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Monday Morning Moment – Are You Engaged at Work? It Matters that YOU Show Up

January 11, 2016 admindeb 4 Comments

Photo Credit: IDoneThis.com

In the pre-dawn light of this Monday morning, my husband and I sat briefly together. Over our first cup of coffee, we were talking about employee engagement, of all things. I had just read the most excellent blog (by Corinne Rogero) on being engaged, and it inspired a rare early morning conversation. Be encouraged.

This beautiful young woman, Corinne, tantalizes the reader with a blog seemingly about engagement to be married:

“I want to be engaged, but it’s probably not what you think. I’m as single as a slice of American cheese right now, which is perfect for me and I prefer it that way. But when I say I want to be engaged, I don’t mean I’m looking for a fiancé. I mean I want to be engaged in the sense that I’m mindful of the people and surroundings and culture and the spiritual warfare around me. I want to establish meaningful connections with the person on the other side of my coffee mug or in the booth across from me at dinner or in the passenger seat of my car. I want to lean in and connect with the stories being told. I want to actively console the sorrows being shared. I don’t want to go through conversations absentmindedly anymore.” – Corinne Rogero, I Should Be Engaged

This state of mindfulness and staying in the present are crucial to being engaged…no matter the environment or work circumstance.

Employee engagement is a property of the relationship between an organization and its employees. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takes positive action to further the organization’s reputation and interests.

When we become discouraged or demoralized with work, our tendency is to lose our bearings, almost become disoriented. We move to being defensive (reactionary), rather than offensive (proactive or forward-thinking). We lose focus and the best problem-solvers, highest producers among us can seem to lose their way…shifting focus to lesser goals and more easily achievable ends.

What I loved most about Rogero’s blog on being engaged was the personal intentionality of it. Her chief desires were clear and she was resolved to clear the way for them…in her day-to-day present.

I loved that and am inspired, empowered, and energized by that. I want to communicate and model that in my own workspace.

Tom Muha wrote a great piece entitled Achieving Happiness: Leadership Styles: Multipliers vs. Diminishers. I didn’t see how it related to achieving happiness but it did give an excellent summation of Liz Wiseman’s book Multipliers: How the Best leaders Make Everybody Smarter. Read her book for sure; Muha’s article will whet your appetite to read it.

I refer you to the concept of “multipliers vs. diminishers” because employee engagement is incredibly impacted by what kind of supervisor we have. Some supervisors maximize their team’s work experience (multipliers) while others maximize their own perceived importance to the organization rather than empowering their employees (diminishers).

We may not easily see how we can alter our situation with our boss (other than losing ourselves trying to please him/her, disengaging, or quitting altogether), but I see possibilities. It is possible, we can make a difference with our boss…if we don’t give up. It is also possible to make a difference for peers to help each other stay engaged or to re-engage. I loved Corinne Rogero’s quote below:

You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress: better to fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him. – C. S. Lewis

It is hard sometimes…harder than we could imagine it would be sometimes…but whatever it takes to stay in the battle is better than disengaging ourselves from it.

Disengagement is very isolating. The disengaged just get quieter and focused elsewhere. Or, at its worst, disengagement gathers together a company of the miserable. No judging here…I just grieve the loss of what can be – not just product or service, but the continuing growth, joy, satisfaction of real, valued people at work.

Whatever our work situation or challenge, staying engaged is worth every effort, moment by moment. Hopefully your organization understands and is building in processes for ongoing employee engagement. Speak into that, if given opportunity. Speak into it anyway.

Photo Credit: ManagementStudyGuide.com

Hear one last word from Corinne Rogero on being engaged in life in the present:

“I want to be locked and loaded with an arsenal of grace and truth and boldness to bring the good news of hope into the lives that intersect mine. I want to be fully aware of God’s presence in every moment and not as much like Jacob who woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I didn’t know it!” – Corinne Rogero

No matter our situation at work – a team at odds with itself, a difficult culture, a boss who I don’t understand – no matter our situation, we can determine to be engaged. There is an undeniable emotional component to engagement, but it is larger than emotion. We can do the personal work of being “locked and loaded” – alone or with a few others who share our same vision and stewardship (belief/ethics). Our work lives are too precious to waste in disengagement… It may take some time for our circumstances to change, but our hearts, resolve, and focus can be sharpened in the fire of whatever difficulty faces us at work…if we don’t give up*.

What challenge are you facing at work that steals away your joy, drive, or confidence? What has helped you stay engaged? What are you doing to turn perceived walls, barriers or bottlenecks into doorways? Let us learn from you in comments below, please.

I Should Be Engaged – Corinne Rogero

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everybody Smarter by Liz Wiseman and Greg Mckeown

Gallup – Five Ways to Improve Employee Engagement

Best Practice Advice on Employee Engagement and Organization Development

*Galatians 6:9

Bill Hybels, Books, Community, Conversations, Courage, creativity, Critical Thinking, Disney Animation, Ed Catmull, Film, Global Leadership Summit, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Pixar, Stories, Team, Technology, work, Workplace or Marketplace

Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull’s Story of Pixar, Working with Creatives, & Steve Jobs

October 22, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

Photo Credit: Amazon.com (l) & Deb Mills (r)

Dave, the husband in my story, has always pointed me in the direction of transformative books and learning experiences. That path converged with this year’s Global Leadership Summit and Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.

Bill Hybels interviewed Ed Catmull about his role in co-founding Pixar Animation Studios and pioneering the field of computer animation. Now President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation, he has an extraordinary story to tell of leading creatives in innovative film-making. Mr. Catmull’s wisdom and humility can be well-applied in any workplace situation.Photo Credit: brainpickings.org

“Science and art are not incongruous. Art isn’t about drawing; it’s about learning to see. Which business or professions do you not want to have enhanced ability to see?”

During this interview at GLS15, he talked about the business processes he uses in film-making. We can relate this level and quality of accountability in any organization or company:

Teams working together (using a Brain Trust – a group of colleagues all acting as peers, with vested interest, giving feedback;
When failures happen in production – embracing [failure] but at the same time dealing with it with both total candor and kindness; and
Operating within constraints (a budget) – actually pushes creativity higher and delivers better outcomes.

“Stories influence the world. We want to use story-telling for good.”

Listening to Ed Catmull talk about leading at Pixar and Disney whetted our appetites to read his book Creativity, Inc.

Originally, Mr. Catmull worked in the computer graphics department of Lucasfilm, in the beginning years of computer animation. In his book, he tells about his incredible journey in those early years right through to today. It was a wildly bumpy road at first and the work was almost sidelined had it not been for Steve Jobs buying Pixar from Lucasfilm.

Toward the end of the book, Catmull writes about Steve Jobs. They worked together for over 25 years, and the Jobs he knew was a much more complex and lovely man than who we knew through other media. A tribute full of “candor and kindness” – as much about how Ed Catmull sees people as about the amazing leader that was Steve Jobs.

Whatever your work, you want to read this book. Catmull describes how he modeled openness, confidence in, and care for his employees. There are trust builders and wide gates for innovation woven into Pixar’s business processes. Whatever our sphere of influence is, we can all learn to be more effective leaders as we think through how Catmull leads.

At the end of Creativity, Inc., there are 5 pages of bulleted principles that Mr. Catmull encourages as starting points for critical thinking. Here are just a few:

If there are people in your organization who feel they are not free to suggest ideas, you lose. Do not discount ideas from unexpected sources. Inspiration can, and does, come from anywhere.
It’s isn’t enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.
There is nothing quite as effective, when it comes to shutting down alternative viewpoints, as being convinced you are right.
If there is more truth in the hallways than in meetings, you have a problem.
Change and uncertainty are part of life. Our job is not to resist them but to build the capability to recover when unexpected events occur. If you don’t always try to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.

Creativity, Inc. is not just a book for whom we now consider “creatives”. It’s a book for any of us who want to employ and empower people to grow personally and in community and to produce in ways that yield great products/services.

We all have stories that can influence the world for good…if we grow a work culture where those stories matter and can be freely explored.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

Global Leadership Summit – 7 Take-Aways from Day One of #GLS15

YouTube Video – Steve Jobs Remembered by Larry Ellison and Pixar’s Ed Catmull

YouTube Video – Ed Catmull: Keep Your Crises Small

Attending or Focus, Bill Hybels, Books, Character, Community, Courage, Do Over, Global Leadership Summit, Hustle, Inspired, Jon Acuff, Leadership, Life Skills, Sacrifice, Team, work

Grit – When You’re Hurtin’ But Not Quittin’ – the Role of Personal Resolve and a Team Alongside

October 15, 2015 admindeb 4 Comments

Photo Credit: Pacific News Center

Diligence is a word that defined my many years in learning Arabic while we lived overseas. Keeping at it, even when I wanted to quit, helped immensely. The joy of living life in a second language is worth all the work. Diligence is a great assist to staying on course, but it is not “grit”.

I saw grit at work recently in a group of servicemen, in Virginia Beach, doing their morning exercise. [Not the picture above but that image has its own neat story of grit]. We had taken a couple of days away from the city to get our breath, by the ocean. Walking on the boardwalk early in the morning, we encountered this small group of airmen from the nearby Naval Base, doing a group jog. We saw them starting the run and saw them again coming back – 6 miles total. Most of them were young, thin, and fit.

What caught our eye, in particular, were two men in mid-life, carrying a bit of weight, bringing up the rear. Approaching the end of that run, they looked like they were hurting, but they definitely weren’t quitting. I’m sure to stay as fit as the rest of the group was, a certain measure of grit was at play…but these two, in this snapshot of life, showed the grit that brought me to write today.

Wikipedia.org defines grit as a character trait of applying passion and perseverance over time toward a goal, end state or objective. Grit goes beyond ability and can withstand failure, keeping the end goal in sight, and pushing through to it.

Bill Hybels, at the Global Leadership Summit 2015*, talked about grit as “one of the greatest indicators of success”. Gritty people, he said, are the ones who “play hurt” and rarely ever give up. “They expect progress to be difficult, but believe with their whole being that they can be successful if they don’t quit.” It’s “The Little Engine That Could”. Abraham Lincoln. Nelson Mandela. Gandhi. Martin Luther King. Hybels also encouraged the audience that grit can be developed. From childhood through adulthood.

Jon Acuff (author of Do Over) defines grit as “stubbornness in the face of fear“. In his book, he gives a short list of what’s needed in making gritty decisions (in the “hustle” of work):

Time – we think the world “hustle” has to mean fast, but it can also mean focus, intention, pace.
Counsel – Lean on your relationships. Some of the worst decisions are made alone. Who are your advocates? Have you given them time to reflect on it or are you rushing right by the wisdom they have to offer? Let them speak into it. A year from now, looking back on the decision, you’ll be glad you made it as a team.
Questions – Always ask awesome opportunities, awesome questions. We skimp on due diligence. “What am I not seeing right now?”
Kindness – Give yourself permission to make the wrong decision, because…you’re going to. Break the tension of feeling like you’re going to be perfect by giving yourself some kindness from the outset.
Honesty – When you look back on a decision, remember that you made that decision with the best information you had at the time.

As we saw those two older heavyset men running just behind their younger airmen colleagues, we saw men with a goal in mind. There was also something more – the cadence to the group’s run that seemed to work to keep them all together. Whether at work or in family relationships, we want to do all we can to help those gritty ones be successful. Their resolve may get them to the goal anyway, but we all benefit when we are able to “stay on course” together.

Have you “grown gritty” over your lifetime? Are there gritty folks in your life who you love to champion? Tell us about them below.

*Session 1: Bill Hybels Opening Session – Global Leadership Summit

Wikipedia Article on Grit

The Truth About Grit

The Grit Test

Jon Acuff on the Role of Hustle in Taking Hold of Career Opportunities – Notes & Quotes – Part 5 of Do Over Series

How to Make Grit Decisions and Built a Grit List by Jon Acuff

Do Over: Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck by Jon Acuff

Does Teaching Kids To Get ‘Gritty’ Help Them Get Ahead?

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Three Years’ Work Gone…Not so! A Story – Going from a Deep Sad to Hopeful Glad

September 6, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Brenda McEwen

“God can take the broken bridges and make something beautiful. I am living proof.” – Brenda McEwen

This is a story. It is my brief account of a 3-year journey of a small group of like-minded individuals, strangers really at first, who came together for an extraordinary purpose. It is how I see it – these three years, this work, these colleagues who became friends.

The story begins many years earlier, when a seed was planted providentially in the heart of a man who became the president of a large non-profit organization. It was a seed of possibility – of what if we thought bigger, beyond our own company. What if we took the essence of what we did well and expand it to include all those who had our same vision? Across agencies, most much smaller than ours – to do a work with long-term global impact. For great good.

The particulars are not needed in this story…just the heart of it. The people in it.

As happens with God-shaped direction, this new president arrived, with this dream, to an organization where that vision was already stirring. He fueled the fire by appointing a leader to gather a team to move this dream to reality.

I had the privilege of writing some of the story of this team’s work. It was a small team, gathered from around the world for this purpose. For them, this was a dream job, for they also had that vision, that “what if” in their own hearts. For me, watching them work, this was a dream team, with differing gifts, strong character and great resolve. Praying, talking, researching, floating ideas, designing, creating, developing, networking, building relationships, talking some more, praying some more.

I won’t use pictures for this story, but there is a picture – a group of guys around a work table constructing and deconstructing and reconstructing a framework of “what if”. Whiteboard walls filled with ideas and timelines and names of partner organizations and notes from conversations. So much thinking and talking and praying.

This is the team I wrote about…these around this table and all the many we discovered around the world with the same vision – who were also moving in the same direction of this larger idea. Such a God thing. Even in this moment, I feel so privileged to have been a tiny part of such an endeavor.

In this last of the three years, the “what if” was in full launch with stories mounting of God at work.

In this same year, God was at work in other ways as well, affecting this team differently than they would have imagined. There was a change in leadership. A financial shortfall deepened. An overall strategy took a slight but dramatic turn.

This team’s work would not be the course taken to get to the “what if”…at least not for now.

If you have been in this place before – then you understand. We have probably all been through company reorganizations, maybe a personnel downsizing, possibly even a project termination or failure to launch. It happens.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the deep emotional toll of this story’s end. The conflicted anger mixed with deep, unrelenting sadness. The “what if” that went away… at least from this team, for now. At least…it seemed so.

Then I came to this amazing moment in the story…when it came to me that this isn’t the end.

One afternoon last week, after a fitful night of interrupted sleep, I took a nap. Upon waking, a Bible verse came to mind. It was the account of Israel’s King David who had prayed intently for his very ill little son not to die. God did not answer that prayer in the way David hoped.

“Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes. And he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. He then went to his own house. And when he asked, they set food before him, and he ate.” 2 Samuel 12:20

It was as if the Lord woke me from that sadness over this team and this work. I was also reminded of the story of Job receiving terrible news from a messenger:

“Behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.” – Job 1:19-21

There comes a time…you stop grieving, and get up, and on with the life before you. That same afternoon, in the car doing errands, I heard a song lyric for the first time, after many times listening:

There’s a place where mercy reigns and never dies,
There’s a place where streams of grace flow deep and wide.
Where all the love I’ve ever found,
Comes like a flood, comes flowing down.

There’s a place where sin and shame are powerless.
Where my heart has peace with God and forgiveness.
Where all the love I’ve ever found.
Comes like a flood, comes flowing down.

Here my hope is found
Here on holy ground
Here I bow down. – Chris Tomlin, At the Cross (Love Ran Red)

That afternoon, peace, over this team and their efforts, reigned in my heart. I was reminded of another One who had only a 3-year public ministry. He changed the world and continues to do so. We have that hope. We have that confidence. Our “what if” can be transformed to “what will be”.

Don’t hear me over-spiritualizing what “feels” really bad right now. The situation isn’t changed, but my perception of it has somewhat, with God’s tender help. Sadness, loss, and confusion will cloud my thinking from time to time. However, it won’t be where I live. Where I live, where this team lives, is about finishing strong – to be good stewards of what remains, to be faithful to God and the vision He planted in their hearts.

I want to celebrate them, and my season with them. How much our lives are changed by the giants of the past. Those who went before us, who picked up rocks, and cleared the way. Pioneers. This team stood on the shoulders of giants.

Photo Credit: Pinterest.com

These guys are giants to me.

When the day arrives that the sign comes down off the office door and the members of this team take different assignments or pursue different work, I will be forever thankful for these three years I got to watch them work. My life has been radically changed by being a small part of this team’s faithful tackling the “what if’s”. Life today continues to be radically changed by this Giant of a God we serve, who lifts us up on His shoulders.

The End…but not yet.

Photo Credit: Brenda McEwen

“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip.” – King David – Psalm 121:2-3