the most important component is listening.

Having been a pretty miserable listener (read that both ways) much of my life, I respect the power listening brings to one's communication skill set. Add my commitment to employee engagement and my certainty that strong communication between manager and employee generates strong engagement levels.

No wonder I want to offer simple listening tips. I encourage you to use them. I encourage you to share them among your staff, your community, your family and friends. Listening is the kind of skill that can be improved continually, no matter how great your listening is right now.

I will be facilitating LISTEN! An Audio Conference Thursday, April 24, 4-5:30 pm EDT. You'll get more of the information below and many more tips, all in greater detail. Click that title if you'd like to know more and to register.

3 Ways to Improve Your Listening

• Make it conscious. Activate your mind to the process of listening. Listening is paying attention to what you hear. Consciously turn the key to that attention. Actually think about listening. There are two ways of doing this. First, remind yourself to think about improving your listening. Just a now-and-again reminder brings listening to the front of your mind. That makes you more aware of ways you might discover to be a better listener. Second, instruct yourself to listen every time you enter into a conversation. I use the two word directive: Just listen! That edict puts me in a conscious mindset to pay better, closer attention to the conversation.

• Put energy on the table. When you listen, someone else is speaking (probably) . That person puts forth her energy and (probably) expects you to exert your energy listening to what's being said. Make your listening energy obvious to the other person and you reinforce your listening. As well, express that energy by your body language, facial expression, verbal responses and you support that other person. This can make the conversation both effective and affective.

• Use visual attractions. We experience lots of distractions from listening because our minds work faster than the other person speaks. You can develop visual attractions to keep your listening attention on track with what's being said. Visual because you "see" them in your mind; attractions because they attract you back to listening. Here are two that I use (but they are only examples; whatever you create for yourself will be much more powerful!): I imagine myself turning up a volume button any time I find my attention wandering; I visualize a thought machine that belongs to the speaker and works hard enough for me to admire...and listen to!

I will appreciate your thoughts. Just click "comments" or fill in the Post a Comment box below. For sure, I will listen to them.

And feel free to check out the LISTEN! An Audio Conference offering on Thursday, 4/24/08.

Talkin' Got Style

Attention to communication as a critical skill set in a successful organizational culture suggests we seek a variety of tools and tactics to improve our communication.

It's a given that individuals prefer certain ways of how they behave. Such behavioral preferences affect how individuals communicate with one another. And how well. And communication is certainly much more than just words spoken between people. Communication is behavior unto itself. Some would say the reverse: all behaviors are communications.

The DISC assessment tool was created some 80 years ago(W.M.Marston). DISC is arguably the most simple and effective device for giving an individual awareness of his preferred communication style. In addition DISC is a language with which to identify another's style. Knowing the language increases one's ability to adapt and increase "success chances" of communication with that other person.

DISC describes specific communication behavior preferences. The language of DISC recognizes 4 factors:

• Dominance - How you respond to problems or challenges.
• Influence - How you influence people to your point of view.
• Steadiness - How  you respond to the pace of the environment.
• Compliance - How you respond to procedures set by others.

All factors comprise one's complete communication preference. An individual operates her 4 factors both independently and in concert. 

For example, when confronting a specific need to organize a short-term team to complete a specific project, Sarah relies primarily on her influence factor. Her goal is to influence other people to accept ownership and responsibility for being part of the team. As the team gels and takes on the project, Sarah's behavior preference returns to the blend of all 4 factors in ways and proportions normally applied.

This means a mix of the degree to which Sarah focuses on problems (D), people (I), pace (S), and process (C). Sarah's style of communication (behavior) is her unique assortment of these 4 factors. She may normally focus to a greater degree on problems (D) than on any of the other factors, while her counterpart Stan applies attention to the pace (S) at which an assignment is completed. While Sarah and Stan may each turn to one factor more regularly, their individual behaviors are blends of all four factors.

Each factor is scored on a 0% to 100% scale. A high score is not better than a low score. One factor is not better/stronger than another factor. The DISC language is completely neutral.

It is common to focus initially on an individual's highest factor score, as it may be the most readily observable. This can help individuals learning the DISC language and being able to describe others using DISC labels. Here are some descriptors at the high end of each factor's score:

• Dominance: venturesome, decisive, competitive, aggressive, determined, forceful, pioneering
• Influence: optimistic, poised, polished, convincing, warm, persuasive, enthusiastic
• Steadiness: deliberate, consistent, predictable, possessive, patient, passive, relaxed
• Compliance: tactful, accurate, diplomatic, systematic, neat, exacting, conventional, cautious

As a communication-improvement tool DISC offers multiple benefits:

• Increased win-win opportunities in communication settings.
• Improved confidence within teams, among team members.
• Enhanced ability of individuals to prepare for discussions effectively.
• Greater awareness of the full range of communication and communication styles/skills.

Let me know if you'd like more information. This just skims the surface.