blog of engagement

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Decisions without Commitment – a Recipe for Strategic Failure
I think great performers and CEOs often have an uncanny ability to refine special skills of extraordinary anticipation and exceptional peripheral vision. A great illustrative point of that concept is hockey great Wayne Gretzy’s famous quote, “A good hockey player plays ... Read more

Managing People and Results? Self-Care Should be Top Priority
In April 2011, I completed a 90-day sabbatical with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Chilean Patagonia. Root – just like HBR’s April 2012 article titled “Wilderness Leadership – On the Job” – recognized the value for ... Read more

Learning Is a Journey – A Metaphor for Teaching
Metaphors are the most valuable tools in our learning tool kit. Consider some of the following facts: In an analysis of television programs, speakers used approximately one unique metaphor for every 25 words. Aristotle said, “The greatest thing ... Read more

Your People, an Overlooked Ingredient in Making Your Strategy Viable
Over the last few years, we’ve had the opportunity to work with dozens of Fortune 500 organizations to aid them in the development or deployment of their strategic plan. The strategic planning process usually starts with some form of “data ... Read more

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Strategy without execution is meaningless. Execution without engagement is impossible. The blog of engagement offers perspectives, discussion points, musings, and best practices for strategy deployment and employee engagement written by Root enthusiasts and experts.

Decisions without Commitment – a Recipe for Strategic Failure
Decisive leadership is wonderful, but it is not enough. Even good decisions are irrelevant without commitment on the part of those leading the change.

Managing People and Results? Self-Care Should be Top Priority
NOLS’ guiding principles and 1,200+ hours of skill development helped me return as a more resourceful and a stronger judge of priorities. Yet, the greatest benefit seems to be my renewed focus on self-care.

Learning Is a Journey – A Metaphor for Teaching
Metaphors aren’t the answer for all training needs, but applying them can certainly be expanded to a wide range of training efforts.

Your People, an Overlooked Ingredient in Making Your Strategy Viable
If you’re cooking up a strategy, be sure to mix in employee insights.

Frontline Managers – Your Weak Link?
If your managers don't see their main job as "leading people," your company won't get where it wants to go.

Want a Tree House? Think Again!
Most organizations risk creating the metaphorical 'tree house' by failing to care and nourish the roots of their people. Focusing on nurturing rather than clean up is the preferable approach to growing your company.

Culture vs. Strategy
Having the right culture ensures a successful and enjoyable process as employees navigate through the strategy to fulfill your future vision.

Managers Can Make or Break Your Organization’s Strategy
If you're not investing in your managers you may be holding your organization back from making your strategies a success. Find out how to empower your managers to create phenomenal teams and boost employee engagement.

Owning the Whole Before Your Piece – Part 2
Owning the whole creates a significant difference between organizations successfully executing on strategies and those struggling to realize the intended results.

Owning the Whole Before Your Piece – Part 1
Leaders are so focused on their piece of the puzzle, they miss the big picture. Harness talent into integrated and simplified priorities for their organization.

A Manager’s Greatest Plight – The Relentless Pursuit of More Time
Based on hundreds of conversations with managers, they all have one thing in common - they would give anything to have more time!

Plan a People Strategy like a Product Strategy
If leaders think like marketers and treat employees the same way they would customers, the implementation of a new strategy would go much different.

Designing Results
Design is more than just a fancy logo. Great design has the ability to deliver objectives and results in a way that drives change in any organization.

Leveraging Learning Cycles to Nurture Leadership
The cycle of briefing, executing, and debriefing is important to football teams, the military, and to your business. These learning cycles are key for employee growth.

Managers Move Metrics
It’s hard to deny that managers play an important organizational role. But, proving it is a difficult task. This post discusses how Petco captured information that proves that managers move metrics.

A Leader’s Role in Creating a Safe Haven
Few opportunities for building trust are as profound as a leader’s role in creating a “safe haven” for difficult conversations, decisions, and strategy execution.

Do Your Employees Love You?
We all know we can't buy love, but that doesn't stop companies from trying to buy employee engagement, loyalty, or company pride. Learn four ways to naturally gain employee loyalty.

Lifecycle of a Change
Strategic change is a process that takes time and it must be planned out to deliver those first steps of success and ensure sustainment.

What Does It Mean to Be a Leader? Cutting to the Chase
Swimming through a sea of leadership advice that may not fit your situation? Here are three pieces of advice that you can apply to your business today.

Giving Is Personal
People want to give to help create joy, to make a difference, and to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

Your Managers Aren’t Aligned on Your Strategy
Your business may not be musical, but your orchestra needs a conductor who knows the score.

The Art of Engagement – Inspiring People, Creating Change, and Making a Difference
There are four key concepts that contribute to building employment engagement and improving productivity.

Influencing Up
Best practices in "managing up" to ensure better effectiveness in launching initiatives.

Lessons from Grandma
Applying the life sessions about giving and growing. Which lessons have stuck with you?

Why a Cartoon? You Might be Surprised by the Answer!
Cartoons aren't just for the Sunday funnies. Using them at the office opens minds to new ideas by suspending disbelief.

The Power of Visuals to Solve Story Problems
Solving for complex strategies require visuals to help businesses relay the strategy to employees, just as a 10 year old uses visuals to solve complex math homework.

Occupy Our Blog
Occupy the Root blog. Tell us how well your organization is doing with employee engagement.

The Value of Play
All work and no play will make you more than dull. If you haven’t played at work for a while, here’s what you’re missing.

Hey Trainers! Stop Shooting All of Us in the Foot! Part 2
It's time for us trainers to stop just following orders and become stewards of good business decision-making!

Hey Trainers! Stop Contradicting Yourselves! Part 1
Trainers - Do you want to sit at the Strategy table, then stop just taking orders.

When Rapid eLearning Isn’t Enough
With so many Rapid Development tools available, creating eLearning is easier than ever. But are there times when these tools just won’t cut it?

Working Together is Success – Taking on a Team Attitude
If you want people to “play” with others they need to understand the rules of the game! That means engaging individuals in how their efforts impact their team’s success and how their team’s success contributes to the overall achievements of the company.

The Tension on Investment?
A little tension can be good for an organization. Find out how to use it to help you make those hard choices.

The Fine Line Between Direction and Engagement – Part 2
The vision that leaders create is only as strong as the commitment they get from everybody else. Read a few ways to reach this balance.

The Fine Line Between Direction and Engagement – Part 1
Whether your company’s vision is posted on a wall or embedded in your operations comes down to a question of balance. Here’s the question you need to answer!

Can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Corporate Training Programs
There is a fundamental flaw in the traditional mindset of “getting people to training” and a “learning process".

Roots of Engagement Issue Four – People want to Know their Contributions Make an Impact
Building a bike means a lot more when you know who’s going to ride it. See how this applies in business.

Why a Journey Needs a Map
Thinking in pictures? How storyboards can help you run your business.

Roots of Engagement Issue Three – People Want to Go on a Meaningful Journey
People want to go on a meaningful journey. There is more drama and adventure in companies than on a reality show, but it’s paved over by sterilized PowerPoints. How will you turn your strategy into an adventure story?

Innovation is like getting punched in the face sixty times.
Today’s riddle: How is innovation like a boxing match? Learn the connection here!

M&A Make or Break – Part 2 – Creating a Culture of Competence
Creating a culture just to have a culture after a merger and acquisition will not help you achieve success. These five questions will help create a culture of competence that is focused around aligning organizational focus, capability, systems, and processes.

M&A Make or Break – Do Your Employees Understand the Value it Will Create?
Creating a culture just to have a culture after a merger and acquisition will not help you achieve success. It's more critical to create a culture of competence that is focused around aligning organizational focus, capability, systems, and processes.

Roots of Engagement Issue Two – People Want to Feel a Sense of Belonging
If you’ve ever been passed over when teams choose up sides, you know what if feels like not to belong. Read how that plays out in business.

Can “anyone” Really Train Effectively?
French rats, cooking, and training. Yes, they do have something in common!

Managers matter the most when it comes to engagement!
When allocating training dollars, don’t overlook your managers’ and supervisors’ needs. If they aren’t excellent people-leaders, what are the consequences for your employees? Here’s why you need to focus one step up from the frontline.

Roots of Engagement Issue One – Being Part of Something Bigger Than Yourself
The perennial advice to college grads is “find yourself.” Root CEO Jim Haudan (and others) suggest the real point is to “lose yourself.” It’s a real Root of Engagement.

Missing a Critical Element of Employment Engagement?
Good strategies need good stories. Here’s why stories are important for getting people excited about executing strategy.

How Successful Strategies Win: Strategic Change as an Interdependent Process
Organizations that “win” have some unwavering principles that guide the way they lead the strategic change process.

Survivor: Patagonia
We learn how to lead in different ways -- including spending 80 days in Patagonia sea kayaking and mountaineering. Find out what one Rootster learned about successful leadership and teamwork by doing just that.

Managers: A lesson from Facebook
What do Facebook and good managers have in common? More than quizzes and Farmville! The “human touch” makes a difference at work, virtually or in person. Read our latest blog!

The Learning Buffet
Is your company curriculum a well-planned meal or a little-bit-of-everything buffet? Here’s something to chew on about eLearning.

Are you creating customers for life…or customers for now?
Your customers are your loyal brand evangelists, but they can also be your strongest critics. How do you ensure that your customers' experience with your brand creates a “customer for life”, and not just a “customer for now”?

Six Ways to Lead Change, Build Teams, and Make It Personal
Do you want to lead change, build teams, and grow your company? Then you’ll need to know six actions that will increase your chances for doing it and doing it well. Here’s a hint: You have to start with what’s real.

Ditch the “Duhs” in Compliance Training
Think compliance training is boring? Think again! Here's how to create compliance training that's both effective and engaging!

What we can learn from the events in Egypt
The sense of shaping your own destiny and playing an active part in the unfolding of the story creates a tremendous sense of ownership and accountability. Now how can you bestow that to your employees?

Reflecting on the Past to Handle the Future in Learning and Performance
How many times do we construct training for a system or workflow that is poorly designed…and subsequently create some very painful training programs!

From 1776 to 2011: Good Strategies Never Go Out of Date
I’ve always admired George, and I’m continually impressed by the forward-thinking leadership tenets he demonstrated to first his troops and then to his new country.

The “Manager of the Future” – the Future is Now
What does “success” mean to your employees?  The answer may surprise you!

There’s No Crying in Baseball
Do your employees know their impact on your business? Knowing their impact can turn an average employee into a great asset.

2011: Leading in the New Year
There is a saying, “Hope springs eternal”, are you optimistic about your company's future?

The Roots of Engagement in Russia
While the “Art of Engagement” is a business book, it explains how connecting and engaging people naturally occurs when tapping into the elements we all share as human beings.

If you build it, they will come
While you may think the fanciest tool with the most options is what everyone wants, if it isn't you just wasted a lot of time and money.

Five Fundamental Truths of Corporate Strategy Execution
Strategy is really about a focused effort at all levels of the business on how to win in the marketplace. The ability to rally thousands of employees around a common strategic direction becomes a point of competitive differentiation.

Saying Thanks by Giving Back
Only recently have I become aware of the number of places where the concept of “giving back” is showing up outside the expected charity events. Giving back appears to be a critical ingredient in sustaining meaningful human behavior change.

Strategic Approaches to Onboarding
Recent research on the impact of effective onboarding programs shows that it can help accelerate the assimilation of new employees into the workplace and reduce turnover.

The Infancy of Visual Consulting
Visualization to express complex business strategies isn’t a “fad” that might die. We’re on the vanguard of what might be truly groundbreaking and industry-shaking.

Strategy or Values? Yes!
You’ve likely heard the phrase, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” The idea behind this is that values and cultural norms in an organization are often much stronger than the strategy that gets communicated in PowerPoint decks from the company’s top leaders.

Culture Change in M&A
During a merger or acquisition, it’s critical to consider corporate culture. Everyone agrees that it’s important, but it often takes a back seat to the stated cost synergies to be achieved and the new organizational footprint to be established.

What is “World-Class Customer Service?”
These days it seems like everyone wants to be the Four Seasons or the Apple of their industry. With less demand and fewer potential customers in the marketplace, attracting and retaining customers is more important than ever.

Learning With Game Theory
Many people think of Game Theory as the introduction of video games in the workplace, and are usually shocked to hear that it has been around since the 1930’s…long before Atari, Nintendo, and Farmville.

Shifting a Leader’s Focus from In the Business to On the Business
Are you in the trenches working on the day-to-day or above visualizing the future? If you are in the trenches, who's creating the future?

Great Managers: Are They The Missing Link?
Over the past year or so I have heard many clients talk about their increased focus on the service profit chain. While I have heard it described a variety of ways most companies are paying close attention to 3 key links.

Tilt-shift Thinking…
When the time is taken to show employees a clear picture of the future it can make the biggest problems seem tiny.

Learning happens. Anywhere. Anyhow. And with anyone.
There is immense power in our organizations. That power is in the people who come into work, do their jobs, and go home. Let’s educate them. Engage them. Involve them.

How will the learning style of today’s youth differ from our own?
Technology is evolving at an extraordinary rate. While that is great for gamers, it is also brings amazing opportunities to how the next generation will learn.

A picture is worth a thousand words
Are you creating lessons for your employees to go through, or giving them a big picture and allowing them to create their own journey?

Designing for Different Learning Styles: Follow-up
Our approach to learning is based heavily on our belief that a combination of innovative learning design enhanced by complementary media treatments creates an engaging learning experience for users with all types of learning styles.

Good Morning, Management Family!
Getting an employee engaged and excited about his work is a lot like being a construction worker on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Both will want to make sure they did everything in their power to achieve the best result for the 'client'.

Metaphors: Like a Kick to the Head
What do roundhouse kicks and training have to do in common? Easy, if you train the person how to do it right, no one gets hurt.

Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse
It is key to remember why you are building something and not just what you are building. Sure we want to have a great looking training module, but if we don't have a clear outcome set, what good is it?

Sink or Swim: Is It Always Best to Dive Right In?
People say that the best way to learn something new is to dive right in and starting practicing.   But is that always the case?

I Want Cake, and Yes, I’ll be Eating It Too
Everyone knows there are many obstacles when doing anything (especially if IT is involved), but dealing with them head on always has the best outcome.

Asking the right questions
A lot of companies can make a product that is fun and engaging. We strive for these as well, but focus more on the value. Read how!

Marketing the “friendly skies”
But thinking more like a marketer and creating authentic awareness, excitement, and education about your strategy can have a profound impact on how well you execute throughout your organization.

The iBar™ – Engagement at the Pub
Feeling connected is a funny thing. Sometimes it feels out of reach, others times it's as simple as setting down your drink.

Different Learners, Different Learning Styles
Writing a summary of a paragraph you just read is cakewalk, right? To some, yes, to others it's a big no!

The Seductive Detail!
Memory of the central topics will increase, just by introducing an interesting fact to help maintain a learner’s attention.

Organizational training and Fruit Loops®
Millions of people eat Fruit Loops every morning, and it isn't mandatory. What does that say about your training program?

Let’s go to the movies…
One of the fastest ways to provide a common understanding is through a story or a visual. The beauty of film is that it marries both approaches in less time.

The power of gaming
What makes a great game? The graphics, or the game play? We're willing to bet it's the latter.

Just say NO to the patchwork quilt method of curriculum design
Are you just bolting on more learning without a clear objective or big picture in mind? This can't go on forever...