If you follow my Daily Thoughts you would know that I despise Employee Engagement as something that you need to inject, as an input, when in reality it’s something you want to have as an outcome. How you get there? Many roads lead to Rome.
But here is a trick. If you manage to involve people in any ‘company affair’, not because of the position they are in the organizational chart, but because who they are, the person they are, I can guarantee enormous returns, excuse my mercantile language.
We have a term for this in Viral Change™ : leave the sandals at the door. Your HR sandals, your training sandals, your strategy sandals, your Business Unit Head of Such and Such sandals, even your VP sandals. Enter the temple with no sandals, and you’ll see the power.
That magic trick in organizations happens when people are asked to do things for what they are, not the hat, or sandals, or uniform they wear.
When, in Viral Change™, we find the highly connected and influential people in the organization, and we call them to arms, we insist: you are not here because you are the Supervisor of A, the Head of B, or the Manager of C. You are here because you are you. And, by the way, small detail, no pressure, your peers say so, not us, not your mangers. (Viral Change™ focuses on peer-nominated folks…)
There is also something magical in some of the most common reactions; ‘about time the company is asking me to do something for who I am, not what my job description says’.
Refreshing, to say the least. You are in the path of high engagement.
Cost of this equals zero.
And you bring less weight with you.
No sandals.