Tag: leadership

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Engagement

A Fargo-ne Approach to Employee Engagement

Imagine a sales team working for a trip to Hawaii. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But when they don’t quite meet their goals, they are sent to Fargo ND instead.

This is a true story about employee engagement and sales performance made all the sweeter by the fact that it’s about Just Born, a candy company with great brands: Peeps, Mike & Ike, Hot Tamales, and Peanut Chews.

What I find most fascinating about this story is how Just Born made it work as a unique approach to employee engagement:

 

  • The sales team was involved in the decision-making. Employees chose both locations, so they knew what was in store for them if they met or didn’t meet their goals.
  • The trip strengthened team-bonding as it was set up as an “adventure” in which the sales team enjoyed special tours and fun events to immerse themselves in the Fargo experience.
  • As a demonstration of leadership commitment, top executives shared in the experience. Just Born’s co-CEO’s, Ross Born and David Shaffer, also traveled to Fargo.

All-in-all, a fascinating approach to employee engagement, albeit a risky one as Paul Hebert explores in his blog post the possibility that it might reinforce under-performance. Given my familiarity with the company and its leadership [disclaimer: I know David and Ross socially], it’s not an issue for Just Born. They strive to live the company’s values.

So score one for Just Born for creatively engaging their sales “peeps” … and getting a sweet public relations bonus in the process.

 

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Customer service Engagement Marketing Training & Development

What Still Matters: Three Years Later

I’ve been so busy traveling the past few weeks, I forgot to celebrate the third anniversary of my book’s release. Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care was published in October 2007, and sales are still going strong – despite the economy and because of it. As companies struggle to hold onto their business in this downturn, employee and customer engagement are more critical than ever.

In the past three years I traveled coast–to-coast to speak with business and nonprofit professionals who want to strengthen this engagement through internal marketing. What surprised me most is that while I met with marketing and human resources staff (as expected), my audiences were also filled with engineers, nonprofit managers, social workers, association executives, healthcare practice managers, municipal administrators, educators, and software consultants. They willingly shared “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of workplace engagement. (Little shocks me anymore … at the same time, I continue to be encouraged to hear what works.)

Looking back over the past three years, here’s what I’ve learned from these diverse audiences:

  1. Engaging employees and customers with internal marketing is intuitive, but not intentional enough – managers need reminders to “take care of employees to take care of customers.”
  2. Even with restructuring/downsizing/hierarchical flattening, too many organizational silos remain – employees continue to feel disconnected and disenfranchised.
  3. Management-by-wandering-around (MBWA) is making a comeback – while this practice isn’t as popular as it used to be, it hasn’t gone out of style.

Employees want and need to feel their work matters. Together with customers, they want to know that they are respected and valued.Why is this so difficult?

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Categories
Engagement Marketing

Workplace Success Starts Here

A strong culture depends on leaders who strive for success from the inside out. They truly recognize and respect their employees and are diligent in engaging and partnering with them. Unfortunately, some CEOs only recognize their people as a “most valued asset” in the company’s annual report.

Note: Debra Semans and I will address how to build a strong workplace culture at the Internal Branding & Internal Marketing: Strategic Integration for Market Leadership program we’re presenting this week in San Francisco and again in Atlanta in February 2011.

“Companies that had a strong culture going into this terrible time over the last 18 months and companies that really do care for their employees are the ones that did much better through this difficult time.” 
– Diana Oreck, VP-Ritz-Carlton Hotel Global Learning & Leadership Center,
Marketing News interview

Re-Engage authors Leigh Branham and Mark Hirschfeld said it best:

“If you begin your branding process by declaring an ‘aspirational brand’ without aligning it with the reality of employees’ daily work experience, you are in danger of writing a check your culture can’t cash.”

 

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Engagement

Engaging Employees in a Market-Focused Culture: Interview with Chris Brown (Part 1)

I’m delighted to feature Chris Brown, CEO of MarketCulture Strategies, who works with companies to create customer-focused cultures. I met Chris recently and was intrigued with his company’s mission (“Help leaders measure, enhance and maintain a strong market culture as a means of competitive advantage”) and vision (“Spark and sustain a cultural revolution that inspires employees, delights customers & rewards shareholders”).

MarketCulture offers the Market Responsiveness Index, a web-based benchmarking tool that evaluates companies on key characteristics of business performance and competitive advantage. Two of these characteristics are critical to employee engagement:

  • Strategic Alignment – how well employees “understand and enact the vision, mission, objectives and strategic direction of the company”
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration – how well employees “interact, share information, work with, and assist colleagues from other work groups.”

[Note: this is the first of a two-part interview that focuses on corporate culture and strategic alignment.]

QSM: Chris, let’s start with the big picture. How does corporate culture impact a firm’s success?

Chris: Corporate culture shapes what we do (behavior) and how we do it (performance). Culture is a tough concept for many people to get their hands around, so a simple way to think about it is ‘the way we do things around here.’ Ultimately, it is like an invisible but powerful set of expectations that influences the way people work in organizations.

QSM: Engaging employees requires that they have a clear “line of sight” to the company’s strategy, goals, and objectives. In your experience, what do you find is the biggest obstacle to achieving this strategic alignment?

Chris: The reason alignment can be an issue is simply because of change. The dynamic nature of markets means that companies need to change quickly to lead or adapt to market shifts. Strategic alignment is illusive for most because our success breeds failure. It’s human (and organizational) nature to rely on what has worked in the past. When we are successful, we don’t want to change what we are doing. Instead, focus is often shifted inward toward maximizing dollars from our current alignment. But then once the market shifts, we’re stuck focused inwardly. We’re not ready to respond, so we miss the boat.

[Note: This interview continues in my next post with Chris sharing ideas on effective internal collaboration.]

 

 

Categories
Engagement

Observing Boss’s Day: Celebratory Lunch or Lawsuit?

Just in time for National Boss’s Day, October 16, 2010 – I know of an insurance company and law firm who are co-presenting a seminar entitled: “Suing the Boss – A Guide for Prevention.” This timely topic is based on an increase in employee-employer lawsuits spurred by the recession.

Despite all the “how-to-be-the-best-in-business” books, workshops, and executive coaches available, there are still many bad bosses. (Maybe that’s why we have all those books, workshops, and coaches?!)

Consider this conversation about a boss pushing back on the subject of employee engagement.

Boss: “It’s not my job to make my employees happy!”
Consultant: “It’s not your job to make them miserable either!”

My suggestion to the bad bosses out there: get your act together – if not because it’s the right thing to do, at least to minimize your liability.

And my suggestion to those employees fortunate to work for good bosses – let them know you appreciate them every day, not just Boss’s Day.

[Source of boss-consultant conversation adapted from Re-Engage by Leigh Branham and Mark Hirschfeld.]

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Engagement

The New Strategic Imperative: Stop Before You Start

“Leaders don’t stop. Leaders don’t remove. Leaders just add to the things they expect to be done, and then are surprised that people feel hopeless and disengaged.”  – Jim Haudan, author of The Art of Engagement

I’ve seen this situation in many organizations – both for-profit and nonprofit. Struggling to do more with less to cope with economic pressures (including with fewer employees), management tends to keep adding strategic directives without taking any away. The combination of increased workload, information overload, and multi-tasking to keep up with it all, is a dangerous condition resulting in employees feeling overwhelmed at not making any progress. Is it any wonder that they disengage before they withdraw or implode?

In some organizations, management seems to have a limitedattention span as it follows a strategy-du-jour. In some nonprofits, the situation may also stem from initiatives that seem to take on a life of their own, in which management continues to automatically sink resources in such programs/events/activities without stepping back to address “Why are we doing this? Is it still relevant to our mission and our market?”

The best way I know to help prevent piling on strategic initiatives is to STOP – FOCUS – and LISTEN.

  • Before initiating any new strategies, take the time to STOP and consider what you’re asking of your employees. For example: Are our new plans realistic given our organization’s resources and capacity? Will our employees be able to handle the organization’s new initiatives without undue burden?
  • FOCUS your strategic intent by asking: What resources and/or trade-offs are necessary to secure employee commitment? If we weren’t already doing this [existing program or activity], would we start now?
  • LISTEN and take into account employee ideas and concerns: Do employees clearly understand our new direction and the rationale behind it? What ideas/suggestions do our employees have to effectively execute the new plan(s)?

So “do not pass ‘Go’ and do not collect $200” if you’re not prepared to STOP-FOCUS-and LISTEN …  unless you want a “monopoly” of employee disengagement and burnout.

 

Categories
Engagement

“The Art of Engagement”

I scout out and read a lot of employee engagements books to recommend in this blog and my workshops. My latest recommendation is The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gaps between People and Possibilities by Jim Haudan, CEO, Root Learning. This book provides a framework to bridge the great divide that exists between organizational strategy and execution: specifically, how to effectively implement strategy “through” (rather than “despite”) people by ensuring that people actually understand and embrace a company’s business strategy. (What a concept!)

Setting the foundation for his engagement framework, Haudan explores the roots of engagement as being based on four qualities that people want:

  1. to be part of something big, something special, so that their work is associated with a “sense of substance, importance, pride, and direction”
  2. to feel a sense of belonging, a sense of connection
  3. to go on a meaningful journey, so that their work is invested in something that matters
  4. and to know that their contributions make a significant impact or difference, that their efforts matter.

He also uncovers the reasons for disengagement and disconnection based on listening to employee “voices from the trenches.” Employees can’t be or stay engaged when they:

  1. feel overwhelmed with too many or conflicting directives from management
  2. don’t understand what the business is all about, what’s expected of them
  3. are afraid that their work isn’t valued or don’t feel it’s safe to speak up
  4. don’t see how the various parts of the business connect (“the big picture”)
  5. don’t have a sense of ownership of business issues and aren’t fully involved in problem-solving and offering ideas.

Haudan recognizes that every organization has major gaps (“canyons”) between its leaders (“who see what need to be done but don’t have their hands on the levers of change”), its workforce (“who have their hands on the levers of change but can’t see the big picture”), and its managers (“hopelessly caught in the middle”). Here’s a great description of the situation:

In reality, leaders almost always conceptually outrun their engagement and execution supply lines. … Leaders spend months and months developing a strategy – considering, contemplating, contrasting, and dismissing all the alternatives and possibilities for future success. When they’re finally done, they usually craft this into a “strategy-in-a-box” and ship it off to their people. Then the leaders wonder why their employees don’t get excited about it immediately. Their employees can’t realize how critical the strategy is because they have no idea what went into its creation.”

So, how do you bridge these canyons? Haudan provides specific recommendations for leaders, managers, and individuals that include:

  1. creating a “line of sight” that links organizational strategy to employee efforts
  2. connecting individual – team – and organizational goals
  3. developing capabilities at all levels of the company so it can execute strategy.

These recommendations involve helping employees understand the organization’s reality by creating visual “learning maps” of the company’s internal and external pressures – so they can better see and connect to the “big picture” of where the company is and what it needs to move forward, building employee ownership in the process.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (6): Helpful Resources

Here’s a compiled list of resources I found in researching & writing this series on volunteer engagement and management. Since this list is far from comprehensive, I invite you to share additional resource links.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (5): The Volunteer-Staff Connection

“Without a disciplined and respectful approach to recruitment, orientation, support, assessment, and recognition, we will have lower performance and a disenchanted volunteer.”
– Francis Hesselbein in Hesselbein on Leadership.

The same can be said of employees.

Staff and volunteers require:

  • an investment of time for training and ongoing communication
  • attention in terms of feedback and recognition
  • and the tools (applicable resources) needed to accomplish the organization’s goals and advance its mission.

The challenge for nonprofit managers is that internal issues regarding staff engagement also impact volunteer engagement. Like it or not, volunteers pay close attention to the staff they work with and are sensitive to employee satisfaction cues. As one frustrated volunteer told me recently: “The organization seems to expect the volunteers to be a subset of their staff and we know how they treat their staff. So in retrospect, why do we expect them to treat us volunteers any differently?!”

Volunteer relations “mirror” employee relations – if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your volunteers.

Coming up: in my last post in this series I’ll share a list of resource links for volunteer engagement and management.

Categories
Engagement Marketing

Engaging Volunteers (4): When Volunteers are Brand Partners

What I’ve shared up to this point in this series applies to volunteers in most nonprofits. In some organizations, however, volunteers serve multiple roles that require different engagement strategies.

I can explain with this segmentation model from the Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool for Nonprofits that identifies two types of nonprofit “customers”:

  • Primary customers – the people and entities who benefit from a nonprofit’s services
  • Supporting customers – the people and entities who help a nonprofit provide its services.

For example, a Girl Scout and her parents are “primary customers” of the Girl Scouts in that they all benefit as the daughter develops new skills from her scouting involvement. If her parents participate as troop leaders, help chaperone troop events, etc., they are also considered “supporting customers.” This segmentation model helps a nonprofit understand and recognize who its “customers” are (in one or both segments) so it can engage them accordingly.

But don’t let the simplicity of this model fool you as volunteer segmentation can be extremely complicated depending on the organization. It is particularly messy in professional membership associations that offer professional development and networking opportunities through national and regional (chapter) affiliation; e.g., the American Marketing Association, Society for Human Resource Management, Public Relations Society of America, etc. While all members of such organizations are primary customers, some may also be engaged as supporting customers on one or more levels as:

  • Local brand ambassadors – recruiting and welcoming other members at the chapter level
  • Chapter volunteer leaders – serving on committees/councils/boards and providing member benefits at the local or regional level
  • National volunteer leaders – serving on national committees/councils/boards
  • Volunteer speakers – presenting at association-sponsored conferences & workshops
  • Volunteer instructors – training (for free or a small honorarium) at association-sponsored educational programs.

The important role these volunteers play in delivering member benefits at the local, regional, and national levels can be taken for granted. Beyond providing token recognition for their service, some associations overlook the fact that these highly engaged volunteers help generate revenues via new and retained member dues as well as from conference and program fees. That’s why these truly “supporting customers” need to be recognized, valued, and respected as partners in delivering the brand promise.

How do you engage and manage volunteers who are also your brand partners?

  • Make volunteer involvement a focus of attention by the Board and executive staff. (See my previous post on Intentional Volunteer Management.)
  • Recognize and acknowledge volunteer value. To truly appreciate the impact of their involvement, analyze your volunteers’ lifetime value. Note: most volunteer calculators measure this value in terms of manpower hour & benefit cost-savings. In addition, consider volunteers’ economic contribution to revenue generation. [If anyone has a formula or model for this, please let me know.]
  • Keep volunteers informed of the organization’s vision and direction. You can’t expect them to serve as brand advocates if you don’t keep them in the communications loop.
  • Be sensitive to how operational/policy changes impact volunteer efforts to deliver on the brand – you want to facilitate volunteer (and staff) efforts to deliver member value, not create extra work for them. Communicate all changes in operations or policy openly and honestly, sharing the rationale behind such changes.
  • Proactively seek and respond to volunteer feedback & ideas.

Keep in mind that besides their individual and collective value as volunteers, these brand partners have strong influence on the frontline with access to fellow and prospective members who are your primary customers. Treat them carefully and with the respect they deserve.

In my next post I’ll address the volunteer-employee connection.