The Heart of Engagement

Engaging in non-Traditional Collaborations..."Oh the Places You'll Go"

Mike Cook — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:00:00 -0500

"Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won."

Dr. Suess

Turn back the clock to an April afternoon in Michigan in the spring of 1965. A young man leaves the back door of the high school gymnasium headed for baseball practice. Cleats slung over his shoulder, mitt under his arm, he is hailed by members of the track team and challenged to a footrace in the school parking lot. The young man has developed something of a reputation for being fleet of foot, at least on the baseball field, regularly stealing two and three bases a game. His colleagues on the track team want to see if he can translate his speed on the bases to speed on the track.

The runners gather at a line on the asphalt lot measured 100 yards from a finish near the baseball diamond. The young man was not prepared for this race; he wears low cut canvas sneakers and long pants. His challengers from the track team are dressed for their practice in shorts and running shoes. At the sound of the starter they are off and 10.2 seconds later the young baseball player crosses the finish line several yards ahead of the members of the track team.

The track coach who has been watching the proceedings approaches the baseballer and asks him about joining the track squad. Flattered, the young man expresses interest provided that he can also remain on the baseball team, his first love. In response the coach says that the young man will have to choose between the two sports and points out that he could likely be very successful as a sprinter for the track squad. The young man thanks the coach for the offer but chooses to remain with the baseball team. Later that spring at the all-city track meet the 100-yard dash is won with a time of 10.0, two tenths of a second faster than the young baseball player had run in sneakers and long pants with no warm up that April afternoon.

Fast forward to early 2009, the former young baseball player, now an experienced OD consultant leads a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary initiative on behalf of a client interested in generating innovative thinking and solutions in some critical customer facing areas. Players in this initiative are offered the opportunity to work on one of five suggested projects where major improvements are necessary and desired within a twelve- month period. Each employee involved, chosen because they were identified as “high potential”, is allowed to self-select to work on a project where they feel their talents will be put to good use. These are real projects with real needs and real dollars (in the multi-millions) and real customer relationships at stake.

When the initiative nears completion, four of the five projects have shown solid progress. The fifth project team, working on the most entrenched and critical customer servicing processes, presents a set of ideas for segmenting and servicing customers that stands to revolutionize not only the client’s business model but the industry model as well. Key contributions to this revolutionary set of ideas have come from diverse and unanticipated sources. The project team leader is a woman with less than five years experience in this 40-year-old company. Her most valuable collaborators have been a senior Human Resource analyst who was virtually unknown outside of HR when this initiative began and a finance director who had no experience in the customer facing areas of the business in his fifteen-year career with the client company. Prior to this initiative the only one of these three people who would have been invited to participate on this project was the woman team leader and she would have been given a secondary role because of her limited experience.

The connection between these two stories is of course the baseball player turned OD consultant (me) who never forgot what could have been that spring of 1965 if a different model had been in place. What if the track coach had focused attention on making use of the best available talent, regardless of the source?

Today’s organizations might not be as strapped for talent as they might imagine. Quite possibly their mental models for what it takes to contribute are the true limit to what they are experiencing when it comes to innovative thinking.

Where is your organization trapped by its adherence to a tradition of finding solutions to current problems from among the available functional knowledge and experience that created them?
What would it take to allow people with talent, passion, initiative and creativity to become involved regardless of current assignments or functional history?

ps If you are one of those employees looking to get your “light out from under the bushel” like to ones described at my client above, take a look at what Paul Herbert has to say over at Fistful of Talent. Check out Paul’s March 2, 2010 post about your responsibility in the matter.

What is the Sound of Engagement?* A Manager Needs to Know

Mike Cook — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Probably the most common mistake I watch managers make daily in the workplace is addressing their reports as if they are in the same frame of mind. When people are nodding their heads, it means they are nodding their heads; that's it!

(* This post applies anytime you are counting on the collaboration of others., manager or not.)

Take a look at this group in the picture above. (Never mind the boats and water in the background, get back to business here!) Are they ready to contribute or have they assumed some pretense? Look, they have their paperwork out and turned to the first page and they seem attentive! (So do you when you assume this posture so now you know how much stock to put in their appearances.)

You may have never thought about it but as a manager you need to be aware that engagement has at least three voices, Contribution,Compliance and Resistance, which are frames of mind your reports can be in at any time...

· depending on the day

· the conversation topic

· what happened to them last night at home or this morning

· what they were doing or

· who they were talking to just before they came to your meeting

· and, and, and …or, or, or…life will not leave us alone.

So now, what do I mean when I reference “frames of mind?” Frame, like window frame, the place we are looking at the world from at any moment is more kaleidoscopic than fixed. (What you said to me yesterday was fine and welcome, say the same thing today after I have just had a tough conversation with a peer in another department and I may ‘jump down your throat, much to your surprise and dismay.) We are always giving voice to our frame of mind if others would just listen and watch

Engaged, associated by choice, is a condition of being, and there are both ultimate and interim conditions of being to consider. Ultimate engagement arises from commitments to choices made. Interim engagement is subject to the slings and arrows of everyday/every moment life and constantly in flux. Ultimately, I am completely committed to the success of my marriage; in the interim, my wife has asked me to check under the house for a water leak! Given my aversion to both maintenance and the underside of the house about the best I can muster up for this one is an “Okey Doke honey!” and grudgingly crawl under after just about anything else I can think of that just “has to be done” before checking for the leak. As it turns out my wife knows that my ultimate commitment to the marriage always wins out over my weasel mind and she will get her report on the alleged leak sooner rather than later, so she doesn’t try to handle my dawdling.

What is this interim Voice of engagement thing, the one we usually hear from in the moment?

Voice of Contribution- “I am on it honey thanks for letting me know there may be a problem”, followed by action.

Voice of Compliance- As above, “Okey Doke honey”, followed by going to the refrigerator ,making a sandwich, watching some of the ballgame and then crawling under the house.

Voice of Resistance- “It rained last week and I don’t want to get muddy so I’ll get to it next week, its probably nothing.”, followed by no action until asked again.

I hope that you can translate these personal examples into your own when addressing your team or another co-worker while engaged in getting something done.

Message for today: If you don’t check in with people (ask) you run the risk of talking to yourself and assuming that head nods, Okey Dokes and even “You got it boss” means that something is going to happen and you can count on it.

So, do you know your reports as well as my wife knows me; I didn’t think so.

How many times have you been burned by talking with your folks as though they are right there with you?
How many times have you known they were not right there with you and you went right on talking as though you could talk them into it?
How many times have you taken their silence to mean assent and walked away hoping you were going to get what you asked for.

Is this too basic? I wish it were and I don’t by any means want to insult anyone, unless it will help get this clear, when you are not winning as a manager start with where people are at. Address them where they are, not where you wish they were. Be curious, find out why they may not be engaged, ask what you can offer to address misunderstandings or fears directly. In the interim getting in communication is the result to be produced, ultimately it will get you where you want to go.

Where are you assuming engagement and getting egg on your face?

For an alternative to the manager's perspective, to see how "life at work" can impact the individual, take a look at All Things Workplace by Steve Roesler especially the post of February 25th, What Happened to the Talent?

I recommend a regular visit to Steve's site, you'll get hooked.

Obstacles to Engagement #2*: Rage Against the Machine

Mike Cook — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:00:00 -0500

If a hip reference to a well known rock band (Rage Against the Machine) from the 1990’s, known for their highly political lyrics, made by a 63 year old white guy, has a tendency to tweak your beak then we are probably already off to a bad start this week. If not then hang in there, I promise this gets better.

Now wait a minute, if you are reading this you are probably quite a few years away from 63 and the only one who really needs an explanation for the title of this post is me! My bad.

'Rage against the Machine', I do like the sound of the phrase and it really is an example of a term that is self-explanatory. As an obstacle, anything that interrupts the ability to engage freely with our work is worthy of a conversation, especially when it involves something that is completely within our control, the rage that is. Rage against whatever or whoever, whether it is…

A co-worker
A manager
A policy
Them
They
Those guys in the ivory tower

(…you know who and what I mean, that which we grind our gears about), is unequivocally a waste of time, precious lifetime, the one resource you have that is truly yours and is non-renewable. Whenever I hear someone raging, ranting about their situation all I can ever think to ask is whether they understand the game they are playing. Business, it is a high contact pastime. Even in real high contact sports, when it is a matter of business, there is more than one way to get your bell rung. Here’s a really current example of what I am referring to...

February 22,2010, ‘CBS Sports Wire Reports’ earlier today reported that the San Diego Chargers of National Football League fame announced they have dismissed long time star running back LaDainian Tomlinson after a nine year career with the team. To quote the story, "The yards didn't pile up as easily as in previous seasons. LaDainian Tomlinson was slowing down because of injuries and age, becoming less and less the face of the franchise as his role was reduced in a pass-happy offense. On Monday, he was released by the San Diego Chargers, a franchise he helped revive with a brilliant nine-year run in which he became one of the NFL's greatest running backs.”

Oh by the way, Mr. Tomlinson had a $2M roster bonus due in March. Aaaaaahh! That’s not fair, after all he did for the team. Read the story. Back during Super Bowl week LaDanian spoke with his agent Tom Condon and let him know that he thought it was time to move on. This is a sign of someone who understands the game they are playing, he looked at the wall, he saw what was written there and he chose, to engage with the reality in which he found himself. Did he like it? I can’t imagine that he did. Could he change what was going to happen? Not very likely. Rather than rage against the team or wait for decision that was probably inevitable LaDanian chose to initiate action on behalf of his future. So am I saying you should always walk away from a fight? No, I am saying walk away from a whine!

Kris Dunn recently took a whack at this topic from where he sees things in his own post titled in part “…Rage Against the Machine.” His takes come from a different perspective as he poses the challenge to us where there is at least the possibility we can do something to preserve self-respect, rather than curl up in a ball and going catatonic.

Either way, Kris’s or LaDanian’s, it’s about being a player in the game going on right in front of you, that’s a choice for staying alive, for acting like you are on the playing field and not someone who got their popcorn spilled by some other rowdy fan.

Back in 19 and 79 I found myself getting all whiney about my situation in the big oil company. I was a rising star, by my own admission. Maybe my trajectory was a bit shallow but I knew I was meant for better things than waiting in line for the next available management opening blah, blah, blah. Truth be told I had educated myself as an HR professional to insure that I would be able to make a good living (reasonable but not inspirational) and while that was proving to be the case I was increasingly interested in things that I would later learn were part of the study of Organizational Development. "How could this Fortune 50 company not be doing more of what I was interested in doing?" Well they weren’t and for the most part they would not begin to for nearly another 10 years, at least on any scale.

One day late in that year I woke up and realized that there was nothing wrong, especially nothing wrong with the company where I was working. What had happened through no one’s fault was that I had discovered that something mattered more to me than simply making a living, its called a passion. Most importantly it dawned on me that I was the one who needed to take action. Within a very short period of time I had tendered my resignation and began plans to become my own employer in a company offering the services I wanted to provide. Along the way over the past 30 years there have been plenty of ups and downs and I have been on the field for everyone of them. What a great game I created for myself!

Can you say for true that you love the game you are playing today?

*There is no real order or rank to the Obstacles, I am just making a list as I go along.

Obstacles to Engagement #1: Trust Defined to Disempower

Mike Cook — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:00:00 -0500

In the “world according to me”, engagement is defined as “association by choice.” To choose is often defined as, ‘to select freely, after consideration.’ Anything that stands in the way of associating freely is then an obstacle. When trust is construed in such a way as to place the burden of responsibility outside oneself then by definition we have made trust an obstacle to engagement.

Can you imagine being at work, in any workplace, and not trusting people? I don’t necessarily mean specific people, I mean people in general. Unfortunately, I think many of us are unconscious of our biases in this regard, having “handy stories” justifying behavior that might otherwise be considered paranoid. I think you know the stories I mean, they usually include some element of “well you can never be too careful,” or “if you want something done right do it yourself.” Both of these are versions of how to avoid depending on or trusting others. These “stories” do a major job of invisibly undermining accountability in any organization. Put in the simplest terms, no trust = no accountability. So let’s take a closer look at trust in a way that opens space for accountability.

“Trust is more an attitude about myself, an estimate of my own capacities, my own ability to handle whatever comes up. If I do not trust someone, … , a more accurate statement might be that I am not happy with the way I act or feel when I am around this person. It is my sense of being out of control that bothers me…” Peter Block

Preparing for this post, it occurred to me that for many thoughtful people there are three truths about trust and no common definition. The three truths are:

1. If I trust, I can count on being disappointed.

2. If I do not trust, my life will likely be safe but it will feel more like surviving than thriving.

3. If I am up to anything of consequence—anything that will really make any difference—then I will need the involvement of others. Therefore, trusting is a foregone conclusion: I will trust or I will accomplish very little in this lifetime.

With the above three truths in mind, I would do well to establish a tolerance for disappointment. If this sounds paradoxical to you I empathize. It appears that there is always a paradox to be dealt with where trust is involved, if I insist on defining trust as having anything to do with someone other than myself!

In my experience, most people I encounter do offer their definition of trust in terms of the behaviors of others. While there is considerable power in defining trust in reference to oneself, this "conventional reality" is neglected at great personal peril. The subjective reality concerning trust is dealt with masterfully in TRUST AGENTS: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust.*

*(Kevin Eikenberry provides a timely review of this book in his post of February 15 and his blog, Leadership and Learning, merits a regular visit from readers who subscribe to this site.)

In contrast to the conventional practice, as I read hundreds of quotes from "fairly famous/successful" people to prepare for this article, a single insight became clear: there is no power in any definition of trust that depends on the behavior of others. None of these “famous/successful people” defined trust as having anything to do with anyone other than himself or herself.

Consider this:

A definition of trust that generates power is a function of my relationship with myself.

Do I have the confidence in myself to deal with whatever comes my way?
Can I interact successfully with various personalities?
Can I have direct reports who clearly have superior subject knowledge to my own?
Can I work for a manager who can see clearly my limitations and openly accept coaching?
Can I willingly depend on colleagues who's knowledge and skill I need?
Can I honor my intentions when interacting with people of differing agendas?
And most importantly, can I count on myself to respond and deliver without excuses even when someone has let me down?

This self-referential perspective on trust gives me reason to think that I can be effective no matter what and no matter who is involved. I say perspective because after reading all those quotes I concluded that trust, like we often say about beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. By adopting this perspective I place the responsibility for trust in my own lap. My power comes from the fact that there never was anything I could do about the behavior of others except to ask for what I wanted and hold them to account for what they said they would do.

I was blessed to have a manager who operated in this fashion early in my career. I made mistakes and each time he dealt with the situation gracefully and responsibly. If he had delegated something to me and it did not get done well he always held himself to account for having allowed me the opportunity to either meet his expectations, or let him down. This is not to say that he did not hold me to account; he did, and from our discussions around my accountabilities I learned from my mistakes. With him there was never any concern for being "thrown under the bus." We sank or swam together and as an outcome I was able to gain the confidence of other senior managers at a very young age. His trusting that he could deal with whatever mistake I might make allowed me the freedom to bring the best I had to offer and rapidly learn what worked and what did not. Of course, like any truly great manager his trust in me cost him in the end; I was promoted and moved on. And of course, he trusted that whoever took my place would eventually be exactly what he needed, until they moved on as well.

Where have you abdicated your responsibility for trust? When will you take it back?

What is a Leader Before They are Followed? An Agent of Futures Only Imagined

Mike Cook — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00:00 -0500

Last Friday night my wife and I had occasion to meet and have dinner with four people I may never see again, yet my life would be poorer had the experience not taken place. Each of the four, is a good deal younger than I am, a fact which itself was a source of inspiration since they have more years in front of them to make their contribution than I likely do. They were as a group and individually quite remarkable and what I’d call “leaders in the process of becoming.” Each, already accomplished in their own right, will likely be recognized as a leader on a broader stage sometime in the future.

I expect as I mention these folks by name they are recognizable among their existing audiences as “already leaders”, an assertion I will not dispute because each one has achieved in their chosen field and is undoubtedly well known. My thesis as regards each is that they will eventually be well recognized outside their immediate field as social as well as business leaders and it is purely a function of their engagement with their own vision that this possibility exists. They are agents for their vision.

Our hostess for the evening and the ringleader of this group was Christen Lien. An independent musician, viola is her primary instrument though she is rapidly mastering the harmonica as well. As her website offers, “Christen Lien’s unique fusion of East and West, classical and postmodern, acoustic and electronic, has created an entirely new sound that is both uncannily ancient and reassuringly contemporary.” She has also recently discovered her inner eco-activist and is preparing herself for a full frontal assault in support of the needs of the Amazon’s indigenous peoples.

Danielle Barnett, a photographer who lives in San Francisco’s Mission District, has combined her passion for photography, love of city life and the counter culture to take her into the heart of the hip hop world. Her natural passion now supports her as she serves as advocate for young aspiring hip-hop artists as they tumble their way through a business structure that would have them sign away their artistic rights without batting an eye.

When David McConville introduced himself Friday evening he said his firm specialized in Immersive Projection Design. Hello! For those of us from the “nuts and bolts” business world this expression did not register cognitively so I went with the intuitive and that turned out to be on the money. Short version, he does projector shows in domed environments. Longer and more accurate version, better a question than an explanation; how would you like to take a ride to the edge of the universe and back without leaving the room? David also sits as a member of the Board of Directors of the Buckminster Fuller Institute and through BFI he collaborates with numerous community initiatives to develop systems-oriented solutions to energy, environmental, and educational challenges.

Monica Niess is President of The Write Choice Network, a full-service social change organization that brings to bear broad expertise in resource development, strategic communication, organizational development, and social enterprise. Shorthand; if you are a not-for-profit and in need of funding these guys will find it or raise it for you. In November 2009 Monica had the great good fortune to meet up with Christen Lien in the Ecuadorian rain forest on a trip sponsored by the Pachamama Alliance. Not that Monica needed any inspiration, now she has new partners and the fun can really begin.

There can of course be events that intervene and you’ll never hear of any of these people again after this post but that is always true in this life, nothing and no one is guaranteed an outcome. However, it was a privilege to meet each of them even if briefly as they paused along their journeys to share an evening with my wife and me. By the way, none of these people needs a leader; they have their vision to guide them.

When I meet people like these four, I am certain that we know very little in the business world about how to cause leaders. How could we when we are so focused on what we want done rather than on what might be possible?

Based on everything I have read, heard or experienced over the past twenty years I think it fair to say that what we know about leaders in the business environment starts after they either have success or have followers. This may seem obvious and like a lot of topics I bring up it raises the question, "Why are you talking about this?" Honestly, I find the field of leadership studies to be limited by its focus on success, numbers and prescription and I think it is time to expose the shortcomings we all recognize are there in current modeling practices. How about we barbecue a few sacred cows forthwith? Let’s start with the following and you are welcome to add your own favorites:

Addressing managers as though they are de facto leaders is irresponsible organizational behavior.
Putting anyone through a one week "leadership intensive" and expecting "leaders" to emerge mirrors the wisdom of "spitting into the wind" and is tantamount to saying that when it comes to causing leaders for our organization doing something is better than doing nothing, and hey, who knows we might get lucky!
Some of any organizations best leadership takes place in middle management and the people involved should not be promoted just because they are solid in the middle.

I can of course go on and so can you. The point I am pursuing here is that leadership is likely studied more effectively before the fact as an emergent phenomenon spawned by vision rather than afterwards as a behavioral pattern.

What is it like in your organization; are you searching for people with passion and imagination or just for those who produce results?

Staying Engaged is Job 1- Yours and No One Else's

Mike Cook — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:00:00 -0500

Don’t try to reach my Dad at home during the day, at least not during the week before 4:00PM, he’s at work. Monday through Friday 9-4PM, that’s his schedule. Now you might say that doesn’t sound very demanding, he’d say that it is just about right. My Mom can drop him off in the morning without getting up too early, she usually doesn’t go to bed until around 1:00AM, and he can take the bus home in the afternoon and still have time for about a 30 minute nap before dinner. He is 86, she is 85, they are fully engaged with their lives and have schedules that they keep and don’t you interfere with the timing either, it throws them off!

This may seem like a funny place to start a conversation on your responsibility for your own engagement but read on and see if you continue to feel that way.

My Dad was one of those people who found out the hard way that loyalty to an employer is not always rewarded; he worked for one company for 30+ years and then was replaced without notice by the boss’s son. I guess you could say that he was as old school as you can get when it came time for putting his company’s interest before his own. He had actually had several offers over the years to move on but he always came down on the side of his employer having been good to him.

The events surrounding his dismissal are still somewhat foggy for me but the good news was that it took him about a half a day of feeling sorry for himself to realize that he was now released from his self imposed bondage and could go on to do anything he wanted to. That was almost thirty years ago now and he has not missed a day of work since. After coming to his personal epiphany, he set out to work as an independent electrician for several years, staying as busy as he wanted to be but eventually went back to an employed situation, not so much for the security as for the camaraderie. He had come to realize that as much as anything there was a great deal of social reward for him in the employment situation.

Pretty ordinary story, I agree, except for the part that I haven’t mentioned which was that other than the personal ego discomfort and maybe some embarrassment about not seeing it coming my Dad really got over the shock very quickly, my mother as well. They didn’t like what had happened but neither were they devastated, they didn’t go into the tailspin I have seen take over so many families when there is a loss of income or position.

My parents are both children of the Great Depression and that fact of life had so significantly shaped their lives that they had always lived as if those events could occur again. I don’t mean like living in fear, they took a pragmatic approach, "If something happened once it could happen again." So when what they were prepared for actually occurred they rolled through it and on into the rest of their lives and have not looked back.

Simple story, profound lesson, one worth considering; so are these questions…

Are you living like there is a tomorrow you can count on and income that is predictable into the foreseeable future?
Are you playing your cards close to the vest so as not to draw too much attention to yourself at work in hopes that being adequate will be sufficient?
Are you committed beyond your financial means?
Do you have an identity that is based on that you are what you do, who you work for, where you live, where your kids go to school?

If you answered yes to any of these questions you are severely compromised, you cannot possibly be fully engaged, and essentially a detriment to yourself and your employer; not only that you are extremely vulnerable whether you realize it or not.

These days doing good work is not necessarily enough to keep you secure, even if your company is doing well. A “tip of the hat” goes to Kris Dunn who suggested that we take a look at Henry Blodget’s piece in the Business Insider War Room from January 6^th and ponder the questions he poses there about whether we should make a practice of dismissing our merely adequate employees. Yikes!

Speaking of engaged I recommend a regular visit to Kris’s blog, The HR Capitalist, even if you are not involved with HR. Kris is an example of what a fully expressed, passionate fully engaged HR executive looks and sounds like and his posts will make you want to apply for work at his company. It is just good for you, like taking strong medicine.

So back to my Dad and Mom now. Do you still think they were a strange example of being responsible for your own engagement? If you do I should send you over to their house some evening where you will most likely find them sitting quietly together in the living room, my Dad working crossword puzzles, my Mom fussing with a sudoku. They both love being alive and have read that keeping your mind active is one of the best way to stave off the mental effects of aging. Be prepared to talk loud though, as engaged and curious as they still are they are both deaf as a door jam and not willing to do anything about it!

The "Fish Philosphy": Bait and Switch at the Pike Place Fish Market!

Mike Cook — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:30:00 -0500

I was not planning on another post spotlighting the Pike Place Fish Market anytime soon, or for that matter ever again, until last week when I saw the video ‘FISH!’ for the very first time. To put it mildly I was horrified. Never mind that the production value of the video leaves a lot to be desired, the message in the film was what got my blood stirring. Unfortunately, I can now also see why ‘FISH!” is the #1 selling training video of all time.

Having had the opportunity to see first hand what goes on behind the scenes at the market, learning how the crew manages and has managed to create enthusiasm and joy while tossing fish for twenty-three years, the thought that the “philosophy” has been boiled down to four catch phrases seems unfortunately typical of a nation of training companies who want to give you “The Five Best Ways to This” or the “Seven Things you Must do Whenever.” In short, we are suckers for an appeal suggesting that radical change is easy and methodical, something anyone can learn.

So here they are, according to ‘FISH!’, the principles which took a nearly failing business from absolute obscurity to world fame in a little over 12 years.

Play
Make Their Day
Be present
Choose Your Attitude

Oh yes, and don’t forget to throw the fish, the little stuffed fish. Yes folks, it is really that simple. Yikes!

Please, could anyone have come up with a system that is more paternalistic and less sustainable than what is suggested in the ‘FISH!’ video? Actually, if I had to say what I thought the video was designed to do it would be to make you feel bad about your business but know that the answers were just a few dollars away.

Certainly the film is inspiring, it also tells you nothing about the process that resulted in what you are witnessing when you watch the fishmongers at work, either on film or in person. What it does tell you is how someone described what they were seeing as they watched the fishmongers at work. Much like a spectator who watches a sporting event the video collapses the distinction between what is actually going on in the market and what it looks like is going on. Maybe you have listened to one of those radio “call in shows” where the fan/caller refers to their favorite team’s performance over the weekend using the pronoun “we”. When you hear these calls you must immediately think the caller is delusional, they cannot tell the difference between themselves watching the game and the players who played it. But you see, that is exactly why ‘FISH’ has such appeal, the producers are passing off their interpretation as fact and it is compelling because it touches very deeply into that area of our psyche where we

Yearn for significance in our work
Are drawn to a purpose larger than ourselves
Aspire to belong to something that we have helped create

Unfortunately, the program as it is pitched also appeals to one of our most base instincts and that is the possibility of achieving something remarkable for little or no risk or effort.

What could be easier to sell, especially to control oriented employers desperate for solutions, than the idea that by putting your employees through a few training sessions, adopting a few simple concepts and investing in some trinkets, certificates and stuffed fish you could transform your organization and have it perform like what you see taking place at The Pike Place Fish Market. ‘FISH!’ appeals directly to “lottery mentality”, for just a small investment you can become RICH!

Since the fall of 2008 no less than three bestselling books have come out attempting to account for the principles of world-class individual success,

Geoff Colvin’s ‘Talent is Overrated: What Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else’ ,
Daniel Coyle’s ‘The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How
Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers: The Story of Success

Of these, Gladwell’s book, currently the best selling of all three is probably the most authentic in that it accounts for luck, special circumstances and privilege as factors contributing to success in many cases. None of these publications, anymore than ‘FISH’ accounts for everything that factors in when pursuing exceptional performance. However, all three books point unequivocally to the need to spend literally hours in preparation and practice to turn even exceptional talent into stand out skill and consistent performance.

This for me was one among several things that were missing in ‘FISH.’ What you cannot see in the film and what is no doubt not sexy, maybe even scary, is the hours of work the fishmongers put in before and after the market is open to insure that when the show goes on it is picture perfect. When I sat in on the PPFM staff meeting a few weeks back I commented to the owner John Yokoyama that his group was the highest functioning that I had seen in my twenty-two years of consulting. John remarked with a smile that it was probably because I had not been at it long enough, he and his staff had been pursuing their World Famous vision for twenty three years! In addition to set up and take down on a daily basis without fail the PPFM staff meets as a whole every two weeks with their consultant for two to three hours to clear the air and renew their commitment to their vision and each other. This is not life on Wii™ or Guitar Hero™. Neither is this PPFM according to ‘FISH!’

I am not saying that ‘FISH!’ and the process it promotes are entirely without merit, I am sure some good comes from the training. I am also sure that when I go to Chinese restaurants, the ones with the pictures of the food in the menu, if they bring me a picture of food on a plate, that wasn’t really what I had in mind.

What would you be willing to give up for performance like they have at The Pike Place Fish Market?

What Jeffrey Lebowski Can Teach Us About Employee Engagement

Mike Cook — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:00:00 -0500

“The Dude!”, “El Duderino”, “His Dudeness”, of course there is only one man who answers to all these titles and he is Jeffrey Lebowski, central character of the Coen brothers film classic of 1998, The Big Lebowski. This week I offer “The Dude” as one of the more unlikely yet profound mentors for those of us involved with the workplace environmental factors that contribute to employee engagement.

Sometimes the muse eludes me and sometimes she literally slaps me in the forehead. Last week was a “slap in the forehead” kind of week. Wednesday as I eagerly checked the mail I found that my copy of ‘The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies’ had finally arrived from Amazon. (You know something is up when you go to place an order for this type of publication and it is on Back Order) Then Saturday evening as my wife and I sat having dinner in a Mt. Vernon public house the restaurant was suddenly flooded by a cadre of men in blue bathrobes, shorts, flip-flops and dark glasses, and it is January in northern Washington! (The local classic film theatre had just shown The Big Lebowski and in apt homage this crowd had attended in costume) Finally, Sunday morning as I sat in services at my church of preference listening to harrowing stories of women around the world overcoming cultural oppression it was no longer possible for me to ignore the obvious signs I have been receiving. It is time for a post on authenticity* and there is no one who had a keener sense of the truly authentic than Jeffrey Lebowski aka “The Dude”.

As Victor Hugo asserted many years back, “Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” If I had wondered further whether or not this post would be timely I had only to do a quick blog search on Sunday evening on “The Dude” to be informed that ‘The Two Gentlemen of Lebowski’ will open this spring off-Broadway in NYC with an initial six week schedule. Yes, the signs favoring a focus on authenticity are many and like yellow Volkswagen Beetles, now that I am looking for them I can clearly see they are everywhere.

When he first came into our lives, “The Dude” was not well received either by critics or at the box office, and even to this day he suffers what might be considered an image problem, he is not a mainstream character. Many of us, upstanding, solid character types might have considerable difficulty admitting our identification with a man who at first exposure seems at best the classic “slacker” our parents raised us not to be. And so this prophet of our times has languished in something of a cinematic obscurity slowly gathering what is known as a cult following that now conducts an annual conclave in Louisville, Kentucky known as Lebowski Fest, currently heading into its 9^th annual renewal from austere beginnings in 2002. What stronger endorsement can there be for authenticity and efficacy than sustainability?

Jeffrey Lebowski, everything about the man serves as an outright rejection of that in us and our organizations which is not authentic. His personification may be somewhat easier to address if we consider him not literally but as an extreme expression of every employee, if they did not fear retribution for their honesty. “The Dude” eliminates the oppression of this fear by staying gainfully unemployed and simply not giving a crap. For many of us this is just too much honesty! Absent his respect “The Dude”, like many of our employees, is not above using us for his own purposes thereby perpetuating the notion that in fact the best we can expect from that relationship called employment is a sort of sad, smirking conspiracy where "I’ll use you and you’ll use me" and mediocre is what we’ll settle for, as long as we make our numbers.

If we cannot take our guidance from man who shops for milk at midnight in his bathrobe then maybe we’ll listen to legitimate types, James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II. These are the authors of ‘Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want’** (And is it such a big leap to also say further, what employees really want?) Gilmore and Pine go to great pains in their book to expose us to what “The Dude” simply lived as a matter of personal expression. “His Dudeness” stated an unequivocal rejection of the inauthentic as an outright form of violence with the memorable words “This aggression will not stand Man!” As academics and researchers, Gilmore and Pine seem compelled to verbosity and taxonomy (‘Authenticity’ is nearly 300 pages and gives us five genres of Authenticity to consider) but they do provide legitimacy to the conversation;

Natural authenticity- raw, of-the-earth, rustic, stripped down and best of all sustainable
Original authenticity- the first of its kind
Exceptional authenticity- stresses uniqueness, the aesthetic appeal, not like anything else
Referential authenticity- evokes an iconic time, person, group or place
Influential authenticity-implies or provokes change

If your place of work does not have the appeal of one or more of these categories you can be sure neither Gilmore, Pine nor “The Dude” would be found there, at least not for very long.

* Many thanks to Dwight Garner, book critic for the New York Times. His piece on November 29th, 2009 was the original inspiration for this post.

** If you are interested in an executive summary of 'Authenticity' send me an e mail to theheart.amj@gmail.com

"Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast", is Cisco Getting It Right?

Mike Cook — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:00:00 -0500

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" a remark often attributed to Peter Drucker, is one of those statements that so clearly frames a truth that among others things you wish you had been the one who said it!

These words are so rightly on the mark. Why does it seem that business leaders will to do almost anything BUT heed the reality described in Drucker’s words? The data, the data, the data… over the years the data makes an unequivocal case for the fact that ignoring the gravitational force of culture almost always brings change initiatives to their knees and smothers or slows the ones that do manage to succeed.

In my post of December 28th I spoke to the issue of control (command culture) as a damper on engagement. Shortly after that post a friend sent me a note suggesting that it was one thing for me to talk about the concept of senior leaders giving up control to get more leadership and engagement throughout an organization and another to provide real examples of how this might all work out if tried.

OK then, let's talk about examples! In the December 09 issue of the Harvard Business Review on-line magazine an article appears that speaks right to my friend's suggestion. What could be a more on point title for the article than To Be a Better Leader, Give Up Authority ? The authors, Amar, Hentrich and Hlupic begin with what I believe is a very authentic statement, based on their research,

"Although business thinkers have long proposed that companies can engage workers and stimulate innovation by abdicating control—establishing non-hierarchical teams that focus on various issues and allowing those teams to make most of the company’s decisions—guidance on implementing such a policy is lacking. So is evidence of its consequences. Indeed, companies that actually practice abdication of control are rare.”

Maybe you are like me, maybe not, but I have wondered for years about the pace of the democratization of our places of work or more accurately the non-pace. We, the self-proclaimed democracy loving-est people on the planet seem to enjoy talking about democratic principles in our matters of government but when it comes to our places of work we prefer, put up with, or settle for top-down, functionally oriented, command and control type organizations. Freedom of speech in the workplace, not so much; freedom to act, not unless you run it by the boss first. I do not know a company that I have worked with over the past twenty plus years where within hours of my arrival and encouragement of communication someone hasn’t piped up with the quote of quotes, “If I said that I’d be fired!” In these very same companies, I have heard senior managers lament the lack of passion and innovation from the ranks of non-managers and never make the connection between their complaint and the web of constraints they insist on.

Good for our three guys from the HBR article above. They do provide anecdotal and factual information about two companies they have worked closely with and from their experience; they have concluded this about leadership;

“Furthermore, we’ve found that contrary to what many CEOs assume, leadership is not really about delegating tasks and monitoring results; it is about imbuing the entire workforce with a sense of responsibility for the business.”

Kudos to the authors for pointing out that this definition of leadership applies mainly to knowledge organizations. This acknowledgment lends itself to the idea that any credible definition of leadership must make accommodations for situation, circumstances, and context.

While this type of research and analysis provides credence to the idea that applications of democratic principles are legitimate and successful in a management context there is still the question of numbers. As the authors state, “…. Indeed, companies that actually practice abdication of control are rare.” True enough, but what about when the company is a tech giant like Cisco? Maybe this one counts for a lot?

In the not too distant past John Chambers, renowned CEO of a company with a $20+ Billion cash cushion observed that the organizational structure and culture that had gotten Cisco to its prominence would very likely not take it to where it wanted to go, among other places the leadership position in Telepresence video.

The move by Chambers to turn over operational control of Cisco to a community of internal leaders using a structure of commitments to mutual success and committees has not necessarily drawn cheers from all quarters (20% of senior leadership has exited since this transition began) but it has drawn a lot of attention and much of it from various media concerns. A November, 2008 article by Ellen McGirt in Fast Company, 'How Cisco's CEO John Chambers is Turning the Tech Giant Socialist' provides a very comprehensive view of the makeover John Chambers seems to have in mind. The article title, using the term "Socialist" is likely a bit inflammatory. However, given the limited experience we have in America of using any participatory management approach I am not surprised that only terms with which we are immediately familiar would be used to describe something we do not know a great deal about.

What I do know is that the Fast Company article continues to draw comment, as recently as January 11, 2010. I find this unusual, there is something very psychologically provocative going on at Cisco. This change is obviously about a lot more than just economics. I also know from perusing various blog sites and reading the business pundits that the jury is still out on whether John Chambers is going to eventually be viewed as this generations Jack Welch. Has Cisco, under the direction of John Chambers found a way to not only keep culture from eating strategy for breakfast but maybe now serve its realization? At the time the article appeared in Fast Company Cisco stock was trading at just over $17/share, last Friday it closed at just over $24. In our copy cat business culture you can bet that if this trend continues John Chambers will have plenty of imitators.

The Erosive Effect of Leadership's Failure to Change

Mike Cook — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:00:00 -0500

"Creating a great place to work is one of the best things a company can do for its bottom line. It’s no accident that the organizations consistently identified as winners also happen to be some of the best places on earth to work. This occurs not as an afterthought, but as a vital, premeditated element of business strategy."

Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden, The Contented Cows Partners

I have been associated with Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden since early 2000, just about the time they self-published their first book 'Contented Cows Give Better Milk.' Since that time Bill and Richard have remained among the vanguard of voices providing fact based reasoning for why it is a sound business practice to take good care to see that employees have an environment to work in that fosters productivity.; appreciation, training, tools and technology etc. For them and for me it isn't simply a matter of values,it isn't just "nice to be nice to the nice", this is dog doo practical stuff and the facts back it up.

As practical but perhaps not as easy to swallow is the notion that leaders/managers must be willing to consider themselves among the environmental factors that affect overall levels of engagement. Much is made of the idea that customers will vote with their feet, highly mobile employees, usually the most highly prized, will do the same thing but maybe faster when faced with disengaged managers.

When it comes to answering the question of whether I am pro-management or pro-employee my answer is always "Yes!" If I am anti anything, I am anti-stupid where by stupid I mean to distinguish thoughtless action, driven by force of habit and justified in some fashion by past success or privilege of position. So no, in case you are wondering, I do not mean to imply or assert that employee engagement is the sole responsibility of leadership or management, as you prefer. Engagement, what it takes to be sufficiently involved to be highly productive is everyone's responsibility. However, it falls to leaders to recognize, i.e., not be stupid about the fundamental condition in the workplace. There is at worst an imbalance of power in the workplace and at best a perceived imbalance of power. While I would be quick to say to an employee that their engagement is first and foremost their responsibility I would also hurriedly add that perception is fundamentally, in the absence of trans-formative thinking, reality, and leaders who ignore this truth are, for lack of a better phrase, acting stupidly. Oh yes, and as a manager, since your value is added through the actions of those reporting to you...

Is there evidence for this assertion, for I am certainly making one here? Of course there is, you do not ask a question like this unless you already know the answer! Gary Hamel, in a recent posting to his blog in the Wall Street Journal blog “Management’s Dirty Little Secret” cites the recently published Global Workforce Survey from Towers Perrin showing that of the 90,000 people surveyed 21% reported that they are truly engaged with their work! If I am not mistaken this number is lower than that initially reported in the early Gallup surveys similar in nature some years back.

Hamel chides managers in a more polite way than I do. He suggests that managers are heedless of the issue of engagement where I say stupid about. OK, potato/pototo, tomato/tomoto, he has better street cred than I do, let’s go with heedless for now. Net, net, after Hamel dismisses the possibility that the heedlessness might result from 1) Ignorance-not realizing that employees are emotionally disconnected. (He uses the Dilbert strip as essentially exhibit “A” for the Prosecution in this instance.) He then goes on to check off 2) Impotence- meaning mindless, uninspiring work as a possible source of the disengagement (surprisingly 86% of those participating in the Towers Perrin survey indicated that they loved or liked their work) and finally he arrives at 3) Indifference – managers see engagement as a nice-to-have but not financially important. In his words,

“…if we’re going to improve engagement, we have to start by admitting that the real problem isn’t irksome, monotonous work, but stony-hearted, spirit-deflating managers.”

While he does not say this, I will; by stony hearted, spirit-deflating managers he means at all levels and most importantly, the top where the privileges provide the greatest disconnect between head and heart.

Hamel, like Drucker in his later years, has clearly made a connection that makes him dangerous to the management establishment. He is “the man” when it comes to the “X’s and O’s” of business so he cannot be waved off. In addition, he has come to understand that while the applications in business may be economic, the operating system is social.

As we roll along here, in future postings we will tackle just what an individual manager can do about this sad state we all find ourselves in, among other things.

Thank you for your attention.

Leadership: You Cannot Get Enough of What You Don't Want or Need

Mike Cook — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:30:00 -0500

It must be very complex, leadership that is. It must be or why would Amazon currently carry nearly 382,000 titles containing the word leadership? A quick Google query on the word "leadership" gives a response of over 143,000,000 entries. I smell a rat and I have been smelling a rat for several years now. Maybe there is something else afoot here and it is time to tell the truth about it.

In practice I have had occasion to have more than one senior leader say he or she was interested in seeing more leadership from the people in their organization. A typical response from me might be to suggest my sincere doubt in this expressed interest! A provocative remark like this better have a good follow up and there is one available, if you can get that first line out of your mouth. Played properly this exchange can have the desired effect of creating a "teachable moment" or at least one where you have an opportunity at offering something I think is infinitely wise. When challenged in these cases, as I always have been my response is similar to that offered by Doug Sundheim, Executive Coach from New York City. I'll paraphrase Doug here; "I bet you have been taking responsibility for all of the critical decisions - and thus the critical thinking behind them. Your people feel alienated, with no sense of ownership, and you wonder why you can't get them more engaged.There is a direct correlation between employee's stepping up and whether there is any room to step up." This exchange often has led to a visible shrug of recognition and a sheepish question from the potential client, "It sounds like you are saying I am the problem?" So here the "teachable moment" presents itself. My response to the potential client will be to say "First, you are not the problem but you are certainly part of the problem and if you are willing to at least be part of the solution we can make some progress. And is there a connection between what you have been doing and the level of engagement you see, oh yeah!"

It is occasions like these that are also moments of truth for those of us who fancy ourselves organizational catalysts, the conversations that now follow are not only going to determine whether this potential client becomes a client, they are also going to determine whether you are going to go back out on that wire without a net yet one more time, make that promise that things can be different. From here the exchange might go something like this, " To begin with when you have been saying you wanted more leadership I suspect that what you meant was more do as I want you to-ship." This is always hard because invariably this assertion produces a flash of recognition coupled with awkward silence and the tension of embarrassment. But it passes fairly quickly!

I then ask the by now fully engaged executive or manager another question, "What are you willing to give up?" This question almost always requires further explanation so I just go right on. "There is a difference between 1) a 'desire to be in charge' and 2) a willingness to lead. The first is a matter of personal interest or motivation and not necessarily even a qualification for the second, where I imagine almost anyone asked about the topic would say that leadership and accountability are inseparable and many who wish to be in charge just want that, not that accountability stuff! You very likely have no shortage of people in your organization who like the idea of being in charge, because of a number of incentives that go with that territory but they do not necessarily aspire to accountability because it doesn't work that way.Accountability isn't yours to give or expect anyway. It is, however, something you can request or offer and as in any deal there needs to be an exchange of value, something that provides for mutual, not necessarily equal, benefit . If what you truly want is leadership then you need to be prepared to give up something and generally the give up you are least likely to want to give is the final say."

This statement usually brings up the first " I am not really comfortable with that!" My rejoinder to that might echo the words of Sue Tupling, "Feeling uncomfortable? So you should!" in the piece she authored recently describing the emotional hurdles many senior leaders face when they first begin to confront the need to let go in order to get what they want. Personally, I have seen leaders knowingly choose control over business results or staff development on more than one occasion, especially when they knew they could make their numbers without letting go.

When we reach this point the conversation turns solemn, like something ominous is about to happen. Thankfully, at least on some occasions something really productive emerges from the somber mood and the executive or manager sees that not letting go is going to constrain them to results similar to those they have already achieved and if they are up to anything more the give up is the price of admission into a new realm of possibility. But the positive thing does not always occur and on those occasions my mood may become a bit sarcastic , "If you can make your numbers without letting go what are you complaining about? Unless of course your intuition is telling you there is something more to be had than just making the numbers. Or maybe you simply want someone to blame if things don't work out?" Shortly after this I usually leave their office.

By the way, it was probably initiative they wanted anyway, much less expensive than leadership but to the control oriented, knowing what they would want, that distinction does not readily appear.

Pike Place Fish Market- As Close to the Heart of Engagement as You'll Ever Get!

Mike Cook — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:15:00 -0500

When I created The Heart of Engagement, I was looking for a metaphor to express my passion for distinguishing factors that contribute to establishing intentionally engaging work environments. From the very start, I have assumed that there is no real “heart” of engagement, I thought of the title mainly as a way to designate a direction for an inquiry, not necessarily a destination. Recently I had an experience that has made me reconsider my own assumption; maybe there really is a heart! It happened in of all places the Tai Tung Chinese Restaurant on King Street in Seattle. I wish you could have been there!

Last Thursday evening at the invitation of my friend and colleague Jim Bergquist I attended a staff meeting for everyone who works at his most well known client, the Pike Place Fish Market, a group of around twenty. The market is located in Seattle, though I am sure that fact hardly needs mentioning since it is after all “World Famous.” Jim , who has been consulting with the market’s owner, John Yokoyama, as well as the rest of the staff since 1986 had met with me over lunch that day and happened to mention that I’d be welcome to attend and I jumped at the opportunity. {Certainly hundreds of thousands of people have watched the fishmongers toss the fish over the past twenty years but I imagine the number of outsiders who have sat in on a staff meeting is pretty small.}

I knew of Jim Bergquist more than I knew him when I arrived in Anacortes in late 2006. Some years past, about twenty or so I guess, Jim and I had been volunteers for The Hunger Project. I had read about his work with Pike Place Fish in ‘Catch: A Fishmongers Guide to Greatness and we had both started our consulting practices around the same time. So now, we live about three miles apart and are able to get together on a regular basis. The Pike Place Fish Market is a frequent topic of our conversations, mainly because I am so interested in what took a near bankrupt fish market to a twenty-year run of successes and made it a brand highly recognized in the world of organizational development.

What I saw last Thursday evening came pretty close to answering for me why the truly standout companies are not afraid to share their secrets. Like Toyota, Pike Place Fish Market has been openly sharing the philosophy that led to its sustained success for years and after all this time has very few imitators. Why? I cannot be sure I have the answer but from my recent experience I certainly now have an informed opinion. It turns out that the folks at Pike Place Fish operate from a central purpose, a commitment to “World Peace and Prosperity for Everyone.” Yea buddy, that is what I said. Nearly every one of the staff members present was wearing either a hoodie or a cap with this purpose prominently stated someplace on the garment and as each staff member shared something that evening it wasn’t more than a minute or two before someone else tied that contribution back to their purpose. As I write this, I have a good idea how it sounds and I can tell you that I have never witnessed anything more authentic in my life. The experience was humbling and inspiring.

The folks at Pike Place Fish Market, with the help of Jim Bergquist, figured out a long time ago that their daily work had to be about something larger than just making money, c’mon, it is fish they are selling! You get the fish in the morning, you stack them up, you sell them, and you go home at night and then do it again the next day. How long can you do that and stay inspired? The guys at Pike Place Fish have figured out how to do it consistently for over twenty years and John Yokoyama told me Thursday evening that this team is their best ever and they are definitely at the top of their game.

What struck me part way through the meeting was that this was not a special event; they do this every two weeks, without fail, and have been for over twenty years. Jim Bergquist has been a regular contributor for these twenty years and is clearly a revered part of their tradition. The folks at Pike Place Fish do not need Jim Bergquist, they want him there, he is an integral part of their team and philosophy and a source of objectivity when they get tangled up in their shorts, and they do!

As a professional catalyst I couldn’t have been more validated by my experience last Thursday evening. And, like I said, it is clearer for me now that the very best have nothing much to fear from the rest of the companies out there, even in their own industries. Honestly, what makes the Pike Place Fish Market rare is that the owner and employees are up to something a lot more naturally engaging than making money, and not that many companies see the possibility in that.

Competence ≠ Engagement

Mike Cook — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:00:00 -0500

This past weekend my wife and I had an opportunity to visit with our granddaughters, my son and his wife. Besides seeing my granddaughters, I also had another agenda this trip, doing a little recon on my son’s employment situation. In January, this son, the oldest of my three, was laid off from his position as a project architect at a very large firm in the town where he lives. My own response when I first heard this news was, “Yikes!”

Honestly, I had previously wondered for some time about behaviors my son described relative to his employment situation; among other things, he always left his office at 5:00PM regardless of the workload and he did not take work home on either weeknights or weekends. Being somewhat old-school myself I was concerned that if push came to shove as it sometimes does he would end up on whatever short list was created for staff reduction if there was an economic crunch that affected his firm. Of course then there was an economic crunch and he was out the proverbial door.

So, Friday afternoon as we sat in his living room, just over eleven months after his last day of work. I was curious about his experience of the process he has been engaged with. Economically he and his wife had made the adjustments necessary quite successfully but I was more concerned about his emotional and psychological state.

My initial questions to my son on Friday had the effect of uncorking a bottle of champagne! He talked virtually non-stop for the next 45 minutes about what a great time he had been having. I was thinking to myself, “Oh dear, this has finally gotten to him.” A few months earlier, back in July to be exact, he had expressed similar enthusiasm but I thought that would have worn off by now as reality set in and anxiety displaced his early bravado. Actually, he is now more excited than ever and while he did admit that there is a certain amount of anxiety he contends with each day it seems to him to be a natural part of the process that he has accepted and appreciates.

Each morning he gets breakfast for both girls while his wife sets off to work. He takes his now five-year-old first daughter to kindergarten each morning and then spends the rest of the time until noon with his one year old who gets dropped off at day care for the afternoon, when he begins “his work.” Right around 5:30PM, everyone comes home and he gets dinner in one form or other. Since this process began he has applied for and been granted a general contractors license , taken and passed four of the seven exams to be certified as a licensed architect, visited nearly a hundred potential properties for sale, interviewed and made tentative plans with several specialty contractors, purchased and learned how to use a bidding and planning software package and is nearly complete with a set of prototype plans for a residential multi-family building that he can use to develop bank financing, something he works on at times until 3:00AM, on his own time.

As time has passed since his layoff he has become clearer and clearer that he had wanted to leave his employed situation for quite some time but the pragmatic “I am a father now with responsibilities!”, part of him held him in tow like a “tractor beam” to an employment situation that increasingly offered him little other than financial reward. To be certain he felt as though the experience he had gained in his first few years with this employer had been a valuable apprenticeship. However, for at least the past three years he was increasingly distracted and I noticed him often finding fault with his employer’s decisions and practices. This was something I found strange since the employer had always seemed willing to accommodate his limited work schedule and habit of extending lunch hours so he could visit his daughter in day care. What is the phrase, “Be careful not to bite the hand that feeds you?”

Aaaanyway, this post has gone on a bit too long. Somewhere near the center of this large question we are addressing together is a lesson to be both learned and shared. If we are serious about optimizing the experience of the time of our life, it is insufficient to find something to be involved with where all that is required is our competence. This is not how our self would want to invest if we truly gave it voice. Competence does not necessarily equal engagement. Unfortunately, I fear that this is among the most common of stories we might hear about how many of our children, or perhaps even ourselves, have chosen to spend the productive years we have been given. The net effect is unfortunate to a degree that is almost unimaginable. While it satisfies the basics that Maslow so brilliantly described in his work it inevitably leads us to adopt a certain bitter perspective towards life in general and resentfulness towards others who have made the choice to satisfy their soul as well as their pocketbook. In the end, it also robs our employers of the opportunity to have the most engaged workforce possible, but that is another discussion for another day.

Emotional Maturity Stands Between Many in the Workplace and Full Engagement

Mike Cook — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:00:00 -0500

Employees, and their managers will be unable to engage with their work at the levels needed today for sustained periods until the issue of emotional intelligence is addressed as a key strategic issue in the "C" level suites around the country.

In virtually every management development program I have created or delivered in the past 20 years the point has been made that the greatest challenge facing managers today is their own limited interest in developing their own understanding of this psychological breakthrough , (probably now more appropriately defined in a workplace context as social intelligence ) or these needs among the people who report to them. The fact of emotional intelligence born out now by years of research and anecdotal references continues to bedevil managers today and the problems created as well as their consequences continue to grow. (In many instances we simply have the wrong people managing but that is a topic for another day)

It usually goes without saying but bears repeating here that business in general and certainly the experience of being at work must be considered a contact sport. As our economy has evolved over the last 25 years, the amount of contact has by design, certainly not intent, increased dramatically and my experience strongly suggests that the majority of people in our American workforce are not adequately prepared to participate in a game that requires significant personal initiative and interpersonal skill. For that matter it is probably safe to say that just as many employers are not ready to participate with a workforce possessed of an high social intelligence quotient if this had occurred as part of the evolutionary process.

Evolution may be a catch-all phrase when talking about how the economy has "morphed" over the years but one feature is worth considering; the process generally happens outside of our standard measurements of time and so changes often go unnoticed for extended periods. Management in the American workplace is now standing in front of the outcome of just such an evolutionary outcome, what Peter Senge undoubtedly meant us all to notice when he popularized the term "unintended consequences" in his landmark work, The Fifth Discipline. Educationally and emotionally, many, many people in the workplace today are not prepared to deal successfully with the level of interpersonal complexity they face daily.

A quick look back may serve a purpose here. The industrial economy offered the majority of people in the workforce

narrowly defined sets of tasks
high degrees of supervision and
limited individual discretionary action

Never mind whether this was good or bad; it was what it was and created the foundation for the standard of living we enjoy today. As the economy has proceeded along its path and we have been brought to where we are today certain aspects of that industrial economy were carried over, including some unfortunate ways of thinking about management, meanwhile what we need from employees has changed dramatically. Many managers say they want more initiative, creativity and passion from those reporting to them but are not able to recognize that these additives to the compliance that was the hallmark of a prior time in the workplace are not simple snap-on modules. This outcome begs for transformational education and skill building is also required.

Before patting yourself on the back because you don't fall into the category of the emotionally underdeveloped or see what I am talking about in your immediate reports, ask yourself and honestly answer these questions:

Am I able to participate successfully in every conversational exchange without hesitation or caution?
Am I able to have the conversations I really need to have with my reports so I am optimizing their development as well as their productivity?
Do I ever see instances where my reports "hold back" with me even though I have repeatedly encouraged them to talk to me about everything?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you were being authentic and the question that remains is, "What is the price you are paying in terms of

Your own full engagement at work
Your own productivity
The level of engagement and productivity of those you are charged with developing

This is not so much an issue of answering a question as it is one of making a commitment. As managers, as executives, are we prepared to work as hard as needed and invest accordingly to bring the social intelligence of our workforces to the levels required by the level of contact and complexity our organizations require to perform as expected? I can tell you from experience that our educational system has yet to even recognize the enormity of the problem.

Can Being Challenged Be a Source of Engagement?

Mike Cook — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:38:21 -0500

When it comes to conditions that promote engagement how much does facing a challenge play a part? If it does is it the challenge being faced or the individual being challenged that makes the difference.?

If the statistics from the Gallup organization are to be believed (and why wouldn't they be?) only 27% of our national workforce reports being fully engaged with the work they are doing everyday. I am less concerned with what this statistic means as far as productivity being lost than I am with the implications it has for the presence of passion, creativity and initiative, full engagement with the work at hand and a concern for the success of the whole enterprise. In other words that people have work to do that they feel is really worthy of the time of their lives.

The statistic cited certainly does not mean that the rest of the folks, those either less than engaged or even worse unengaged, don't have enough to do. Actually the reality seems to be quite the opposite as companies continue to rigorously maintain headcount at near absolute minimums and for exempt workers the work weeks continue to leak well beyond 40 hours and include portions of weekends as an assumption by many employers. The question it seems to beg is whether simply having a lot to do is a challenge that engages?

In my own work for the past 20 years I'd have to say that rarely have I encountered a management team that understands what it takes to keep the majority or their workforce at or near full engagement. They certainly know the results that need to be produced and they of course know how to offer significant rewards and consequences to keep the results flowing. However, the idea of focusing on engagement as a source of results still remains unexplored territory and I think mainly because managers are trained to focus on actions or behaviors not conditions. This is an unfortunate carry over from our industrial period and much of the work that was done on time/motion studies.

In 2008 Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor at Fortune magazine published 'Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else, a book that is still selling briskly. Colvin's fundamental premise is that while top performers are talented they also work very deliberately and intently on being the very best in their chosen field. Honestly, and he has data to back it up, these world-class types simply out practice the rest of their competition both in hours and focus. What Colvin's writing suggests is that there are truly few among us willing to go through the rigors of what it takes to become outstanding performers. This I think would echo a basic belief held by the majority of managers in our country, hence the rationale for many of the draconian management practices many of us have encountered.

I am of course interested in the performance of outstanding individuals, however, I am passionate about exceptional organizations. So what does a study of top individual performers and the challenges they set out for themselves have to do with organizational performance? Colvin does get into this question a bit, but not enough to satisfy me. For my own part I believe that whether consciously or not people are motivated to find something that challenges them to be the very best they can be and also to be part of something greater than themselves.

As I continue my own study of engagement, I want to suggest that having top talent choose you as a manager or your place of work as their own does have something to do with knowing that yours is an environment that challenges people to be their very best, not just work hard on what the organization needs to have done. It also has to do with having people see that there is in your place of employment an opportunity to be part of something worthwhile that is larger than themselves. This does not just happen or at least as a manager or employer you cannot to afford to believe that it will. There is as much deliberate practice in producing a highly engaged workforce as there is in producing outstanding individual performance.

(If you have any interest in the topic of performance I'd definitely recommend reading the book, it is both enjoyable and informative but you may want to start by checking out his article in Fortune which summarizes his argument).

Viewing Employee Development as an Expendable Item

Mike Cook — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:15:00 -0500

All across the American business community 2010 budget processes are well underway. Unfortunately in many cases it is likely that training and development is taking a beating as a line item. What makes an employer think that when times get tough they can cut or underfund their employee development budget and not have to account for the cost in terms of ability to execute and levels of engagement?

I am not sure how you'd answer this question but I'll give you my view; the training or development that was cut from the proposed or even the approved budget was considered non-strategic and luxurious to begin with, something that was affordable at one point but is no longer. This reminds me of the "stay-cations" everybody was taking this year and and other similar changes people have been making in the wake of the continuing economic downturn. I guess the kids really didn't have to go to camp after all, it was simply affordable. Employee Development cannot be seen in this same light.

There is a pretty important difference here, vacations were always luxuries, at least the kind that involved travel and resorts. Cutting back on your training and development investments when the going gets tough signals

A surrender to the short term
An indication that this type of investment is non-essential
Future training or development opportunities your employees have been seeking or looking forward are always going to be subject to cancellation

As far as expensive vacations go I can understand that sort of thinking. When it comes to having my organization in a state of readiness to be at the top of our game, I am sure it is not that optional. Your employees are either your most valuable asset or they are not. Their ability to perform is either always of critical importance or it never is.

Beyond these fundamental questions there are other issues that are related and demand continuous attention. It is always going to be important to keep in mind that a certain portion of your work force (likely those that are essential) may have many options as far as places of employment. You can certainly expect some churn among this group as other companies tempt them away with more rewarding financial packages. What you don't want to be doing is giving them reason to be looking elsewhere by cutting back on their opportunities to develop professionally.

As for the rest of your work force, they will not be as readily on the move. Since they are not, there is even more need to keep continually adding to their knowledge base, skill sets, and exposure to ideas and experiences. Otherwise they are being asked to deliver in the face of new challenges using recycled ideas and thinking available in the closed space of your own organization.

As a development professional maybe it seems like my thinking is aimed at feathering my own bed. That is a cynical perspective. The expenses associated with the maintenance of a strategic workforce are indeed among the largest an organization faces. It may seem that with all the basic expense associated with the workforce that cutting back on development and training is small by comparison, and it is. However, the savings usually associated with this type of thinking leaves out the costs of insufficient levels of performance and in some cases replacement of key resources, a far greater expense in the long run,.

You may not be comfortable with the intensity of my message or the suggestion that follows, but you'd be well advised to listen well to the words of Gary Hamel, currently recognized by the Wall Street Journal as the leading expert on business strategy. Much of his recent work describes the development he sees needed at all levels of an organization in order to remain any competitive advantage. Reading what he has to say you'll realize that he is talking about your development as well.

So what would I recommend? Honestly, and without hesitation, I'd cut back executive compensation before I touched the training and development budgets. I'd make the same recommendation if I was one of the executives facing these choices. There is a lot of business to be done after this recession is finally fully understood.

Engaging with Engagement

Mike Cook — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:15:00 -0500

Welcome, both to you and to me. Today marks the beginning of a new phase of my life. This is the first entry into this dialogue that I plan to host, and I am more than excited. I am by trade and experience what would traditionally be called a consultant. Personally, I have never felt that name suited, I see myself as more of a catalyst. But that gets funny looks when you put it on a business card.

Engagement is my game. More accurately, "THE HEART of ENGAGEMENT", which for me is less about knowing something for certain and more about establishing a dialogue. The point is to be continually searching for, and then asking the questions that concern what it takes to create and sustain a working environment that fosters engagement. I believe the the power to get things done organizationally, and to produce results, is a function of engagement and engagement alone. A claim like this deserves some further dialogue and maybe even some evidence along the way. My intention with these posts is to provide just that; and I sincerely hope that you will add to the conversation as we go along.

First perhaps a little definition. These days the word engagement gets tossed around so much you'd think we were talking about empowerment! In a short time, the word has almost become meaningless or so broadly defined, as to have no power when used. I prefer a definition I found in my Webster's several years back; association by choice. So whatever factors you choose to use to define engagement, you are welcome to. My frame of reference will always be seeking the factors that contribute to working environments and working relationships that are characterized as associations by choice. There are many questions such as:

What has an employee make the initial choice to join a particular workplace?
How does a company's leadership demonstrate continuously that it has chosen an employee?
How does an employee know that their employer has really chosen them for the long haul?
How does a company behave that has an authentic belief that its' employees are really its' capabilities?

You are certainly welcome to use your own criteria for defining engagement, and to share that with me as well. I'd welcome that opportunity, but be mindful this is not a debate. So, don't send me a "better definition" as I plan to continue using mine.

My attention is on distinguishing and managing the factors, aspects, dimensions, whatever, that end up with people being and working somewhere as a matter of choice - and staying in that place for only so long as that is true.