8 Things About Amy

Meg has blog tagged me … She was tagged by Jake.  So, here goes, 8 things you may not know about me: 

1) I watched the Buffalo Bills lose to the NY Giants (Superbowl #1) during a blizzard in Buffalo.  2 years later, I did a statistical analysis proving why the Bills should have played Frank Reich instead of Jim Kelly for my Statistics 201 class.

2) As a lonely only child, I grew up drawing houses, floorplans, and towns for hours every day.  Like George Costanza, I wanted to be an architect.

3) Due to poor artistic talent and high math competency, I entered college as an engineering major.  After a detour to psychology and women’s studies, I graduated in economics.  I still like going to open homes and hearing about psychological studies.  I still do not like differential equations.

4) My great-grandparents were homesteaders in Montana.  Much of my family still lives there today.

5) My husband, Paul, is a stay-at-home Dad.  Paul has also developed into a fantastic cook.  It is a marvelous arrangement and I would recommend it to everyone. 

6) I was the first girl on the golf team in high school.  My father got me clubs when I was seven and I took lessons/participated in leagues periodically.  I was not a “competitive player,” but my dad was able to play with the team at various country clubs around Buffalo. 

7) Despite taking years of piano lessons, participating in band, and singing in many choirs as a kid, I have a serious musical disability: I am unable to hum or recognize any popular song.  My husband’s favorite party trick is to try to get me to hum the Rocky theme. 

8) I do many things fast, but writing & blogging is not one of them!

I’m not sure how this blog tagging thing actually works, but here goes … I’m tagging Jonathan Vinoskey and Martin Millmore

Evolution of Engagement - Part II

Technology Enablement

At last the guilt of posting a part I and no part II has overwhelmed me.  And really, if you don’t count Christmas and New Year’s as holidays, then my goal of posting every major holiday still stands …

First, I want to point out that technology will never create engagement - no matter how fancy or fun the system.  Culture and process come first.  However, technology has evolved dramatically over the past few years to better support the natural needs of engagement as well as the changing expectations of engagement.

When meeting with organizations, I use the following chart to illustrate these concepts:

Humans have natural engagement needs.  They are things like gaining visibility to organizational motives and goals, learning & developing on a continuous basis, feeling part of a community, and so on.  These needs have not and will not change.  They’re basic.  However, the way we work has changed and will continue to evolve as the world continues to flatten, technologies evolve, and people (kids) adopt flatter approaches and new technologies earlier and quicker. 

The traditional methods of fulfilling engagement needs were focused on personal interactions - a company meeting, a team building event, classroom training, etc.  As organizations expanded globally and virtually (and transportation costs increased), such interactions became impractical. 

Meanwhile, we had the internet boom.  Internet tools quickly solved organizations’ needs to globalize, virtualize and save money.  Thus, the company meeting was moved to a webcast, the team building event became a distribution list, and learning went online.  The downside of such tools is that they are not truly meeting the needs of engagement.  They removed all of the good aspects of traditional tools, and kept only the bad - top-down, passive, and one size fits all.

That is changing.  Having recognized how individuals engage virtually and globally outside the workplace, along with the technologies available to them, organizations are equipping themselves with a new set of engagement tools.

Organizations that I speak with are leveraging interactive blogs as an open communication vehicle between executives and their staff.  They are also beginning to adopt corporate social networks to share strengths, interests, and goals for purposes of learning informally, finding opportunites, and completing projects.  Mark talks about the value of corporate social networks here.

Keep your fingers crossed for a part III … perhaps it will be a Valentine’s Day present to Meg.

Evolution of Engagement – Part I

 

Science and Measurement

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and talking about employee engagement - the growing recognition of its importance, organizational efforts to harness the competitive differentiator, and the emerging tools and technologies that can be leveraged to accelerate it.

 

I like this topic because for the first time in a long time I’m able to carry on a conversation about my work with friends and family “not in the industry.” For example, I was recently speaking with a friend of mine who runs her own graphic arts company. She quickly caught on to the topic and its importance despite the fact that she has never worked for anyone nor really had anyone work for her. She was able to think back to her one failed attempt at hiring - a summer intern who was engaged more in surfing and sleeping late than coming to work and serving clients.

It’s a universal topic that just makes sense to people and I’m thrilled that there is now science to back it up. Even better,In addition, leading organizations I speak to are doing something about it.

 

In my opinion, Deloitte really kicked off this trend toward fact-based engagement research. In their 2004 study, “Do you know where your talent is?” Deloitte brought attention to the fact that organizations were too focused on acquisition and retention and not focused enough on what really matters to employees – developing capabilities and working on meaningful initiatives. Organizations still (and should) care about acquisition and retention, but if they focus on what matters to people, they will attract and keep them. Attraction and retention are byproducts of engagement. Thus, if you measure and react to acquisition and retention metrics, it is too late – these are trailing indicators. Instead, organizations need to measure engagement levels; this will in turn allow them to predict and adjust not only turnover, but also top line performance indicators.

So, how does one measure engagement? There are a number of methodologies available to organizations. The general guideline is to pick a methodology and execute well as Mark mentions in his earlier post. I am impressed with Gallop’s Q12 methodology laid out in the book “12: The Elements of Great Managing.” Gallop conducted more than 10 million workplace interviews, creating a massive database of hard evidence. They have identified 12 precision statements that best connect employee engagement to business success.

The truly distinguishing thing about these measurements is what organizations are doing with them. Many of the leading organizations I speak with have found that it is not enough to conduct engagement surveys, track the results, and compare to industry standards (which most do). Most have found that it is the follow-up action which is most important. In many cases, organizations set up task forces that cross functional boundaries. Others make particular leaders accountable for improving engagement levels. In both execution strategies, the organization is setting measurable goals and people are held accountable.

Organizations are also trending toward making this information public – acknowledging weakness and exhibiting an effort to get better. This is a leadership strategy outlined by Marshall Goldsmith in his book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.” Though Goldsmith’s strategy is designed for individuals, I see the application to organizations as well. You may have been a good organization in the past, but to be a great organization in the future, you need to ask how you can do better and then show that you are doing better.