Doing the corporate nod

Last week I saw the Blue Man Group. One word: singular. I'm not even going to begin to categorize the performance. But in case you are wondering, yes, they are blue.

What interested me was that the performance could be viewed both as fun entertainment, and at a deeper level, as social commentary. The drama of our working lives is not dissimilar, particularly when it comes to how we communicate with one another. We say things because we have to fit in. We do the corporate nod because it's expected. But inside an entirely different dialogue is on the go and that internal dialogue is often reflected in our behaviors.

"Yes, love the idea says one manager to another," while secretly thinking "stupidest thing I ever heard," and s/he quickly rush off to do …..nothing. Well of course employees are not stupid and when they see the leader "doing nothing" they will take their cue from his or her behavior and they too will "do nothing".

All the fine words in the world will be ignored because our eyes tell us what's really important.

Oh the drama of the workplace!

Everyone has a real life story to tell

Every one of us has a real and true life story to tell
"We learned that our life stories are so much more important than our traits, characteristics, leadership styles, or the training programs that companies teach about competencies and skills. Those pale by comparison with the importance of knowing your life story and being true to it."
Bill George, author of Authentic Leadership and True North

Every one of us has a real and true life story to tell. A story that reflects our deeply held values.

When we're given the opportunity to truly share our stories we feel valued and important. And that's good for everyone. It's good for the business because individual performance improves and profits increase. It's good for employees because we have purpose in life - we feel we belong - our life story becomes part of the cultural fabric of our organization.

Storytelling is a wonderful tool, but it's not something we should reserve for "leaders only". Stories are for everyone. To feel valued and listened to is a fundamental human need.

But what do we do when people in positions of trust - say our manager - is not able to listen and really hear our stories?
What happens is people stop telling their stories. And when they do that one of the threads is lost, a thread that enables us to motivate, inform and inspire - no matter where we sit in the organization.

Getting the culture right to catch em and keep em

I’m pretty good at reviewing books I haven't finished reading – see my recent article on storytelling books. I have yet to review a book I have not read and I’m not going to start. But there’s a book out there with an important message that I feel I have to mention, even though I do not yet have it in bookshelf.

The book is Catch Them If You Can!: How Any Manager Can Win the War for Talent in the Global Labor Shortage'>Catch Them if You Can!: How Any Manager Can Win the War for Talent in the Global Labor Shortage Greg Ford and Dr. Sullivan. As you may have guessed from the title, it’s about the worker shortage we will face as the baby boom generation retires. The US Department of Labor predicts a shortfall of 10 million workers by 2010; one in 13 jobs will be vacant.

Actually I lie; I have read a couple of chapters of the book. Greg is a friend and I had the pleasure of a pre-publish peak.

Greg and John have written a book to help managers understand the need to aggressively go after the top talent. They provide practical strategies that can be easily implemented, including a step-by-step recruiting plan that the reader can take away and apply immediately.

But there’s a strong message in this book beyond recruitment, namely that we need to ensure an engaged and vibrant culture to prosper. The world has changed - employees are no longer lining up to work in our organizations. If we want to hire the best then we had better make sure our cultures are open, aligned and full of opportunity.

A lot of people my age have trouble reconciling the attitude of youngsters coming into the workplace today. They see them as entitled. I don’t. I see a very realistic attitude. This is a group of people who knows when they are good and they are not going to stick around and do boring, irrelevant work for 10 years until the boss retires.

Role of management to engage all by reflecting diverse employee stories

Last week I was out hunting for behavioral stories for a client. I began my search with a contact list of middle to senior managers. I also had some basic information about each of the areas including some engagement scores.

Here’s where it gets interesting. In the areas with high engagement scores – I had no trouble at all in getting stories of front-line employees living the desired behaviors. In the areas with lower engagement scores the stories, while all very worthy, were about middle managers and senior professionals.

Stories about building a new division or bringing a consortium of partners are valuable and should be told; but so too are the stories about re-arranging the stock room for improved efficiency and finding a way to get a package to a client quickly.

Managers need to understand that it is their job to ensure every employee feels valued and understands how he or she contributes to the organizational goals. Managers need to tell all their employees stories.