When Engagement Becomes Engagament

Badconsultant does a LOT of work on culture and colleague engagement. Which involves surveys, and measurement, and frameworks, and systemic change, and… er… avoidance, denial, recrimination, anger, rapprochement and… well…

[billable hours]

silliness. Just plain, simple silliness.

Like the leader who, taking the guidance that ‘leaders embody the culture’, comes to believe themselves an Incan high priest on the high pyramid, slaughtering sheep and young virgins so as to pronounce that…

WE EMPOWER COLLEAGUES!

[Badconsultant whole-heartedly apologizes for the inadvertent use of the 'E' word and takes no liability for possible downstream consequences... Though we will be happy to submit a statement of work to fix them]

And in the saying, believing that the words have become reality.

Like the manager who will obsess about survey results for a year, agonizing over what possible meaning can be gleaned from the data, all the while hearing the suggestion to simply ask people what’s important to them and what would make a difference, yet clinging to the notion that somehow there is an answer that must be given to people.

Manager play-acting the role of high priest, I guess.

Engagement doesn’t come in a box, it can’t be given, it can’t be manufactured. It’s something you solicit and nurture, not build and provide.

And how ironic is it that people who most often ask “How do I grow engagement?” are those least likely to simply engage with people?

So, let us argue the questions, let us argue the theory, let us deny that the people around us are human beings who have feelings, thoughts, cares, whims and neuroses. Let us believe that people are non-chaotic, cookie-cutter-cut-outs who respond to stimulus like pavlovian dogs.

Let us live in beautiful, blissful denial.

And anyway

[ready for it]

What is the ‘best friend’ question all about, anyway?

BC

What has that bad, badconsultant been up to?

Hi everyone, BadConsultant has been busy launching a number of online forums, some of which I’ve mentioned here, but some I haven’t – the latest one (my most interesting experiment) went live this last weekend.

I thought I’d summarise what’s been going on so that everything’s in one place:

1) Jobinions – Tell it like it is (launched January, 2009)

Jobinions is essentially a consumer review site dedicated to working at, and interviewing for, companies. My aim in building out the Jobinions community and reference resource is to provide an open resource to help talented people make good career decisions. There isn’t any angle, or vested interest (I’m not selling job postings, or user data, for example), it’s just my own little way of changing the world of work.

2) The Strengths Springboard (launched June, 2009)

The Springboard is my companion ‘product’ for the individual conversion to strengths-based working. I’m a huge fan (and, yes, believer) in a personal commitment to doing what you do best at work, however have come to recognize over the past few years that the majority of organizations actually don’t want that to happen. The manifesto document (The Strengths Springboard – Is your organization ready?) took me a few months to research and write and ultimately describes 5 organization beliefs of strengths-based organizations and how they can get coded into behaviors, processes and systems. Alongside the manifesto, there are discussion forums and, over time, I’ll be adding diagnostic tools, etc. to help members assess their own organizations.

3) Too Busy Hiring (launched June, 2009)

Too Busy Hiring is a somewhat light-hearted entry into Strategic Workforce Planning, through the lens of the tireless recruitment/ staffing/ talent acquisition professional – a quick 10-question assessment leads to a read-out of symptoms and potential solutions. Oh, and of course, you get a score to compare with the overall database – have some fun there and drop me a line if you want to discuss further.

4) We Are Story (launched July, 2009)

This is my grand experiment, away from the business world. I write a lot and have published a couple of novels – later this year, I’ll be publishing my latest book online (for free!) – and if you’ve done any serious amount of writing, you’ll know it can get pretty lonely – and a little weird being locked up in your own head. Earlier this year, I was flying to Phoenix and read the whole of Seth Godin’s ‘Tribes’ while sitting in Providence airport waiting for my flight out. Halfway through the book, I came up with the idea which eventually became We Are Story – the idea was pretty much fully formed immediately and it’s pretty much as I imagined it. Simply put, We Are Story is a single story told in pods of max. 5000 characters (around 500 words) by whoever feels like writing it. I’ve started the story rolling and am now getting people to join. All writing can be rated and commented, so it’ll become a social forum over time. I’m really excited by We Are Story – it’s truly and experiment.

So, if you wonder why BadConsultant hasn’t been as vociferous recently, you’ve now got the reason – why don’t you come along to learn, teach and, perhaps, do a little story-telling too?

Vince (BadConsultant)

Lord protect me from…

Careful… I’m about to illuminate a truth that everyone knows

[think of it as a red pill moment]

but few will admit to – or do anything about.

OK. Here goes.

The reason you’re so p***ed off at work is that you’re bored.

[wait for shrieks of indignation from the 'upwardly mobile', or shrugs of 'so' from the not so upwardly mobile]

The reason you’re bored is because you are woefully underusing what you were born with and have subsequently developed: your mind, body, heart and soul.

Because you’re woefully underusing what you were born with and have subsequently developed, you are putting on weight, damaging your personal relationships and, yes, driving the future of life on this planet into the great landfill.

Because you’re bored.

Next time you’re in a meeting that nobody wants, without a clear remit, without a clear outcome, where everyone seems so keen to ‘build’ on someone else’s point so passive-aggressively, where use of ‘And’ and not ‘But’ has become a practiced art of the subtly raised eyebrow, where nothing gets done for the many $’000s of dollars compensation present in the room

[if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need this posting more than anyone]

pause and take a look around the room. All of that energy is being spent trying to stimulate mind, body, heart and soul – as if there was something real happening. Fight, fright, flight – our basic physical response to attack. Tension in the neck, legs, arms and face – our natural instinct to embodiment. Being with others in a collaborative quest – our natural proclivity to reciprocity. Passionate commitment to something we believe in – our search for meaning beyond ourselves.

That’s what we are. And because we spend so much time denying what we are

[reciprocity in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalist norms, anyone?]

the energy is wasted. And we get bored. So we invent crises just to avoid admitting that we’re bored and not expending anywhere near the energy we could if we truly became engaged in the world as a whole person.

Notice I didn’t say, engaged in work as a whole person.

Because one of the greatest boredom myths is that a strongly aligned working experience can cure everything. It can’t. Yet, every day billions of people enter the work-place

[yeah, like that's a concept that even makes sense anymore...]

with a silent prayer in their sub-conscious: Lord protect me from becoming too bored.

And work becomes a huge distraction from all the potential you are choosing not to use.

So, the next time you catch yourself in the moment, arguing a point that doesn’t need to be argued, about something that doesn’t matter – stop and think on how it’s protecting you from becoming too bored. And decide whether that’s a deal you want to make or not.

If it is, then the following symptoms are likely to develop shortly, if they aren’t already present:

• Buying consumer electronics for meaningless technological advantage over ‘good-enough’ existing possessions
• Going out to dinner because it’s that time of day, not because of hunger
• Sitting watching television programs you don’t like because your partner likes them
• Engaging in office politics to perpetuate insignificant power struggles
• Invading nearby countries just to make use of the military machine you’ve been growing over the years

[that last one might be a stretch for some of us]

So, which is it going to be – extending some of your potential into the world with all the risk and return that can offer, or settling for a stunted life denying yourself and building endless hedges against boredom.

This badconsultant knows which one he chooses.

A Bientot

BC

What Billy Joel can teach us about leadership and corporate culture…

I just quipped in a post about mock-authenticity using a Billy Joel snippet – so I thought I’d do him the honour of pulling up the full lyric to ‘Just The Way You Are’ and highlighting his wisdom for authentic executives everywhere…

Don’t go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don’t imagine you’re too familiar
And I don’t see you anymore

I wouldn’t leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times
I’ll take you just the way you are

Don’t go trying some new fashion
Don’t change the color of your hair
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don’t want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are.

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
What will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you.

I said I love you and that’s forever
And this I promise from the heart
I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are.

Anyone willing to take the ‘Just The Way You Are’ Employee Attitude Survey [(r) 2009]?

BC

Er… Can somebody please tell me what I have to do to be authentic?

I had the privilege of seeing Bill George speak last year on the subject of Authentic Leadership and followed up by reading his book, True North. All good stuff. Lots of moral compasses, support networks, personal belief systems and integrated diagrams

[well done, graphics department - hurrah!]

all of which make absolute sense and tie in with core psycholgical and social principles.

Good, I thought, another entry in the BadConsultant knowledge management database to be repackaged, repurposed and resold to dumb, rich clients

[we love dumb, rich clients]

everywhere.

Except then it started happening.

And BadConsultant began to feel a little like Alice down the rabbit hole, or Neo taking the red pill.

When it first happened, it was a beautiful sunny day, birds were chirping in the trees, children danced in the grass of the park, a milkman trundled by on his chinkling cart. And in the conference room, an executive pulled up a slide which described his corporate strategy as ‘True North’.

I’d seen this scene before.

What followed in that session and even more so in the months that have followed

[leadership survivalist tactics in economic crisis as last-ditch catalyst, anyone... anyone?]

was the commoditization of the word ‘authentic’ into nearly every aspect of leadership decision-making, behavior and action. Which would be great if it were authentic.

Except the same leaders who never made decisions are now touting their authenticity – but still not making decisions.

And the same leaders who ignored substantial swathes of their organization are now doing so authentically.

And in the same breath inferring that everyone else is like… er… so… rilly, rilly inauthentic.

[or non-authentic... or un-authentic... or authentic-less... They haven't quite working out the anti-authentic word yet]

So, what started as a look behind the veil of leadership, of how to navigate the singular challenges of being a senior executive in a ‘modern’ organization, rapidly descended into the land of homily, buzz-phrase and smoke-screen.

How sad.

BadConsultant openly predicts that leadership development curricula across ‘modern’ organizations will have ‘Introduction to Authenticity 101′ type courses very shortly. May we suggest some snappier titles? How about:

• ‘Knowing me, knowing you’ – how to win through denial!
• ‘The authentic side-step‘ – dancing the tango of non-commitment
• ‘Keeping it real’ – what the rap world teaches us about corporate politics
• ‘I love you just the way you are’ – don’t go changing to try to please me

Authentically yours,

BC

Who won the war for talent… Er… If it’s all right to ask that question…

A little earlier this year, BadConsultant launched Jobinions. A free service/discussion forum where people could share opinions on companies as either an employee or as an interviewee.

[and, for full disclosure, I don't make any money from Jobinions - yes, it is possible that some people aren't commoditizing everything]

The spirit of Jobinions is quite simple – tell it like it is. From the Jobinions front page:

... life’s too short to work for crap companies. They can damage your health, wealth and happiness and strip you of your potential to do your very best work. We want you to know what it’s like working for any company. And the best people to tell it like it is are the people working there already and others who have interviewed with the company.

We created Jobinions because there was nowhere to tell it like it is.

Jobinions is founded on the belief that the working world can be better and that we can help each other make great career decisions.

Jobinions is pretty easy to use – a quick sign up process, answer a few core questions on the company and you’re in, simple as that. There’s no personal information shared on the site and, I guarantee, the identity of community members will remain confidential (provided they don’t get into libel/slander).

Quite a few people signed up and created accounts. When I recently advertised Jobinions on Google Adwords, even more people signed up.

BUT…

Only 5 people have left a Jobinion, so far (not counting my initial example). There’s good stuff in those Jobinions – particularly about one major accounting firm.

I am a firm believer that the war for talent has been won by the talent – and Jobinions was built on the basis that it’s OK to have an opinion about your employer – that each of us owns our career and can be proactive in getting to do more of what we do best every day.

Yet, from the many users, only 5 Jobinions in 5 months. Why the reticence?

I did a little bit of digging, searching and reading and came across Laurie Reuttiman’s

[who is a goddess - follow what she says - laugh at her blog - marvel at how remarkably cute she is in all her pictures and... er... make sure you spay and neuter your cats, right Laurie?]

entry about Jobinions which had generated some of the users. And there was a comment that just plain made me go ‘huh?’

To quote:

Even though the post is entitled “Humor,” I’d recommend that folks NOT use Jobinions – your current or potential employer might not see the humor that you do.

Or, for God’s sake, don’t use your real name, email address or URL.

The recession makes grumpy, humorless jerks out of more people than you realize.

Huh?

[see, I told you]

HUH?!!!

“I’d recommend that folks not use Jobinions…”

because your qualification for saying so is that you’re paranoid about employers not seeing the joke?

Really?

Getting past that sort of confrontational, win-lose, serf-master employment relationship is exactly WHY I created Jobinions – it’s time to transcend the BS of the 20th century ‘modern’ organization

[read the manifesto at http://www.strengthsspringboard.com]

and put the people who create the value on the footing they deserve.

Yet even with that intent, I have the simple fact that people (many people) have signed up and created profiles – yet only 5 Jobinions have been posted. Is paranoia rampant? I don’t believe so. Reluctance to use discussion boards? Er… I won’t dignify myself with an answer to that one. Mistrust of ye olde BadConsultant? Maybe.

But at the base of it all (as I discuss at the Strengths Springboard), is that I believe the majority of people haven’t woken up to the fact that the ‘modern’ organization is near dead in the water, out of tricks, unprepared for a world where the East is faster and cheaper, the West is demanding and fickle, and value is created from ideas not reproducible, scalable manufacturing processes.

And why haven’t they woken up?

Because it’s been easier and safer to collude with the mythology. Though it may look, feel, sound, smell and taste like it, it’s not fear, not really – it’s laziness.

GM, AIG, Chrysler…

The mythology is crumbling before your eyes.

So come on over to Jobinions and tell it like it is – it’s time to build a different future – one where it’s cool to work at something you love doing and be respected, rewarded and celebrated for doing just that.

Aaaahhh… Victimhood…

… You make us so comfortable when you stick around.

A little while ago, we wrote a piece called “Free Agent Nation?” covering what we perceive as the impending exodus of talent from corporations.

Before we extemporize, quantify, clarify and obfuscate, we formally want to tip the hat to Daniel Pink who wrote about the subject in Fast Company and more recently in his book – we haven’t read the book yet, but will be doing so in the near future. Despite our uncanny ability to resell work we’ve previously done, and repackage others’ intellectual property with a facade of our own creation, we absolutely, totally do not steal from our bretheren – we didn’t coin the term Free Agent Nation

[though we did add the question mark]

and want to recommend you read the original article now – it was somewhere in our subconscious as we brought a lot of ideas together over the past few weeks.

OK. That’s over – phew!

Pretty transparent, right? Our owning up to an unwitting terminology ‘borrow’. Not for us the game of “that’s not fair, we didn’t know about it” – no, here at BadConsultant towers, we tell it like it is

[especially at http://www.jobinions.com - have you left a jobinion yet?]

regardless of whether it places us in positions of jeopardy.

Would that the rest of the world would do that.

Instead, we are fed a litany of excuses, blame rants, whining, whingeing, bellyaching, caviling, criticizing, deprecation, disparagement, fault-finding, griping, grouching, grousing, grumbling, kvetching, moaning, nagging, niggling, nit-picking, overcriticizing, quibbling, scathing… Well, you get the picture, right?

Through our multi-variant, cross-referential, do-loop, mega-meta-analysis of conventional wisdom-sapping framework complexes, we’ve identified that for the majority of your workforce, victimhood is a comfortable bed-fellow. For them, it’s all your fault; your fault that…

• they didn’t hit their targets
• their ideas aren’t strong enough to move forward
• there’s in-fighting within the team
• they aren’t able to develop the skills the business needs tomorrow

They’ll whine and complain

[and all those other words we cribbed from an online thesau... er... erm... our knowledge management database]

about all of it. Only they won’t do it to your face. They’ll do it in a bar, in a cubicle, in the park… Anywhere but where they need to do it: In the moment, at work, with you and the team.

To them it’s all your fault.

And guess what? They’re totally and utterly correct. It is. Because, when it comes to bringing people to a highly engaged state, it’s highly, highly unlikely that your own leadership is telling you it’s what’s expected – so the only reason you’ll do it is because you naturally believe it’s the right thing to do and have the capability to do it. There aren’t that many of you – and it’s highly unlikely you hear the whining nearly as much as others do.

For the rest of you managers, though, you are in complicity with the victims you manage – human beings perpetuate the status quo

[here we go-oh... Rockin' all over the world! Cue Americans going "huh?!!!"]

no matter how painful. Put simply, you are comfortable managing victims.

We’re going to let that sink in.

You are comfortable managing victims.

Why? Well, if you do it like you did it yesterday, no-one can hold you accountable for today’s poor results; today’s failure was perfectly acceptable yesterday. So, why change anything?

Anyone…

Anyone…

We’ll be back soon to answer the question.

έως ότου συναντιόμαστε πάλι

BC

Mental Gymnastics (or ‘To all the paradoxes I’ve loved before’)

A couple of weeks back, BadConsultant had the unparalleled joy of mingling with a small, select group of

[patsies]

executives gathered together to pass comment on some pretty astounding internal social networking technology. Cool stuff. Lots of opportunities. Of course, being BadConsultant, we extemporized, categorized, expounded and theorized just enough to bring these potential ‘deep-pockets’ to the edge of understanding of their problems and potential solutions

[our arched eyebrows and caring forehead let them know that we were like, er, rilly, rilly understanding of their pain... The draft Statement of Work letting them know we could make it all go away soooo easily...]

Of course, aside from enjoying the sound of our own voice, BadConsultant was also listening closely for inspiration. And, sure enough, it hit us about an hour into the discourse.

Think about your company. Think about mission

[spit]

vision

[spit twice]

purpose

[spit thrice]

and values

[vomit... politely]

Now that you’ve cleansed yourself of the kool-aid, think about the words that are used, and those that are used to explain just what those words actually mean (because it’s highly unlikely that the mission, vision, purpose and values can stand on their own without clarification or translation into plain english)

[No, really, what do these values mean to YOU]

OK, chances are that once the gag-reflex calms down, you’ll recognize something like this in amongst the hyperbole.

“We will be innovative”

or

“We will think big, but act small”

or even

“The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well here”

Recognize that? And who could argue?

Well… Er… Us, actually…

You see, this was the blinding flash of insight that hit us at our small round-table. And the paradox in this question is so simple that it’s beautiful.

How do you lead an entrepreneur?

Because the hyperbole breaks down right there. Entrepreneurs and large corporations are mutually exclusive. It really is that simple. We have bounced this oxymoronic paradox off a number of BadConsultants over the past week and are convinced

[that it'll be chapter seven of our planned business tome]

that there isn’t an answer that keeps the distinction clean.

“Well, er, of course you can’t have complete chaos in the…”

or

“Oh… I’m sure that’s not quite what they were getting at…”

or

“Yeah, that’s right… Our execs are really full of s***, aren’t they?!!!”

And, of course, the reality is some mixture of all three plus a little bit of naive optimism – Execs really do think that entrepreneurship is possible in the modern corporation because

[they're delusional]

they think that all the stuff that is stultifying the innovation and energy in their organization, all the stuff that is introducing risk aversion at a greater rate of knots than they’re losing customers, all the stuff that gets in the way of transformational decision making is somehow voluntary – i.e. that employees are making a conscious choice not to take their ideas forward. Replete with their over-stuffed egos and illusions of hunky-doryness, these executives commit massive, grand narcissism: They just need someone to lead them.

Hmmmm… Everything in the system stays the same but we expect different results tomorrow than we did today… Isn’t that close to the common-speak definition of insanity?

So, back to the question: How do you lead an entrepreneur?

And the answer: You can’t. All you can do is set an unachievable goal that they already want to take a shot at, give them some means (but not all the means) and tell them to get going. Nothing else. Just that. It means thinking like a venture capitalist. What’s the return on investment on the idea? What’s the risk of failure? What’s the get out clause? What’s the level of confidence that this person can really take this to the next level?

Leading us to our final observational question. The one that’ll really make you go “Hmmmm” and want BadConsultant to spend some time in the next few weeks

[billing]

working through the potential impact and giving you some options.

How much of your current executive development/training/experience is specifically geared to develop venture capitalist capabilities?

Clue: It’ll be one of the following answers…

1. Huh?
2. What?
3. Why?

Until we meet again, adieu!

BC

Free Agent Nation?

It used to be that talented people expected to have to compromise their talent.

We’ll let that sink in.

It used to be…

OK. Let’s explain.

Talented people in corporations know one thing. They are forced to compromise their ability to do their best work (what comes naturally) day after day. It can be because of a bad boss, inefficient processes, a lack of commitment to corporate mission or the inability to see how their talent will be rewarded in the short and long term.

And it’s that very last bit that we’re focusing on today.

Because the ‘deal’ used to be this: ‘compromise your talent today because in the long run it will play out in a corporate career’. In fact, this is little more than the corporation-as-parent mythology and, at its root, is based on fear. Fear of what? Being unemployed without benefits, having to take risk and be judged upon your performance, to be self-reliant. In that mythology, the bigger the better: bigger salary, bigger title, bigger office, bigger retention, bigger bonus. So, safety used to be the payback for compromise on talent.

And there it is again. Used to be.

Because the promise of payback for compromise has been completely, totally and royally wiped from the map thanks to the economic soufflé currently melting markets the world over.

If the risk we described above is that of not having a corporate parent at our back, then right now, in terms of staying with a company, the risk of staying pretty much looks like the risk of going.

Risk of Staying ~ Risk of Going

Except for talented individuals, the Risk of Going also includes the promise of meaningful work, ownership, accountability, risk and the not insignificant fact that a much greater proportion of any working day is likely to be spent doing what comes naturally – being the glorious, diverse, talented individual they are.

The economic soufflé has finally proven that the endless search for bigger isn’t the be-all-and-end-all.

Corporations used to view retention risk as that of talented individuals going to competitors because of the promise of ‘bigger’. Right now, corporations should be shifting that view.

Because right now, the biggest retention risk is of talent individuals voluntarily leaving the corporation, going free agent to do exactly what they’re already paid to do and selling it to whoever they want.

The war for talent is over… The talent won… And right now, corporations are going to begin to learn that the hard way.

BC

Step One: Observation – You know productivity is at risk when…

… Employment becomes a spectator sport.

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