Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
How CEOs Do Engagement-From Cheife Executive.net
Note: This was published on Chief Executive.net and written by Susan Scott. We could not link to the original article so the contents are included below:
Step one, stop talking about inclusion and engagement and start doing it. Step two, conduct "beach ball meetings"(instructions follow). Step three, look beyond hard-wired assumptions and, yes, listen.
By Susan Scott
In early February, Engadget published an internal memo written by Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, in which he likens the once-dominant Finnish phone manufacturer to the oil worker trapped by a fire in the dead of night on the burning platform of a rig in the North Sea. He had seconds to consider the 150 foot drop into the ocean, the knowledge that there was floating debris and burning oil on the surface of the water, and that if the fall didn't kill him, he would die of exposure in 15 minutes. His only option for survival was to ignore what he had been told never to do and jump into the icy waters of the North Sea, a situation in which Nokia now finds itself after having made a series of poor decisions. Elop conveyed it this way:
"There is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.
Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.
Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem.
How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved? This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning."
Pretty powerful. The candor with which Elop delivered his message is the reason his memo had Twitter, Facebook, and the blogging community abuzz, and his employees on the edge of their seats. But while the oil worker survived, Nokia may not be so fortunate. In what may prove to be a final strategic blunder, Elop, a former Microsoft executive, announced later that week that the key to Nokia's viability and success is to use Windows Phone 7 for its smartphone. At their joint announcement, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, said, "I am excited about this partnership with Nokia. Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale."
Tru dat. Unfortunately, with apologies to my friends in both companies, apart from Xbox Kinect, neither Microsoft nor Nokia has demonstrated speed, innovation and scale for at least a decade, so it's no surprise that Nokia's employees, customers, and shareholders expressed dismay at this decision; in fact, many employees took the next day off, as PTO, in protest.
With so many shocked employees, partners — think Intel — and shareholders, Nokia provides a current example of a company that has arrived, gradually, then suddenly, at the edge of disaster with a workforce of emphatically unengaged employees, one failed, one missing conversation at a time. It's unlikely that things will go smoothly in the execution department.
Elop may be brilliant and his decision may be the right one. I sincerely hope it is. But if he fails to re-engage his unengaged workforce, he is in no danger of a smooth implementation because he cannot mandate accountability, innovation or collaboration. No one can. These are private, non-negotiable choices individuals make about how to live their lives, about how much of themselves to bring in the door each day.
We all know that if employees aren't engaged, companies will suffer. Good people will quit, defect, disappear; or worse, they'll show up every day — in body — but only bringing a tiny piece of themselves in spirit. They'll become disgruntled, disenchanted, disillusioned, which profoundly affects the bottom line. Yet, despite all the hype about what companies are doing to promote employee inclusion and engagement (these go hand-in-hand), many still see this as a soft topic, nice to do, something that makes people feel good. Of course, employee inclusion and engagement makes people feel good. AND increases productivity and builds revenue.
I think of it this way: Inclusion + engagement = execution muscle ...plus happy people, but as far as I'm concerned, without execution muscle, you might as well hang it up. Let's define terms.
Employee inclusion suggests that people of every stripe — gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, aspiration, disability, position or title and whatever other differences are possible in the human population - feel that they have a place at the table, that they are seen, heard and valued and that, given stellar performance, they have an opportunity to advance. That they do not feel marginalized, "less than", left out, over-looked, invisible, made wrong, taken advantage of, disrespected, ignored or mistreated. At its heart, inclusion is about membership, belonging to a community.
The overriding theme of employee engagement is a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort. And the direct relationship with one's manager is the strongest driver of employee engagement.
Employee engagement and inclusion isn't a cognitive issue. It's an emotional issue. The problem isn't out there. It's in here. We want employees to be engaged and feel included, while we ourselves are detached, distracted, disengaged, focused on our To Do lists and the stock price. We want others to bring that elusive, coveted "discretionary effort" in the door with them every day but we don't have time to engage in the kind of conversations that could enrich our relationships with them.
The fact is, not having those conversations will take longer and cost more in the long term. When you disengage from the world, the world disengages too, in equal measure. It's a two-step, you and the world, you and your organization. Your employees lost interest in you because you lost interest in them. Calling them associates or partners is often window dressing. If you want high levels of employee engagement you must gain the capacity to connect with your employees - at a deep level - or lower your aim. And that connection occurs or fails to occur one conversation at a time. If you're a fan of Angry Birds, the eagle is to Angry Birds what human connectivity is to the relationships central to your success. It gets the job done!
What gets talked about in your company, how it gets talked about and who is invited to the conversation determines what will happen. Or won't happen. Your conversations must be fierce — conversations in which you and others come out from behind yourselves, into your conversations, and make them real. Once an organization crosses the line into "fierce" territory, very little else is required to create a culture of highly engaged, kick-ass employees. Without such conversations, your platform may be smoldering.
This is where it gets personal. In a very real sense, the progress of your organization depends on your progress as an individual now. Want high levels of engagement, cooperation and collaboration throughout your organization? Innovation? Agility? Execution muscle? Look to the conversations you are having. Are they confined to the C Suite? What is your level of candor and that of your direct reports? Are you seeking agreement or do you want the truth? Are you different when your conversations are over?
And what if your company is doing fine? I recently gave a keynote to a company poised to distribute millions in profit sharing, a cause for celebration. Meanwhile, one of the divisions is troubled, unhappy. How much of the CEO's attention does this require, given that his board just gave him an A on his report card?
Let's revisit the oil rig, Piper Alpha.
Investigators traced the cause to a missing component on a condensate pump. The pressure safety valve on pump A was removed for maintenance. Paperwork prohibiting the pump from being used was lost or misplaced. When pump B broke down, pump A was switched on. Gas began to leak, alarms were triggered, and the platform was rocked by a huge explosion. At this stage there were probably only a few casualties, but things were about to get much worse. Despite a mayday call from Piper Alpha, two neighboring rigs did not shut down their operations. Oil continued to be pumped into a communal pipe and towards the stricken rig. You see where this is going. Another enormous explosion rocked Piper Alpha and the rig fell into the sea.
It is likely that the magnitude of the disaster would have been much less had the neighboring rigs shut down immediately. But with the huge losses incurred by shutting down production on an oil rig, it was a case of profit before safety, profit before lives.
What's to be learned? When Madeleine Albright was asked what advice she would give to world leaders. She said, "I would tell them that what matters anywhere, matters everywhere." Better men and women than I have written about the galactic implications. But let's point the telescope at your company. What matters anywhere in your organization, matters everywhere in your organization. Organizations are webs of relationships. Each conversation, each meeting creates a chain reaction, like a Rube Goldberg contraption.
You, all by your lonesome, are having an impressive impact on your world. Your conversations with your assistant affect his self esteem and his impression of what matters to you, which he conveys in every conversation he has with all of the people in your world. Your conversations with peers affect their willingness to collaborate and cooperate with you when they could fake it if they wanted to. They pass on their opinions and experience of you to others in the company. Your conversations with customers, partners, and vendors ultimately win or lose the day.
What to do? Stop talking about inclusion and engagement and start including and engaging! It may help to picture your organization as a huge beach ball.
Step one, stop talking about inclusion and engagement and start doing it. Step two, conduct "beach ball meetings"(instructions follow). Step three, look beyond hard-wired assumptions and, yes, listen.
By Susan Scott
In early February, Engadget published an internal memo written by Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, in which he likens the once-dominant Finnish phone manufacturer to the oil worker trapped by a fire in the dead of night on the burning platform of a rig in the North Sea. He had seconds to consider the 150 foot drop into the ocean, the knowledge that there was floating debris and burning oil on the surface of the water, and that if the fall didn't kill him, he would die of exposure in 15 minutes. His only option for survival was to ignore what he had been told never to do and jump into the icy waters of the North Sea, a situation in which Nokia now finds itself after having made a series of poor decisions. Elop conveyed it this way:
"There is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected.
The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.
Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.
Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem.
How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved? This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven't been delivering innovation fast enough. We're not collaborating internally.
Nokia, our platform is burning."
Pretty powerful. The candor with which Elop delivered his message is the reason his memo had Twitter, Facebook, and the blogging community abuzz, and his employees on the edge of their seats. But while the oil worker survived, Nokia may not be so fortunate. In what may prove to be a final strategic blunder, Elop, a former Microsoft executive, announced later that week that the key to Nokia's viability and success is to use Windows Phone 7 for its smartphone. At their joint announcement, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, said, "I am excited about this partnership with Nokia. Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale."
Tru dat. Unfortunately, with apologies to my friends in both companies, apart from Xbox Kinect, neither Microsoft nor Nokia has demonstrated speed, innovation and scale for at least a decade, so it's no surprise that Nokia's employees, customers, and shareholders expressed dismay at this decision; in fact, many employees took the next day off, as PTO, in protest.
With so many shocked employees, partners — think Intel — and shareholders, Nokia provides a current example of a company that has arrived, gradually, then suddenly, at the edge of disaster with a workforce of emphatically unengaged employees, one failed, one missing conversation at a time. It's unlikely that things will go smoothly in the execution department.
Elop may be brilliant and his decision may be the right one. I sincerely hope it is. But if he fails to re-engage his unengaged workforce, he is in no danger of a smooth implementation because he cannot mandate accountability, innovation or collaboration. No one can. These are private, non-negotiable choices individuals make about how to live their lives, about how much of themselves to bring in the door each day.
We all know that if employees aren't engaged, companies will suffer. Good people will quit, defect, disappear; or worse, they'll show up every day — in body — but only bringing a tiny piece of themselves in spirit. They'll become disgruntled, disenchanted, disillusioned, which profoundly affects the bottom line. Yet, despite all the hype about what companies are doing to promote employee inclusion and engagement (these go hand-in-hand), many still see this as a soft topic, nice to do, something that makes people feel good. Of course, employee inclusion and engagement makes people feel good. AND increases productivity and builds revenue.
I think of it this way: Inclusion + engagement = execution muscle ...plus happy people, but as far as I'm concerned, without execution muscle, you might as well hang it up. Let's define terms.
Employee inclusion suggests that people of every stripe — gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, aspiration, disability, position or title and whatever other differences are possible in the human population - feel that they have a place at the table, that they are seen, heard and valued and that, given stellar performance, they have an opportunity to advance. That they do not feel marginalized, "less than", left out, over-looked, invisible, made wrong, taken advantage of, disrespected, ignored or mistreated. At its heart, inclusion is about membership, belonging to a community.
The overriding theme of employee engagement is a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort. And the direct relationship with one's manager is the strongest driver of employee engagement.
Employee engagement and inclusion isn't a cognitive issue. It's an emotional issue. The problem isn't out there. It's in here. We want employees to be engaged and feel included, while we ourselves are detached, distracted, disengaged, focused on our To Do lists and the stock price. We want others to bring that elusive, coveted "discretionary effort" in the door with them every day but we don't have time to engage in the kind of conversations that could enrich our relationships with them.
The fact is, not having those conversations will take longer and cost more in the long term. When you disengage from the world, the world disengages too, in equal measure. It's a two-step, you and the world, you and your organization. Your employees lost interest in you because you lost interest in them. Calling them associates or partners is often window dressing. If you want high levels of employee engagement you must gain the capacity to connect with your employees - at a deep level - or lower your aim. And that connection occurs or fails to occur one conversation at a time. If you're a fan of Angry Birds, the eagle is to Angry Birds what human connectivity is to the relationships central to your success. It gets the job done!
What gets talked about in your company, how it gets talked about and who is invited to the conversation determines what will happen. Or won't happen. Your conversations must be fierce — conversations in which you and others come out from behind yourselves, into your conversations, and make them real. Once an organization crosses the line into "fierce" territory, very little else is required to create a culture of highly engaged, kick-ass employees. Without such conversations, your platform may be smoldering.
This is where it gets personal. In a very real sense, the progress of your organization depends on your progress as an individual now. Want high levels of engagement, cooperation and collaboration throughout your organization? Innovation? Agility? Execution muscle? Look to the conversations you are having. Are they confined to the C Suite? What is your level of candor and that of your direct reports? Are you seeking agreement or do you want the truth? Are you different when your conversations are over?
And what if your company is doing fine? I recently gave a keynote to a company poised to distribute millions in profit sharing, a cause for celebration. Meanwhile, one of the divisions is troubled, unhappy. How much of the CEO's attention does this require, given that his board just gave him an A on his report card?
Let's revisit the oil rig, Piper Alpha.
Investigators traced the cause to a missing component on a condensate pump. The pressure safety valve on pump A was removed for maintenance. Paperwork prohibiting the pump from being used was lost or misplaced. When pump B broke down, pump A was switched on. Gas began to leak, alarms were triggered, and the platform was rocked by a huge explosion. At this stage there were probably only a few casualties, but things were about to get much worse. Despite a mayday call from Piper Alpha, two neighboring rigs did not shut down their operations. Oil continued to be pumped into a communal pipe and towards the stricken rig. You see where this is going. Another enormous explosion rocked Piper Alpha and the rig fell into the sea.
It is likely that the magnitude of the disaster would have been much less had the neighboring rigs shut down immediately. But with the huge losses incurred by shutting down production on an oil rig, it was a case of profit before safety, profit before lives.
What's to be learned? When Madeleine Albright was asked what advice she would give to world leaders. She said, "I would tell them that what matters anywhere, matters everywhere." Better men and women than I have written about the galactic implications. But let's point the telescope at your company. What matters anywhere in your organization, matters everywhere in your organization. Organizations are webs of relationships. Each conversation, each meeting creates a chain reaction, like a Rube Goldberg contraption.
You, all by your lonesome, are having an impressive impact on your world. Your conversations with your assistant affect his self esteem and his impression of what matters to you, which he conveys in every conversation he has with all of the people in your world. Your conversations with peers affect their willingness to collaborate and cooperate with you when they could fake it if they wanted to. They pass on their opinions and experience of you to others in the company. Your conversations with customers, partners, and vendors ultimately win or lose the day.
What to do? Stop talking about inclusion and engagement and start including and engaging! It may help to picture your organization as a huge beach ball.
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