Measuring Engagement - a humorous look

In Beat the Odds: Avoid Corporate Death and Build a Resilient Enterprise by Robert A. Rudzki proposes a tongue-in-cheek measurement of employee engagement. You may want to do a quick survey of your workplace to see what this looks like for you...

The "Take This Job, Please" Index

On a humorous note, one of my former colleagues suggested a new index as a true leading indicator of employee alignment, commitment, and morale. It was to be based on the prevalence of office lottery pools. The suggested title was "Take This Job, Please"--a more refined form of the reaction to be expected from someone who had just won the big one. The TTJP Index would be measured by the number of office lottery pools established when lottery prizes exceeded a predetermined level--$50 million, say. Two or more office workers pooling their purchase of lottery tickets would constitute one office pool. The metric is particularly interesting in a multifloor office building or a multibuilding office campus. If you noticed a growing number of lottery pools at your organization, what might that indicate? After some watercooler debate, a refinement was suggested for the TTJP metric. Add this additional dimension: After the participants of a lottery pool are notified (by e-mail or phone) to contribute their share for the next round of the lottery, how much time elapses before the first person shows up with cash in fist? The metric and its analytical conclusions could be tabulated as follows:

First Person Arrives >> Comment

(a) Next day: >> Not to worry.

(b) Within one hour: >> You have reason for concern.

(c) Within 10 minutes: >> Your employees are desperate to get out.

(d) The participants prepay: >> Don't you wish your employees were similarly energized and committed to your company?

Forward-Thinking Cultures

Mansour Javidan in his HBR article July-August 2007 Forward-Thinking Cultures recounts his research on cultural bias toward future orientation. Future orientation is "the extent to which a culture encourages and rewards such behavior as delaying gratification, planning and investing in the future.

The research suggests that westerners, Taiwanese, and Singaporeans have more future-oriented than the Chinese. For organizations with a focus on long-term planning, Chinese employees can be left disillusioned by the process and disempowered by their ability to impact such long-term outcomes.

As Javidan suggests, the key is to translate any longer range objectives into short-term goals. Equally important is to link rewards and career growth to these short-term goals. Continuously communicating the linkage between the short-term goals and longer range objectives, and gradually increasing time horizons will help your team feel as though they have can impact the organization's outcomes.

Feeling Felt: Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

"When ordinary people were asked to list what makes a person intelligent, social competence emerged as a prominant[sic] natural category."

In his ground-breaking work on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Coleman introduced the concepts and tools around Self-awareness and Self-management. Social Intelligence extends the concept of intelligence to look at Social Awareness and Social Facility (otherwise known as Relationship management).

Goleman illustrates his points throughout the book with anecdotes and stories. There are no prescriptions, no self-tests, no action items. Rather, the book presents a cogent look at how our brains tune into others, and how this presents itself in our social interactions.

Perhaps the one cogent reminder is that empathy requires attention. The philosopher Martin Buber coined the term "I-it" for the interactions that range from detached to exploitive. In our multi-tasking world of cell phones, wireless internet and Blackberrys, how easy it is to enter into a conversation and then become distracted, disconnected and leaving the other person feeling like an "it".

Could you, today, turn more conversations into "I- You" conversations, where the level of engagement was one of "feeling felt"?