We must eliminate all non-value added activity!
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Bigger cleverer words
A client once described the way meetings went in her organisation as people around the table outdoing each other with ‘bigger, cleverer words’. Business jargon can be a place to hide at the same time as being a kind of weapon to show off your prowess. Meetings can sometimes feel like they’re dominated by people jousting with words. And despite the volume of words being used, all too often people are left in the dark about what’s... [Read More...]
Who ate all the pies?
An election night special …! While commentators complain that our politicians aren’t being straight with us about the scale of the national debt, what we’ve picked up from our clients – particularly those in the public sector – is an overwhelming sense of foreboding. People sense that something is coming that isn’t good, but no one quite knows what it will mean in practice or what if anything they can do about... [Read More...]
How we do strategy
Before you launch a strategic initiative, do you think about the amount of energy you’re about to release? Once that energy is released, do you know how to steer it towards the target you’re aiming for? Many people think that strategy is a hit-and-miss affair in their organisation. They see their leaders light the blue touchpaper – and then (like the old firework safety briefing says) stand well clear. Is it ever like this in your... [Read More...]
Speak your mind
We’ve heard plenty of tales of how hard people find it to say what they’re honestly thinking in organisations. In Delta7, we fondly call this picture ‘The Blofeld Chair’ – a reference to the archetypal lever-operated chair used by arch-villains in Bond films to dispose of henchmen who have incurred their displeasure. We’ve heard stories of people who practically roast anyone who dares to disagree but more often... [Read More...]
PR Week Engaging Internal Comms 2010
New ‘Story of Engagement’ picture unveiled at the PR Week Internal Comms conference Last week saw us taking a new Big Picture to the PR Week Engaging Internal Communications conference at the Grange City Hotel in Tower Hill. The new picture is a cityscape depicting what happens when organisations don’t pay attention to the 4 key drivers of employee engagement. According to the McLeod report on engagement, these are: • Strategic... [Read More...]
Victim of the clock!
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Does your organisation suffer from ‘Versioning’?
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What are the characteristics of an engaged employee?
Seeing yourself as a part of your organisation is a key characteristic of an engaged employee “What are the characteristics of an engaged employee?” is a question they’re asking over at David Zinger’s ‘The Employee Engagement Network’ There are many different ways to characterise an engaged employee but one stands out for me – seeing yourself as part of the organisation rather than apart from it. In my experience,... [Read More...]
CRF Employee Engagement Conference 2010
I went to a great conference last week on employee engagement organised by the Corporate Research Forum. There were several good speakers, covering a range of interesting themes and plenty of time to explore them with participants around the table. This was something I greatly enjoyed as it was good to be at a conference on engagement and actually feel engaged! One particular table exercise was to discuss “what HR can do to create employee engagement?” A... [Read More...]
My Comfort Zone
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Organisational charts and organisational reality
There’s something reassuring about org charts – they can easily disguise what is really going on, making everything feel neat and manageable. It’s interesting how often the title of these charts is the name of the company, as if the piece of paper actually is the company itself. Tweet This Post Read More →
Elephant Under The Table
When people become fearful of saying what really concerns them, leaders lose sight of what’s really happening in their organization and the quality of their decision-making suffers. For employees, unarticulated frustration can turn into confusion and anger that quickly creates a culture of low morale. This then manifests as apathy, resistance or even sabotage. Soon, no one wants to talk about the real issues even though they are staring everyone... [Read More...]
We must capture their hearts and minds!
This is a picture of an exchange we heard a few years ago in a client session. It’s so rich we just had to make a picture out of it. It is can be easy for leaders to lose touch with the cares and concerns of the people that work for them. By not connecting with what matters to their people, they lose the sense of reality about what’s going on in the wider organisation. In this picture, the leadership team, excited and motivated by their charts... [Read More...]
The crisis in public spending
This picture reflects concerns we heard while working with a number of central government departments last year. Most of these organisations have experienced a steady increase in funding under Labour, but under the shadow of a dramatic economic downturn are having to adapt to a stark new reality. The imminent future is one where social issues continue to rise, fed by increased debt and unemployment, while the pipeline of funding is abruptly turned... [Read More...]
Yearning for connection
The desire to connect with others, or get them to understand you can often lead to a desire to engage. One of the biggest unspokens can be the fear to articulate our need for others, because we may feel weak or vulnerable. Tweet This Post Read More →
The Fantasy Of Control
Many people in organisations think that their leaders and senior management are obsessed with the idea that they can fix things with even more hard data – and that this gives rise to the fantasy of being in control. The real problems that need fixing are often left hidden under the table; unacknowledged and undealt with – a taboo subject. For a lot of people the stuff hidden under the table is what really matters. If you’re looking for... [Read More...]
This IS how it is..
So many people we’ve worked with tell us that there’s a painful contradiction between what organisations have to say about what’s going on and what people actually see and feel. This leaves them wondering ‘why can’t they say how it really is’? The result? Disengaged employees. What about you? Do you see things differently from your organisation? How does this affect employee engagement? Why not print this... [Read More...]
Who does all the work around here?
We see this a lot in organisations. Everybody thinks that the people above them don’t really contribute as much as they do to the success of the business. Result? Disengaged employees at every level. What about you? Who does all the work in your organisation. Why not show this to a colleague and ask them what they think? Tweet This Post Read More →
Shall I stick my head above the parapet?
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