Lets get professional: 3 rules for employee engagement

There was a sentence published on a random local newspaper couple of month ago which impressed me, the sentence was: "Give whatever you are doing and whoever you with the gift of your attention".

Dale Carnegie training and consulting, recently released new findings on employee engagement and reeading the results was quite intriguing to me.

The first and most dramatic finding shows that if an employee is dissatisfied with their immediate supervisor, there is an 80% chance that they are disengaged. Similarly, having a “caring” manager is one of the key element to a positive and successful employee engagement strategy.

Employees want to feel valued and have their manager take an interest in their personal lives, health and well-being.

Other notable findings include:

-       Executives and medical workers are the most highly engaged group of employees; employees in education, social work and sales are the least engaged. 

     26% of engaged employees would leave their current job for just a 5% pay increase, 46% of partially engaged employees would leave their current job for just a 5% pay increase, 69% of disengaged employees would leave their current job for just a 5% pay increase.

-       Senior Leadership’s actions also have a direct impact on employee engagement; 61% of employees who have confidence in the leadership abilities and think that the senior leaders are moving the organization in the right direction are fully engaged; 49% of employees who were satisfied with their direct manager were engaged, 80% of employees who were very dissatisfied with their direct manager were disengaged.

Thanks to this exhaustive research we are reminded of the complexities of the 21st century workplace and the need for strong leadership.

We understand that engagement is critical not just to employee productivity but to longevity as well.

The challenges for managers, supervisors and executives can be overwhelming.

Following my 3 tips to help engage your employees and build a strong team:

-       Tip# 1, inspire their passions. As a leader, your engagement with your employees is about inspiring their passions and offering whatever assistance you can to help them achieve their goals. If you read the book “Rules of Thumb”, author Alan M. Webber, you can find the following question: Would you rather have tepid success with something that doesn’t matter or a brilliant future with something that does?

When you engage your employees you help them to discover that brilliant future they desire, and serve as a catalyst for their passions.

When they see that you are inspired by their passions it will cause them to step up and deliver. When you give team members the tools they need, the inspiration to perform, and the courage to achieve their dreams, that is a level of engagement that paves the way for great accomplishment.

-       Tip# 2, Direct their energies. The best ideas in the world do not mean a thing without action. You become engaged and vested in your employees when you help them focus their energies in the right direction and put forth measurable goals of achievement. If you are disengaged in their work, goals and passions, they will be disengaged from you. Consequently they will not perform at levels you like, and they very well may be planning their exit strategy. When energies are directed with purpose, clarity and enthusiasm you set the bar high for their personal growth and their personal engagement. When this is achieved they will deliver, be more engaged and be happier employees.

-       Tip# 3, Reward their effort. As you demostrate genuine engagement and support for your team members you are positioning them for success. When you do your part to equip your employees do not forget to reward them for what they deliver. This type of engagement goes a long way toward building the morale your company needs and shows that you care. Whatever incentive or reward program you implement it is just another layer of engagement to solidify your leadership. Without question each employee must take ownership of his/her own level of engagement and be responsible for it. But when you take the time to notice and reward those efforts it makes your job much easier.

Are you an engaged employee? Are you an engaging leader?

How being alone can be rewarding?

This is what I have discovered during my almost 31 years experience, this is what I have discovered in this life. For the people who are interested to know about it: Be advised it is just a list of 12 very important rules for being alone and being happy about yourself and your life at the same time.

The following are the rules I try to live by when it comes to being alone. They add enormous value to my life.

Whether you're an introvert trying to make your way in an extrovert's world, or an extrovert learning to become a better person on your own, I hope they add some value to your life as well.

1. Understand that you’re good enough all by yourself.

You’re a valuable person, and you don’t need the approval of anyone else for that to be true. When you’re alone, remind yourself that it’s because you choose to be. It really is a choice.
It’s very easy to find someone to spend time with, but when you have high standards for the people you allow into your life, you’re telling yourself that you’re better off by yourself than with someone who isn’t a great fit for you.

2. Value others’ opinions, but value your own more.

Don't ask for advise unless you truly need it. Instead, ask yourself for advice. If you knew the answer to the problem that you have, what would it be?
That’s your answer. The more time you spend asking yourself for advice, the less you start to need input from others. When you trust yourself to solve problems, you become a much stronger and more confident person, and you take on challenges that you wouldn't have felt capable of before.

3. Learn to be an observer.

I’ve always held the belief that if you aren’t able to take interest in something, it says more about you than whatever it is you find uninteresting.
To truly enjoy being alone, learn to look at ordinary situations in new and unfamiliar ways. Go to the park and watch people play with their children or their dogs. Go to the grocery store and watch how people shop for their groceries.
Everywhere you go, make an effort to understand the other people around you. Learning how people operate when they think no one is watching will make you feel more connected to them.

4. Close your eyes in a dark room and appreciate the silence.

The world is a busy place and, unless you take a moment to step away from it once in a while, it’s easy to forget how nice it is to simply sit alone and enjoy your own company.
Take a moment and sit quietly in a dark room. Listen to everything that is not happening around you. You can learn a lot about yourself in the moments when you’re least occupied the times when there is nothing to distract you from the thoughts and feelings you deny yourself during your busy days.

5. Learn how to talk to yourself.

They say it’s perfectly normal to talk to yourself; you’re only crazy if you talk back.
Every single person has an inner voice that talks to them at all hours of all days, and getting to know that person and how to talk to them is one of the most important things you can do for yourself.
When you fill your time with other people, it’s easier to ignore this voice, but when you’re alone, it’s your only company. This voice rubs off on you. It is you. The way that you talk to yourself when no one else is around will shape who you are in this world more than anything else.
Just like you’d distance yourself from negative friends who bring you down, it’s just as important to distance yourself from a negative inner voice.
When you’re alone, it can sometimes be hard to stay positive, but you must be kind to yourself.

6. Cherish every interaction.

Most people have to experience some type of tragedy before they begin to understand just how brief our time here is. You get but a few short trips around the sun, and then it’s over.
Time alone is important. Time alone is beautiful. But so is time spent with others.
There is no such thing as a boring person. There is no such thing as a boring situation. If you’re ever bored, it’s because you’re not paying attention. This is a problem with you, not with your surroundings.
Take an interest in every person that comes into your life, even if for only a second. Listen closely to what they say. Watch carefully what they do. Try to understand them as a person. You’ll be better for it.

7. Avoid mindless consumption.

When you’re alone, you have an incredible opportunity to think clearly about your life and the direction you want to take it. In a world that’s often filled with noise, you’ve been given quiet. This is a time to reaffirm the path that your life is on.

Are you happy and fulfilled? Should you keep doing what you’re doing? Or, are you feeling unsatisfied? Should you change something?

These are questions you can only answer when you take advantage of this gift of quiet. If, instead, you fill your time with entertainment that you mindlessly consume TV, movies, randomly surfing the web it will be difficult to answer these questions. You can never devote enough attention to coming to a clear answer.

8. Create, create, create.

To create is one of the most important things you can do in your life. To create among a sea of people (or even just one person) vying for your attention is one of the most difficult things in life.
When you’re alone, the only one stopping you from creating the art, the work, that you're capable of is yourself. All excuses are gone. When you’re alone, you can lose yourself in your work. When you lose yourself in your work, you can be sure that you’re creating something truly meaningful.
Your other option is to ignore that call to create and, instead, look for temporary comfort in things and people who will eventually leave you unfulfilled. Make use of your loneliness.

9. Make plans for the future, and pursue them immediately.

It’s almost impossible to feel good about your life if you don’t have some type of direction for it. When you meet someone, it’s usually quite easy to see if they have a handle on their life and are happy, or if they're wondering without aim, looking for something to pursue.
The purpose for your life doesn’t need to be complex or earth shattering. It doesn’t have to be big or overwhelming. It only needs to be present. Once it’s there, it gets much easier to make plans you can take action on.
Pursue these plans immediately. Don’t put them off. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. Perfect never comes, and the longer you wait, the harder it is to get started.
Maybe you want to travel the world and understand different cultures. Maybe you want to build a massive stamp collection. It doesn’t matter what it is, pick something you enjoy and go after it.
When you do this, two things happen. First, you gain a sense of confidence in yourself because you see that you’re capable of living on your own terms. Second, this confidence brings new and interesting people into your life.
Being alone can be beautiful, but if you want to add people to your life, finding a purpose for your existence is the fastest way to do it.

10. Go to a movie alone.

Get used to doing things alone that society says is made for two. Go to a movie by yourself and enjoy the picture. Have a great dinner out all by yourself. Take yourself on dates, and learn to treat yourself well.
This will be awkward at first. If you’re used to going out with others, you’ll wonder what you should do with yourself while you’re alone. Don’t try to hide from the discomfort. Accept it. And then laugh about it because, really, who the hell decided that you weren’t supposed to do these things alone?
Besides, to truly enjoy these things with others, you have to learn to enjoy them alone first.

11. Pursue an impractical project.

When you work on a team, the pressure to conform is great. You always have to think about the others in your group and regularly make compromises so that the end result is acceptable to everyone.
In my opinion, this is a terrible way to do something important and personally meaningful.
When you’re alone, you’re free to pursue any kind of project you want in your life. You have the freedom to be completely selfish and make no compromises about what you do or how you do it.
Take advantage of this freedom! An important part of life is doing things that look unwise or impractical to others. Do something that’s completely over your head. Start something that you don’t know how to finish.
Think of the wildest thing you’ve ever wanted to do, then take a small step towards realizing it.
If you’re afraid, understand that this doesn’t have to be your whole life. You can contain it to just a small part. In the piece of your life that you set aside, never, ever allow anyone else’s advice or opinions to direct how you work.
This is something you do alone, for the benefit of no one but yourself.

12. Volunteer your time.

If you’re a hermit when you’re alone, find others that you can be alone around. A great way to do this, and to contribute something positive to the world is to volunteer your time to a cause you believe in.
Being alone and happy doesn’t mean sequestering yourself from the world. It means being confident enough to know that you can surround yourself with people, but not depend on them for your own happiness.
And one good way to get started is to surround yourself with good people, the kind you’ll find when you give your time to a cause that’s important to you.

2012 end

2012 Was a burdensome year, 

important people coming closer, important people going far away. 2 big countries. Dreams falling apart, dreams coming true. Learning at the top, absorbing experiences day by day and trying to digest all of them to the right extent.

This is the only, second, post for the year 2012, and eventually it is coming at the end of this year.

Some reflection come to my mind after 12 months, after reading one of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. They are all about this generation, our generation of young. They try to teach us to be miserable, to be looser, not to trust ourselves but why?

Today what most Italians miss is space. A physical, but also mental space, which represents possibilities and future hopes. 

For decades, this feeling of openness has been the engine of our growth and the urge to think positive.

Today we use to say: there is not the future of once upon a time anymore. 

This is not just a "lapsus" it is the sentiment, it is what we really think. 

But again why? Which are the basis to say so?

Indeed there are very controversial truth which goes totally against our way of thinking:

The infant mortality rate has dropped to the point where many foreign analysts suggest that Italy is now "the safest place in the world to give birth to a child." Health care is guaranteed for all. Much less people die on the roads. There are fewer murders, and are overall less committed crimes of blood.

Disease - it is a fact - are treated in a much more targeted and effective way than before.

We all live, or almost all, in apartments adapted to our needs, with health services and connected to the mains. We are a literate country, and we certainly do much less effort than what our fathers and our mothers did, and before them the previous generation, accustomed to conquer every inch of their well-being at the cost of hard work and sacrifices.

Isn't it a perfect framework? In part, yes, but be careful: the progression "ad infinitum" curve of our prosperity marked a reversal in the last twenty years, and young people no longer invest in their future because they are gripped by a deep discouragement, to resignation that is transmitted endemic, or by inheritance.


Fathers are inducing their children not to believe too much in their ability to avoid the disappointment that inevitably follow when we have to contend with the reality of a country that has stopped believing in them.

My personal point of view is that tripped by the unconscious tends to common sense, can emerge a widespread feeling, a subtle uneasiness, a way of thinking that becomes immediately clear and puts us in front of our own way of reading the real .

This means that we are unconsciously destroying our future possibility just because the common sense bring us to think that we have got less opportunities than our predecessors.

Isn't it witless? 

Wish every wonderful person Italian or not Italian to have a wonderful, open, full of opportunity and full of cleverness 2013!

Are we sometimes transitioning somewhere or somehow?

When engaged in a transition, what is the best way to stay balanced in what we give and receive, protect space and time for rest, and find sources of nourishment that restore our reserves? Alongside social and community resilience, the more personally resilient we are, the more we are able to face, and respond to the challenges of our times. If resilience refers to ‘bounce-back-ability’, then someone with a resilient body, heart and mind will be able to feel whatever feelings arise in response to challenges and stressful situations, and ‘bounce back’, returning to a normal state of well-being.

The less personally resilient we are, the more challenges overwhelms us and we find ourselves struggling with physical exhaustion, losing sleep, isolation or inability to cope with relationships, mental stress or loss of meaning, to name just a few. As our resilience diminishes, the pathway back to healthy functioning takes longer, and in extreme cases of burnout it can take months or even years for a person to fully recharge.

Some simple factors that are known to increase levels of resilience include:

having basic needs met; being financially resourced

eating a healthy diet and taking regular exercise; spending time in nature

feeling seen and appreciated for what we are

feeling connected – to a partner, family, friends, colleagues and the community, and knowing that people will treat us with respect and care

feeling able to effect change and make a difference.

The Transition process itself helps with many of these – working to achieve positive personal outcomes; making friends and building a sense of local community – these all support the personal resilience of whose are going through a transition process/moment. And yet, many people involved will have felt, or known someone who felt, overstretched, stressed or exhausted partly by their transition.

Two key features of any resilient person, are feedback loops and tight coupling (can either be best-friendship or partner). Applying this to ourselves, there are always signs that we are going beyond our natural coping capacity. These will be different for different people, but common ones include:

feeling tired

losing sleep

being unable to switch off

feeling overwhelmed by new requests for responses to challenges

being irritable or snappy with people we are close to L

feeling depressed, hopeless or overwhelmed by sadness in ways that seem disproportionate to what’s happening

feeling isolated or cutting off from friends or colleagues

feeling guilty or resentful, that we are doing too much or not enough.

It’s common in our culture to override these warning signs, and we can often be praised as being heroic in keeping going in spite of them. In this we repeat the pattern of our wider culture: ignoring the warning signs of changes, degradation and exhaustion of physical and mental resources and speeding up in response, rather than slowing and changing what we do.

Training for personal resilience???

The basic principles for personal resilience are that we learn best by a combination of receiving information that helps us understand more deeply challenges and solutions, self reflection, listening to and hearing other’s experience and sharing our own stories and experiences.

An understanding of the physiology of stress and what happens to us when stress overwhelms our capacity to resource ourselves will come just when probably it is too late… why??

The things that best restore, nourish and replenish our energy during this period will be specific to each of us. Spending time discovering what really works for us is time well invested. The list might include fun activities, or doing things or being with people that are nothing to do with Transition! Time spent in nature, listening to music or being creative, or turning off the constant flow of emails and switching off from ‘mental’ activities, give the rational left brain a rest and nourish feelings of connection and flow. Physical exercise helps the brain as well as the rest of the body. For some, it’s time alone that is most refreshing and restorative.

As we give more attention to the feedback from our bodies, hearts and minds we more easily respond by attending to what is needed – rest, exercise, food, company, having a change of scene or pace, whatever is called for. The repeated act of noticing our behavior in stressful situations also increases our ability to choose our response and not get caught in habitual stressful reactions, some of which may be old patterns learned long ago and no longer useful or relevant.

Readiness for Change...

Are you an employee ready to change? Employees are more open to support change if they are ready to make changes. This means that they believe in the changes, have the time and energy to invest in the changes, and your organization is ready to support the changes.

Once, a Manager sent an email asking about how his staff felt about starting a continuous improvement process. The immediate response from several who have real world experience, was that the organization was not ready for such a process. They’re right. The company is making the transition from tactical to strategic and that is taking up all of the available energy.

You can assess the readiness of your organization to participate in change, too. How..???

Answer questions such as these. What is the level of trust within your organization? Do people feel generally positive about their work environment. Do you have a history of open communication? Do you share financial information?

These factors have a tremendous impact on people’s acceptance of and willingness to change. If you can start building this positive and supportive environment prior to the change, you have a great head start on the change implementation.

People in general feel very disturbed and scared from changes in their life and as a job in a company for most of us take over 40% of our lives, the right way to implement changes should be starting with awarness of the employees.

But how to raise the awarnesses of employees?? What I have learn until now in my experience are the followings tips:

- Spreading the group charter of corporate behavior, do it through manuals, informations, communications and adapt every single message it is coming from top to down and viceversa to them.

- Compliance Education, there are a lot of things which we do in our routine but we even don't know why we do them... imagine when it comes to change those routine with other brand new routine... People that doesnt't know about the meaning of the previous should adapt to the new... it sounds very funny, but in most of the corporation today it is like this. If you wanna mke differently, be sure that the level of education is kept high.

- Dialogue level, how much intense is the dialogue between the people in the herarchy?? Coaching, Mentorship, Counseling and Climate initiative are in place?

At the end of the day we can call all those basic steps I have mentioned, Total Quality Management....

I've got white hair...

Have you ever watched someone try to cover up white hair by dyeing it? Or maybe you wonder why your granddad has a full head of silver hair when in old pictures it used to be dark brown? Getting gray, silver, or white hair is a natural part of growing older, and here's why.

Each hair on our heads is made up of two parts:

· a shaft - the colored part we see growing out of our heads

· a root - the bottom part, which keeps the hair anchored under the scalp

The root of every strand of hair is surrounded by a tube of tissue under the skin that is called the hair follicle. Each hair follicle contains a certain number of pigment cells. These pigment cells continuously produce a chemical called melanin that gives the growing shaft of hair its color of brown, blonde, red, and anything in between.

Melanin is the same stuff that makes our skin's color fair or darker. It also helps determine whether a person will burn or tan in the sun. The dark or light color of someone's hair depends on how much melanin each hair contains.

As we get older, the pigment cells in our hair follicles gradually die. When there are fewer pigment cells in a hair follicle, that strand of hair will no longer contain as much melanin and will become a more transparent color - like gray, silver, or white - as it grows. As people continue to get older, fewer pigment cells will be around to produce melanin. Eventually, the hair will look completely gray.

People can get gray hair at any age. Some people go gray at a young age - as early as when they are in high school or college - whereas others may be in their 30s or 40s before they see that first gray hair. How early we get gray hair is determined by our genes. This means that most of us will start having gray hairs around the same age that our parents or grandparents first did.

Gray hair is more noticeable in people with darker hair because it stands out, but people with naturally lighter hair are just as likely to go gray. From the time a person notices a few gray hairs, it may take more than 10 years for all of that person's hair to turn White (nice I still have timeJ).

Some people think that a big shock or trauma can turn a person's hair white or gray overnight, but scientists don't really believe that this happens.

My first 6 white hair are there let’s see how this process of change will run inside me to turn all of them into white ….

I make up my mind...

Life is about change, change happen suddenly, you don't plan them and you don't need to plan them... they are caused by you, by your choice and by some internal process of your mind such as:

Ambition

Fuels our aspirations to Make our hopes and desires a reality, Ambition is a wonderful thing. How can we manage change without it?

The art to aspire to our dreams and goals is to be ambitious. To put the effort in and to make our aspirations a reality in our lives. To have ambitions is one of the joys of life. And one of the challenges, too. And one of the catalysts of change in our life. Support that platform of hope with concerted effort and determination and what will be beyond our capabilities?

We all have our aspirations in life. Some are small, others are middling, others are large. Some we can live without, others are essential to our existence. Some help us to grow and develop, others inhibit us and our actions. Some desires lead us astray, while others lead us onto greater things and enhance our self development.

Because of all this I also understood that if I have some aims I don't have to play life, instead play games be serious about this chance concentrate as if it was the night's last dance!

Love

Wikipedia says:"Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachement; The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction . "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship."

Because of all this diverse interpretations and meanings, and also for the complexity of feelings involved, in my opinion it's quite impossible to define what love is, when it comes etc...

The only thing that i understood is that we just wake up one day and we start to think differently about people, relationships and other issues just like you make up your mind after a nice coffee at the bar or a tea at the lounge.

Responsibilities

Normally it happen that we have certain obbligation connected to specific situations, and we also normally define people who fullfill those obbligations "moral" or "consistent" do you agree?

But we don't consider how and at what level responsibilities modify our lives and so they finally effect positively or negatively Change!

Finally besides those 3 important pieces of the "Change Puzzle" today I feel to be more close to Aristotele tradition" which define personal development as a category of phronesid or practical wisdom, where the practice of virtues (arête) leads to eudaimonia, commonly translated as "happiness" but more accurately understood as “human flourishing” or “living well"....

This means that we want to change... YES... to live well!