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Buzzword Bingo – New Game!

A guy walked past me on my street today yakking on his mobile phone. As our paths crossed, I had a gloriously brief insight to his conversation. Here’s exactly what I heard:

“I’ve given you a six question framework for a value proposition”

I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I understand a word of that. Imagine being the person on the other end of the phone…do you agree, ask questions, or more likely, go silent and let the guy think your silence means agreement. Imagine being the customer of someone who speaks with such a lack of clarity? I can’t see many people going back for more of that.

Clarity is an important part of engagement. I’m going to keep my plain language radar tuned for more of these weird utterances. Meantime if you hear a good one, please drop me a line and we’ll share it.

Have a value proposition packed day!

Employee Engagement is a need to have, not a nice to have.

Interesting article by Ian Buckingham over on the People Management site.

Ian talks about reciprocity (a favourite subject of ours!) and writes about how the principle of reciprocity is easy to grasp, but not necessarily so simple to implement. Given how reluctant many organisations are when it comes to letting folk practice something new, his observation is well made and well understood here. Ian points us in the direction of some work done by the University of Akron’s Centre for Organizational Research, which highlights that engaged employees tend to:

• Be more satisfied with their jobs;
• Be more likely to stay with their employer even when other opportunities emerge;
• Be more tolerant of (perceived) temporary economic hardships that are down to the economy;
• Bring a consistently higher level of commitment, creativity and energy to their jobs;
• Demonstrate higher levels of “good citizenship” behaviours both at and away from work.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I particularly like the final point in the list. Linking citizenship to engagement, through a sense of responsibility and sustainability in and outside of the workplace is key to deepening our understanding of the fundamental, and I believe essential link between engagement and service. Very pleased to see this gets drawn out of the research.

Ian closes by reminding us that in tough times, resorting to push communication cloaked in the trappings of engagement is like washing the car and then parking it under a tree full of pigeons. Heh, nice one Ian!

Stand to Attention – CEO on Deck!

A good friend drew my attention to a piece in the Wall Street Journal about the CEO emerging from hiding in an attempt to engage staff. The piece starts by saying:

“As the economy recovers, employees are more likely to see a new presence in the office—their chief executive.

Chiefs who spent last year battling the recession are coming out of their foxholes to talk more with staffers. It’s an effort to boost morale, solicit ideas and better understand employee concerns. Some hope to stave off defections ahead of a job-market recovery.”

I can’t help but feel this is too little, too late. Surely part of battling the recession involves engaging with staff, walking the floor talking and listening through all times. Good, bad and indifferent? What do you think? And how about other members of management, what have they been telling the CEO in the meantime which has maybe convinced her to stay away from the frontline for so long?

We’ll be discussing this and other current engagement issues on April 14th in London at Engaging for Growth. We’ve had a great response and there are now just a few seats left. Drop me a line if you’re interested in attending. http://www.engagingforgrowth.com

Here’s the link to the full article. http://bit.ly/9BbVYQ