Are you curious as to what’s really behind employee engagement?

September 1st, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Leaders everywhere

Are talking about

The importance of engagement

Of having employees

Fully involved in

And enthusiastic about

Their work

We all get

The WHY of engagement

It’s the HOW

That stumps us

It’s simple really

Motivation is the key to engagement

It’s like the often used phrase

If you really want to know

What’s going on

Follow the money

In your case

If you want to know how to

Engage employees

Follow their motivation

Then you’ll know

How to engage them

Because motivation determines engagement

And more

Motivation is the fuel for performance . . . no gas, no go

When motivation sags below the enthusiastic line

Effort shows a corresponding decline

Causing performance to cough

Like an engine begging for fuel

fuel_gauge_analog

As a leader you have to wonder

How much unrealized potential

Is silently seeping away

Every second of every working day

In these turbulent and troubling times

Just imagine redirecting all of that unrealized potential

Like rechanneling fresh water into parched soil

Could you produce more

And what would happen to the wilted flower called profit?

Is your lost opportunity measured

In ounces or pounds or tons?

Please note… this is an excerpt from Martha Forlines and Thad Green’s new book, Inspiring Women…BECOMING Courageous, Wise Leaders, available at  www.inspiringwomenbook.com

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What Does Employee Engagement Have To Do With Customer Satisfaction?

August 18th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of leader Quick Tip: What does employee engagement have to do with customer satisfaction?

If you measure customer satisfaction by having reliable processes in place to deliver quality products and services, plus good customer relationships, then there are a handful of employee engagement measures that can make a difference.

customer-satisfaction

Employee Engagement Measures for Process Improvement

  • One of the key measures for employee engagement around process improvement is having the materials and equipment for employees to do their very best job.  Ok, that sounds reasonable and fair.
  • The second employee engagement measure for successful process implementation is having the opportunity for employees to do what they do best in their job every day.  This gets back to selecting the right people for the right seats on the proverbial bus, doesn’t it?

That’s as far as the research goes for process improvement and the link to employee engagement. But what about employees having input on the process improvement activities or employees needing to be communicated with about changes in the workplace before they happen?  It truly is in the eye of the beholder – the employee.

Let’s move on to what research says about managing the customer relationship… keeping the customer satisfied and happy. These two may surprise you.

Two Employee Engagement Measures That Contribute To Satisfied Customers

  • The first: The purpose or mission of the organization makes the employee feel like their job is important. Shouldn’t everyone be made to feel like their contributions every day are important to the success of the organization?  What a lost opportunity for so many organizations and for so many leaders.
  • The second: Co-workers are committed to doing quality work. Translated, this means “If I’m going to bust my hump every day doing quality work then I expect my peers to be doing the same”. Otherwise, keeping the customers satisfied is a lost cause.

So which of these elements do you as a leader have in your control in order to create a satisfying experience for your customers?  How about all of them? Isn’t that a relief !

If you really want to know more, all you have to do is ask your employees.

Martha Forlines and Thad Green are leadership consultants with BSI, an Atlanta leadership consulting firm. We offer leadership solutions for increasing employee engagement and performance. Contact Us

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Traditional Employee Engagement Strategies Are Flawed

August 4th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of Leader Quick Tip: Traditional employee engagement strategies are flawed

Let’s say (just for the sake of understanding the big flaw) that you’re not truly engaged—that is, YOU aren’t truly committed physically, emotionally, and intellectually to your work.

Now, how many things have to change for you to get “true engagement?” Exactly what would have to change? Hmmm . . .

And suppose the execs above you announce an employee engagement initiative. They’ve picked out 10 to 15 things to address to get the workforce truly engaged—a magic generic formula.

How many of the 10 to 15 would you guess are on the list YOU made?

And what’s the likelihood you’ll ever get the 10 to 15 anyway, given the way things usually are implemented due to blasé attitudes and lack of accountability?

How does this make you feel?

You are a leader. So if you feel this way, how must those below you feel?employee engagement strategies are flawed

So what is a leader to do?

Look at the strategy. It’s all based on the false assumption that everybody is the same, that everybody will be more engaged if someone does the same 10 to 15 things for (or to) them.

Well it just isn’t so. The reality is that you’re not like the guy in the office or cubicle next to you. You’re not like your boss. You’re not like the people on your team.

Sure there may be some sameness, but the truth is— everybody is different.

The workforce will never be truly engaged until leaders recognize and manage to these differences.

Martha Forlines and Thad Green are leadership consultants with BSI, an Atlanta leadership consulting firm. We offer leadership solutions for increasing employee engagement and performance. Contact Us

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Why Employees Resent True Engagement

July 21st, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green
Employees Resent Engagement

Employees Resent Engagement

Recap of Leader Quick Tip: A truly engaged workforce is not a realistic goal

Why?

EMPLOYEES DON’T WANT TO BE TRULY ENGAGED! At least most of them don’t.

Being truly engaged isn’t worth the effort. Sure the company benefits from heightened employee engagement, but seldom do employees.

At least not in equal measure to what they give.

And besides, employees have a life outside of work. Getting more engaged means getting more work. Every employee knows this. The more they produce, the more they’re expected to produce.

No, employees don’t want to be truly engaged. Why? It’s simple. Leaders tend to have a one-way focus, and it’s not toward the employee. An “employee first” perspective is hard to find.

So how realistic is a “truly engaged” workforce? The answer is NOT VERY, and not surprisingly.

True engagement is not likely until management adopts a “true two-way street” attitude. This is where “truly engaged” begins… not with employee engagement surveys and initiatives.

If you want to really tackle employee engagement, give us a call at 678.576.5207.

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BSI Experts Lambast Traditional Employee Engagement Surveys

July 7th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of Leadership Quick Tip: Engagement surveys are nothing more than employee opinion surveys by another name

employee-engagement-survey

Here’s how they are the same:

1. Survey items are around the same old employee satisfaction stuff;
2. Engagement surveys are completed anonymously too;
3. Data continue to be aggregated for reporting;
4. Survey results continue to show problems that are too pervasive, too elusive, too demanding, too costly, and too easy to let slide and
5. Good intentions to take action (based on results) lose momentum like usual.

Perhaps the biggest issue, aside from the surveys themselves, is this: If managers haven’t been held accountable to lead effectively in the past, who is going to hold them accountable now?
So what’s a leader to do, if you want to crank up employee engagement a notch or two on your team…

Call us for proven engagement solutions that work for your team or larger organization at 678-576-5207.

Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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Employees First and Customers Second??

June 23rd, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of leader quick tip: It’s easier to face disengagement (and more profitable) than live with it

Here’s a solution with a different spin.


It comes from Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies, a global information technology services company, as reported at Forbes.com 06.18.10.

He recommends using a management approach called Employees First, Customers Second. Mr. Nayar stresses that this is not a human resources initiative, but a management approach.

“I don’t think that employee ‘satisfaction’ is something a company should strive for. Satisfaction is a passive state, isn’t it?”

“As for employee ‘engagement,’ that isn’t much better than satisfaction,” he says.

“What we want at HCL is passion.”

Mr. Nayar says this is working in HCL.

We know it works! We’ve been helping clients put employees first since 1991.

Maybe all of us should stop thinking about “engagement” and start focusing on ENGAGEMENT WITH PASSION!

To learn how we do this, go to our website at www. beliefsysteminstitute.com.

Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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BSI Offering First Bookinar on INSPIRING WOMEN…

June 9th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Quick Tip Recap: “What’s a bookinar?” … a revolutionary new way to experience collaborative learning! It combines traditional book learning with live teleseminar training and breakouts during the class, allowing each participant to leverage their unique learning style. Martha is conducting a series of virtual teleseminar classes where she teaches valuable lessons from the book, using our INSPIRING WOMEN application workbook. If you are JUST beginning your leadership quest or desiring to hasten your leadership journey, this is for YOU!

Inspiring Women: BECOMING Courageous, Wise Leaders

Inspiring Women... BECOMING Courageous, Wise Leaders

We know how busy everyone is serving your customers… no matter what business you are in. Often times you are not taking the time for your own development in all of this busy-ness. You may even have goals to improve your leadership skills this year, but still don’t have any plans to accomplish this in a time-efficient, cost-effective way.


Participate in our upcoming preview call next Tuesday, June 15th at 11:00 a.m. to learn more about our first ever bookinar, where we will cover more of the details about this process and we promise you will also gain some valuable insight into where you are in your own leadership journey.

Here’s the scoop… we are offering a four week bookinar series on our new book written for aspiring women leaders (or leaders of women that want to know how to best manage your aspiring women) beginning July 1st. Each week we will be covering valuable content from the book about

  • Developing confidence for extraordinary leadership
  • The 3 keys to leadership wisdom and
  • The courage to do what is right


The weekly sessions will last one and a half hours, with 30 to 45 minutes of teaching and 30 to 45 minutes of a break out session. Yes, you read this correctly, breakout sessions! We will be using a product that enables groups of four or five people to talk and work collaboratively on the lessons presented, and then share with the larger group as they desire to share. “Teach, practice and share” promises to speed up your learning, integration and application time.

Click here to register for the call. We will be using the Maestro teleseminar product for this call, so you can experience the collaborative learning this technology enables!

Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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Leading Differently Pays Off!

May 26th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of Leader Quick Tip: Leading differently pays off

John Chambers Leading Differently

John Chambers. Photo Credit - Wikipedia

John Chambers, head of Cisco Systems, summarizes how he leads differently, according to U.S. News & World Report.

Decision making –Get the jump start on new know-how before others.
Management team—Build one that can help render swift and informed decisions.
Operating the company—Use empowerment and collaboration rather than command and control.
View of the universe—It’s all about education and the Internet.

Sounds simple, right?

Yeah, but the surface doesn’t tell you what the deep waters know.
It takes a lot of leadership know-how to be different and pull it off with great success.

Here at Belief System Institute, we’re all about DIFFERENT!
If you’re interested in DIFFERENT, see our website at beliefsysteminstitute.com or call Martha at 678.576.5207.

All the best to your success,
Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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Sally Ride’s Leadership Secrets

May 12th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of Leader Quick Tip: Sally Ride puts listening as top quality of a good leader
There are other views.

1. “Leaders are supposed to tell, employees are to listen.”
2. “I don’t have time to run around listening to everybody!”
3. “I’d listen more if people had something worthwhile to say.”
4. “I get everything I need to know from my weekly (or daily) management reports.”

Why then does Sally Ride put so much emphasis on listening?

1. Leaders are faced with an information void. They don’t have enough information to lead effectively.
2. Listening does something technology can’t do—it lets you get inside a person’s head and shine a light on information you can’t get anywhere else.

If you don’t listen, where else will you get impressions, perceptions, opinions, observations, and experiences of savvy, experienced people on your team and in your larger organization?

What better way than listening can you uncover problems-causes-solutions, and wants, needs, and priorities of those you lead?

Why do leaders often shy away from listening?


1. Fear of hearing (mainly the truth)
2. Trust (employees don’t trust the leader, leader doesn’t trust employees)
3. Lack of training (how many active listen techniques can you name?)


How can you make listening work for you?


1. Line up some training for you and your managers
2. Get some coaching on how to listen and lead better
3. Consulting may be necessary to get people in low trust environments to open up


If you are interested in how we can help you close the information gap on your team or in your organization, call Martha at 678.576.5207.

All the best to your success,
Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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What do social media and leadership have in common?

April 28th, 2010 by Martha Forlines & Thad Green

Recap of today’s leader Quick Tip: Expand your leadership resource pool by taking “asking and listening” to social media, as well as to your employees.

Want to get your questions answered by leadership experts from around the world?


Or maybe you’d like to have dialog with a leadership expert, such as an author, or consultant, or experienced leader.


Would you like some helpful hints, employee motivation quotes, or creative leadership ideas?

It’s as easy as can be. Social media is the key. If you want to know, ASK!

Social media gives you quick access to people like us who are willing to share a wealth of leadership expertise.

Here are a couple of recent examples.

One manager wanted to have dialog with us around employee engagement— “Have leaders forgotten about the importance of engagement during the downturn in the economy?”

Another asked our advice about the various behavior style instruments available.

Get in touch with us on LinkedIn, FaceBook or Twitter.

Follow our posts for nuggets of leadership wisdom on employee motivation and performance, or how to boost employee morale, for example.

Dialog with us on employee job satisfaction, the value of an employee engagement survey, and other issues of interest.

Ask us questions about executive coaching, leadership training, and improving employee engagement.

If you want to know, ASK! Simply go to any of our social media links below.

Connect with us:

Follow us on Twitter!Follow us on Twitter

Become a Facebook fan!Become a fan

Read the MailChimp blogConnect on LinkedIn


All the best to your success,

Martha Forlines and Thad Green

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