A New Moral Contract?

So here’s a question: How good are leaders at “engaging” people?

Sad to say, not very: Only one employee in five is “fully engaged,” reports Towers Perrin, a global consultant that frequently surveys on employee engagement. Worse, the majority of employees (who range from “so-so” to disenchanted to disengaged) actually “undermine” the efforts of their enthusiastic colleagues.

Top leaders get mediocre marks — at best — from their people in such surveys:

• Only 38 percent think top leaders care about employee well being.
• More than half say they “treat us like just another part of the organization to be managed” or (worse) “as if we don’t matter.”
• Just one in four agree top leaders communicate openly and honestly.

Despite leadership’s dubious “report card”, employees are “eager” to “invest” themselves, insists Towers Perrin. But first they have a question:

What’s in it for me?

If I genuinely care about my work, will leaders care about me? We’re not talking lifelong employment here. Gen X and Gen Y could not care less about the benevolent, if paternalistic, social contract their grandparents may have enjoyed. They’re after a new deal at work — one that may prove even more demanding:

They want a moral contract.

Before investing their time, energy, dedication, caring and “willingness to go the extra mile,” they have a few questions. Here is my take on some of them.

Money and Meaning Employee Engagement Checklist

1. Will this company respect me?
2. Will I be proud to work here – or will the company’s actions embarrass me?
3. Do the company’s actions, policies and strategy live up its code of ethics?
4. Will it act with Authenticity? Justice? Trust?
5. Do its products/services make the world a better place?
6. Can I grow my gifts and skills here?
7. Will I serve humanity at this company?
8. Can I fulfill my life dreams and goals at this workplace?

So, here’s a final question:

How would your company fare against these new moral criteria?

Patricia Aburdene is one of the world’s leading social forecasters. Co-author of the number one New York Times bestseller Megatrends 2000, Patricia also co-wrote the best-seller Re-inventing the Corporation and Megatrends for Women. Her newest book, Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism, describes seven new trends transforming free enterprise.

Patricia has helped thousands of organizations and millions of people make the most of social change. She has lectured throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America, Australia and the Pacific Rim to clients that include Herman Miller, Deloitte, Harley-Davidson, IBM and the Management Institute of New Zealand. For more about Patricia, http://www.patriciaaburdene.com

Parallels Between Raising Kids And Engaging Employees

My daughter is nearly 10 years old, and per a recent Newsweek cover, is going on 15.  Her school recently sponsored a phenomenal presentation on how best to prepare kids for the tricky act of maturation in a slightly confusing world.  Deborah Roffman, a vivacious, 35-year veteran teacher of The Park School out of Baltimore, led the session.

Deb started off sharing five needs kids have until they hit their early twenties and as I sat there, furiously generating my trademarkable scrawl, I realized some interesting parallels between raising kids and the art of engaging employees.

Once kids are out of school (and out of the house!), their employer, and more specifically their leader/manager, takes over in providing these needs to varying degrees.  I was struck by the starkness of the crossover; there is a very similar dynamic between enabling kids to navigate “growing up” and allowing your employees to “step up.”

	Kids Need	Employees Need
Affirmation	Unconditional love and no sense of entitlement; mistakes are “mis-takes”	Belief and trust in their abilities, with no entitlement; mistakes are still “mis-takes”
Information	Straight talk that is age/stage appropriate	Straight talk that is timely and level appropriate
Clarity About Values	Creation of family values that can be used as benchmarks	Creation of team/company values that can be used as benchmarks
Limit Setting	Both to know what the limits are AND to understand they control the when/how much they are relaxed	To appreciate the boundaries of their function AND what they must do to expand them
Anticipatory Guidance	Based on our life experiences, we set expectations and scenario plan should something go wrong	As leaders, based on our career experiences, we set expectations and provide support should something go wrong

One slightly major and obvious difference between dealing with these groups is you get to hire your employees, versus your kids (though my daughter just scheduled my quarterly performance review).  This noted, I am amazed at the productive power of simply treating your employees like family.

Let’s Go Barefoot for a Day!

Lawler and I just returned from presenting at the Human Capital Institute’s annual conference where we heard Blake Mycoskie talk about his company, TOMS Shoes. TOMS’ simple promise is to give a pair of new shoes to children in need around the world with every pair they sell. Blake’s One for One business model is redefining social responsibility and in the process fulfilling this entrepreneur’s dream.

If you think about it, Blake has developed a business model of sustainable giving. He’s taken the concept of a non-profit and made it a for-profit venture. It also turns out that ‘giving’ is a really great strategy for creating loyal customers.

It’s also a phenomenal recruiting model. People work at TOMS because they want to become part of something greater. It’s about creating a higher purpose within your organization. Blake just recruited a top-notch CFO and when he asked him why he took the job, he said, “Are you kidding, now I’m the coolest Dad in Manhattan Beach!” It’s about providing an avenue for your people to become emotionally engaged and passionate about their work.

TOMS has also attracted amazing partnerships. Everyone wants to tell his story—Vogue, Nordstrom’s, AT&T, Pepsi and the list goes on. Blake said that he doesn’t spend money on advertising—so as you can imagine the dollars he would have allocated to his ad budget can go to making the shoes instead. Dare I say his commitment to social responsibility has produced a more profitable business model?

On April 8th, TOMS has their annual, “One Day Without Shoes” campaign: http://www.toms.com/ Can you imagine what it would be like to have no shoes? Please join Lawler and I as we experience no shoes for a day!

There Is An IMMACULATE Wave Of Engagement On The Horizon…Coming Our Direction!

We just returned from a superb gathering at the Human Capital Institute’s National Summit.  I thought I would share some of highlights from keynote speakers who reinforce our mission to the point I’d bet NONE had read Passion at Work or had visited our site as they (coincidentally) plagiarized them with absurd abandon.

Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Fortune magazine, started off by noting how “passion is the competitive advantage” needed to survive and thrive in the global economy.  He was followed by the incredible story of Blake Mycoskie, CEO of TOMS Shoes, whose melding of purpose, profits, and passion is untouchable (see our next blog posting for more on Blake).   STUNNING!

Day Two started with David Ulrich, HR demi-god thought-leader discerning that developing a “culture of purpose” within an organization is vital to both individual and group performance.  His next book “The Why of Work” is out in June.  I have had the pleasure to review the first two chapters and it rocks!

The brilliant David Forman, Chief Learning Officer of the Institute, kicked off Day Three focusing on the power of creating a “one sentence legacy”, essentially for what do you want to be remembered, as a cornerstone of performance.

Bill Taylor, founder of Fast Company, then noted that to compete in today’s climate requires businesses to position themselves “as causes not companies” to attract and retain the talent and productivity needed to win.

The last speaker, Bob Seelert, who turned around Saatchi & Saatchi, was the perfect lead in to our workshop with his philosophy that to succeed in business, and in life, you have to “know where you are going, have the courage to take the first step… and constantly hone the means by which you will reach your destination.”

Thanks to the folks who passed up the very enticing pool to attend our workshop.  Your feedback has been invaluable. It’s nice to know that we’re making a difference!

The wave is coming….  Powered by millions of leaders and employees who have been forced to sleepwalk, merely for profit, for far too long.  As Dave Ulrich insightfully noted in the context of what will happen when the economy comes back to companies who don’t engage their employees, “Memories will outlive the recession.”

Hey… Let’s Get Naked!

I had the pleasure of having coffee a couple weeks ago with Pat Lencioni, author of a few business best-sellers, notably The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and founder of The Table Group.   He just released a new book entitled Getting Naked (I believe you’ll love the cover) and it absolutely rocks.

Like Pat’s other reads, Getting Naked uses the power of fable to convey its message: being real, vulnerable, and authentic generates greater client loyalty and trust than the standard default of being right (at whatever cost).  Although Getting Naked focuses on Service Providers, for me the topic would seem to strike at the heart of our country’s current economic woes.

When I think of the fall of giants such as Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the US automotive sector, I wonder if different outcomes would have transpired if their leaders had embraced “uncommon” levels of humility, authenticity, vulnerability and objectivity.  Just because you are making boatloads of money, does not mean for a millisecond you are invulnerable; leadership, at all levels and particularly starting at the top, must get naked or they will invariably find themselves unclothed by shareholders, the market, and/or the SEC.

To this point, quoting Jim Collins’ latest book, How The Mighty Fall, (which I also strongly endorse), “a lack of management discipline correlates with decline, and passionate adherence to management discipline correlates with recovery and ascent.”  And a central tenet, I believe, of Jim’s ‘management discipline’ is an unflinching support of your core values.

Those that adopt this sort of emotional engagement will undoubtedly prosper…and be happier while doing it!  Those that do not, may not fail immediately, though their competitive advantage in terms of the most important factor in business–their people–will erode, probably at a similar pace as their profitability and market share.

So, who wants to get naked?

What Will Your Legacy Be?

Recently, Lawler and I have been debating a certain slide in his presentation content about the difference between “What Do You Want Your Tombstone To Say?” and “What Will Your Legacy Be?” Our glasses are usually half-full (although, sometimes you never know with what!) and we believe that “The Time is NOW!” —I have become quite passionate on this subject of death. The tombstone imagery takes me to my inevitable ending and conjures up feelings of defeat. Why do you think kids hold their breath every time they pass by a cemetery? I say, goodbye to death and hello to life!

We create our legacy every day—each and every one of us. Think about it—you have the ability to leave your own unique mark on the world as you live and breathe. You spend most of your waking hours at work. Lawler and I have discovered it is so important to bring your passions to work that we have created the “Seven Laws of Cultural Alignment” —http://www.ingageinc.com/about-us/

Law #1: It’s all life! Work is a part of life; there is no such thing as work/life balance. Are you living your life with purpose? Do you feel passionate about what you do each and every day? Are your personal values in alignment with your ‘whole’ life? How are you creating your legacy? We would like to hear from you.

All of these people in the slide below are ‘living’ (except Mother Teresa, my hero) and creating their legacy NOW. I hope that they will inspire YOU to do so as well!

P.S. The person that names the most people in this slide will get a $20.00 Starbucks gift card on me! Send me your list at: karen@ingageinc.com, along with your name and address. You have until Friday, 1/29, 3:00 PM MST (Happy Hour!) to respond! Have fun!!

WE HAVE A WINNER! Congratulations to Kelly Creamer of Studio SoHo for naming 19 of the 20 people below!

(L to R – Top Row) Barack Obama, Mother Teresa, Steve Jobs, Susan Boyle, Tom Cech, Margaret Thatcher, Craig Venter

(L to R – Middle Row) Dalai Lama, Karen Davis, Shaun White, YOU, Anne Mulcahy, Oprah Winphrey, Lawler Kang

(L to R – Bottom Row) Jill Bolte Taylor, Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Garrett Lisi, Sandra Day O’Connor, David Beckham

Bringing your personal values to work is just good business

One print head, two printers, three emails to the President of HP, five Tweets, eight support specialists and thirteen hours on telephone support…

A few weeks back, I wrote about my initial support experience with HP thinking that was the end of the story.  Fortunately, the cosmic 2×4 continued to hit me over the head the past several weeks as HP and I have been working together to resolve my ongoing printer issues. Yes, I do mean “fortunately!” As life would have it, I’ve gained some valuable insights that I would like to share.

My big ‘a-ha’ moment in the midst of this exasperating experience came when I realized just how essential it is that one’s personal values extend to their work and that organizations need to support their people toward this end.

Here is a short glimpse into the story. A print head doesn’t arrive as promised, to replace a defective one in my new printer, and so I once again reach out for support. Allison, an HP support technician, informs me FedEx has held up the delivery. I inquire, “Does this happen often?” She replies, “No.”  I say, “No problem, may I have the FedEx tracking number?”  She informs me that they don’t have a record of the tracking number and that she’ll give me a call the following day. I say, “No, may I speak with your manager?”

About 25 minutes later, Allison’s manager, Kyle is on the phone and he confirms that either FedEx held up the shipment or that they are out of stock in the warehouse. I press him, “Which one is it?” He responds they are probably out of stock in the warehouse, he has no idea when they will receive new print heads and he can’t give me a new delivery date. He emphatically states, “If we’re out of stock, we’re out of stock.”

At this point, I ask Kyle, “Are your personal values in alignment with your work there at HP?” The tone of his voice changed and he confesses, “No, do you think I like having to tell you that I can’t resolve your problem and I don’t know when I can?” It was then we had a break-through of sorts and Kyle informed me that I could work with Case Management in the morning when their offices opened because a Case Manager had the authority to circumvent standard procedures when necessary.

Imagine how this entire interlude could have been handled differently if either of these individuals had felt empowered to live their personal values at work. I suspect that the conversation would have been one of honesty, empathy and compassion. I would have felt their kindness and concern, and responded accordingly.  They too, would have felt a sense of accomplishment and loyalty to their organization.

What happened to allowing employees to use their best judgment to ensure that the customer has a positive brand experience from pre-purchase to service? Have our personal and moral compasses been bred out of Corporate America? Why should employees be torn between doing the ‘right thing’ and doing the ‘right thing’ as mandated by their company?

I fell asleep that night with compassion in my heart for both of the individuals that I spoke with at HP. The message is huge: Are you living your personal values at work? If not, why not? What change needs to take place to make that happen? I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Are Disengaged Employees Negatively Impacting Your Brand and Bottom Line Profits?

Recently, I had an unpleasant experience with Hewlett Packard that translated into me being on “telephone support” for over five hours with three different technical support specialists, all offshore, each being disengaged in their own unique way. By the time I got off the phone, I would have preferred to have spent the time in a dentist’s chair having a root canal. Sound familiar?

I had replaced my printer with a brand new, upgraded version from HP. For years, I had been a loyal and raving supporter of the HP brand. After setting it up and installing the software, I noticed I was missing some major functionality. I pulled out my user manual and started to trouble-shoot the situation, to no avail. Finally, I had no choice but to call technical support.

How many of you dread this experience? Well, I’m the type of person who usually strikes up a conversation and finds out the customer service representatives entire life story. Unfortunately, this was not my experience. After sitting in a queue for 25 minutes, my technical support specialist came on the phone and the first question he asked me with an authoritative voice was, “Are you on a speaker phone?” I assured him I was and then asked him the same question and he assured me he was as well. The playing field was leveled, and based on the unwelcoming tone in his voice, I was not ‘feeling the love’.

I explained my situation and he immediately wanted remote access to my computer. I asked him if this was a known issue and he just said, “Yes”. After an hour of crashing my computer three times, he told me that I was going to have to call him back because his computer was not working properly. I gently explained to him that he was providing me with support, I didn’t want to sit in the queue again and he should call me back. He agreed though I felt doubtful he would ever call back. He didn’t.

Understanding human nature, I would have been inclined to overlook the first experience—unfortunately, my encounter with the second technical support specialist located in the same office was even more of a nightmare. He made chauvinistic remarks, suggested that I should hang up and call Dell support after he had crashed my computer and then disconnected the line when his shift was over, even though my issue was unresolved—thus, the need for a third support specialist. The rest of this never-ending horror story is best shared over a cup of coffee.

Did I Twitter and Facebook about my experience? You bet. Did I tell everyone that I ran across that week about the maddening experience with HP? You bet. Will I ever be loyal to this brand again? Highly questionable.

Every good leader knows that every customer touch point in your organization supports or breaks your brand, and one of the most critical touch points in your organization are your outward-facing people. Employees that are not emotionally invested—whether they are disgruntled technical support specialists, disenchanted salespeople or exhausted leaders have a real impact on a company’s profitability and brand equity.

How important is employee engagement? According to a study by the Human Capital Institute, Recessionary Management: The Top DOs and DON’Ts for Managing Talent in the Current Downturn, “the biggest risk to your bottom line and brand is low employee engagement and productivity.”  The research firm, ISR conducted a study on the impact of engagement on the bottom line. They found that in companies with high levels of employee engagement, operating income improved by 19.2 percent over 12 months, while in companies with low levels of engagement it declined by 32.7 percent.

What do you do when your employees are not engaged? Invest in talent and dedicate the resources to develop the soft-skills – emotional intelligence, communication strengths, passion, energy, etc.– it’s more important than ever, particularly in the people who represent your brand in these difficult and competitive economic times.

What’s So Engaging About This Engagement?

I love reading articles with titles like: Top Local Firms Use Creativity to Motivate Staff. This one focuses on how gimmicks such as providing employees with a Belgian waffle breakfast, served by the firm’s principals, for hitting the firm’s quarterly numbers. Other ruses include “honoring sales success stories each month”, and holding a “funky shoe day for all workers”.

While the fun of something new certainly jars the groundhog’s day cycle, and these tactics are a bit creative, they miss the mark by a mile. Once the Log Cabin has been washed off your hands, the glory of the story’s has been digested, and your learn that Herb, the accountant in the cubicle across the hall likes to wear vintage, vinyl 70’s Go-Go boots, it is back to the daily grind of politics, pressure, and needing (versus wanting) to get stuff done.

What people want is their efforts to be part of their Life’s Work–not just a job. People gain the greatest satisfaction when they emotionally engage and are the best at whatever tasks they face, individually and collectively. They want to be able to draw on their personal missions, passions, values, talents, experiences, priorities, and dreams. They want their work to have meaning, other than merely collecting a paycheck, to give their employer their unabashed, no holds-barred focus, commitment and loyalty.

You can serve up the best Williams-Sonoma-battered waffles the world has ever tasted and their intent will dissipate at the same rate as they slide down your throat. It may sound radically creative but taking the time to understand what gets your employees out of bed in the morning will most certainly help you, their leader or manager, sleep better at night.

The Imperative of Kicking Off With Emotional Engagement

Research: DONE. Focus Groups: GLOWING. Business Requirements: IDed and PRIORITIZED. Market Need: GLARING.  Internal Resources: SECURED.  Potential Company (and Personal) Gains If Successful: KICK ASS on your ISO 9000 certified Impact Meter.

 You have done EVERYTHING right so far, including interfacing with marketing and sales from the get go, and your agency has already been working overtime preparing for the launch. 

 Yet things aren’t working out the way they are supposed to.  GOSH DARN IT! The development cycle has sputtered and a substantial percentage of the team seems to be stuck in neutral.  Marketing just started screaming for more features.  Internal factions, sensing the chaos, are hijacking key resources.  Sales is terrified they won’t make their numbers because of the delay.  The agency is more confused than usual.  SHUCKS.

 Sound familiar?  What can save this potentially costly engagement? 

 Any project, from product launches to backend IT integration to taking your company/team in a new direction, can immediately and tremendously benefit from developing a collective vision around its goals, and the earlier on, the better. 

 Getting everyone on the same page is critical, particularly to those initiatives where a large amount of funds to develop and/or market the deliverable, or waver in the revenue winds, are involved. 

 And aside from the obvious “If-we-all-are-on-the-same-bus-no one-will-be-left-behind” reason, there is another, more subtle, dynamic at play.  These types of efforts can oftentimes require an underlying culture shift to support the new processes, features/benefits, organizational structuring, and/or positioning required to enable the project’s desired outcomes.

 Getting the team emotionally engaged by drawing on the missions and passions of the leaders and team, developing a future state with actionable and accountable steps, formulating values-based communication rules, developing a personal project tag line — these are the portents of success that can appear way before the first milestones appears on your dashboard.   

 Most importantly (and perhaps from personal experience?) the up-front investment required to get the project thumping on the right foot pales (by a log?) to the adverse financial and cultural impacts of watching an unleashed launch date haughtily prance by.