Unexpectedness is worth a mint or $1.75 (Canadian): MMP#12

Employee Engagement Monday Morning Percolator #12

There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.

Richard Buckminster Fuller

This is the third in the series of articles outlining the employee engagement application of Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Dan Heath in an interview in Tom Peter’s Cool Friends stated that for an idea to stick means three things:

The idea is understood, it’s remembered, and it changes something — it changes people’s minds, it changes their behaviour, and it changes their values.

In regards to the unexpected he added:

We have to tell people things they don’t know. Because if we spend all our time talking about common sense or speaking in abstractions, we can’t expect people to remember the conversation, and certainly not to change anything.

How do you make employee engagement unexpected or surprising. Do you have a statistic or story that can jolt employees out of lethargy or complacency.

Now be careful, don’t make your point pointless with an overabundance of PowerPoint slides as you blur into a darkened room dimly lit by glowing BlackBerry screens as participants drift off to bulging email in-boxes.

Can you offer something more than hype, hyperbole, or trite expressions. Unexpectedness adds a richer dimension to simplicity. For example, my last post’s statement about Employee Engagement for All is simple yet is it really unexpected? It is surprising? I wrote it and I don’t think so. It may be sincere but is it surprising?

This is your chance to be unexpected!

If you are surprising you will also win a prizing of quarters.

I will send 7 minted Canadian Olympic Quarters to the person who writes the most surprising or unexpected suggestion in the comment section of this post on how to make the statement: Employee Engagement for All unexpected or surprising.

Help me please! Don’t let employee engagement drip away in drabness.

Now I know if you are in the United States the total value of 7 minted Canadian quarters is less than a buck fifty but who else do you know in Lubbock, Tempe, or Kansas City who has a bunch of minted Canadian quarters jingling in their pocket.

Remember: The unexpected element helps us get people’s attention and keep it. Surprise functions to get attention while interest functions to hold attention.

Get Perking:

1. Write a comment to make the statement Employee Engagement for All more surprising and know that you are open to change – at least $1.75 worth of Canadian change. The deadline for your short burst of unexpectedness is by May 14th. I will die a writer’s death if I can’t get beyond the anemic Employee Engagement for All. Thanks

 Photo Credit: Untitled by http://flickr.com/photos/unsureshot/93671849/