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/

ZENgagement: Accountability?

Read this insightful post from jack/zen on accountability and engagement:

In many of the organizations I work in, the overperforming criticize the underperforming and ultimately call for what’s considered the ultimate cure: “holding people accountable.” Just saying the words in a pathetically stern tone warms the hearts of vindicators. What’s curious is how the question is never, “How can we get better at helping these people succeed?”

We still live under the rock of mythology that suggests that fear and punishment are sustainable factors in authentic personal transformation. They are not and never were. People become more engaged when they become conscious at higher levels, and a negative deficiency approach only creates lower energy vibrations of consciousness.

Being accountable is the act of authentic commitment, which is the opposite of bartering compliance for rewards. And this only comes about in relationships where people are supported to make commitments not contingent on conditions.

Jack Ricchiuto  

If you value ZENgagement I encourage you to read the plethora of pithy insightful and inspirational posts at jack/zen.

Photo credit: Zen rocks by http://flickr.com/photos/pyrsokomos/441063276/

Zengagement: Watt’s Up

No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Alan Watts

Wanting Employee Engagement by Nora York at TED

 

Are you ready to TED?

Last month I posted a theme song for my Strength Based Leadership Blog by Eddie Reader on “what you do with what you’ve got.”

This post is another song from the TED blog by Nora York, “What I Want.” Take a 4:42 minute interlude and hear the music and follow Nora’s lyrics that gives note and voice to personal engagement. Find the place where your mind won’t stop and your heart says go!

Photo Credit: Unique by Irina Riri http://www.flickr.com/photos/stillmemory/1348220/

Engaging the Growth Mindset

Do you mind?

Are you willing to grow for it or are you fixed – stuck in a mental rut that inhibits learning, risk and effort?

Carol Dweck, a noted social cognitive psychologist, has studied attributions and performance for many years. I recall studying her work during my B.A. at the University of Manitoba in the 1970’s. Her current contribution is a popular book on attributions and understanding of ourselves called: Mindset. Our mindset influences so much in our lives including engagement.

Dr. Dweck distinguished between two main types of Mindsets.

1. Fixed Mindset. We believe our qualities are carved in stone. We feel a need to prove our-self over and over. Overall, we see intelligence as static which leads to a desire to look smart and a tendency to avoid challenges, we give up easily, we see effort as a waste of time, we ignore negative feedback and we feel threatened by the success of others.
2. Growth Mindset: We believe our basic qualities are things that can be cultivated through our efforts. We believe we can change and grow through effort, application and experience. Overall intelligence is seen as something that we can develop which leads to embracing challenges, persistence in the face of setbacks, effort as the path to mastery, and willingness to learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others.

In support of the growth mindset, scientists have found that people have tremendous capacity for lifelong learning and brain development. Robert Sternberg stated that expertise is “not some fixed prior ability but purposeful engagement.”

When we engage we grow and as we grow we engage more and more. Employee engagement is influencing not only the attitudes of employees but also their minds. Can we win their hearts and minds? The growth mindset overcomes a sense of entitlement in favour of discretionary effort. My success is more a reflection of my effort and openness and growth as opposed to raw talent, ability, and past history.

Here is an overview by Guy Kawasaki of how the fixed mindset can lead to problems:

Here’s some food for thought: perhaps this explains the inexorable march toward mediocrity of many (temporarily) great companies. Let’s say a start-up is hot. It ships something great, and it achieves success. Thus, it’s able to attract the best, brightest, and most talented. These people have been told they’re the best since childhood. Indeed, being hired by the hot company is “proof” that they are the A and A+ players; in fact, the company is so hot that it can out-recruit Google and Microsoft.

Unfortunately, they develop a fixed mindset that they’re the most talented, and they think that continued success is a right. Problems arise because pure talent only works as long as the going is easy. Furthermore, they don’t take risks because failure would harm their image of being the best, brightest, and most talented. When they do fail, they deny it or attribute it to anything but their shortcomings.

And this is the beginning of the end.

In the race for engagement the start line begins with, “on your mark….get ready….get set….GROW!

Get Perking:

1.  Click here to see a strong one page PDF visual of the two mind-sets created by Nigel Holmes.
2. Listen to Carol 1/2 hour talk about mindsets at: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail1011.html
3. Read her book: Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Photo Credit: This is my brain by http://flickr.com/photos/killermonkeys/304439098/