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Personal Stories of Ingagement at Work

Ingagement is not a philosophy that might, or might not, work in the real world. It is a proven approach to leadership that I have seen work many times during my career.

In my book Ingaging Leadership: The Ultimate Edition, I write about some of these examples. In today’s article, I would like to share some of them with you.

An Early Example from My Career

When I was working at CCA Global Partners in Manchester New Hampshire, CEO Howard Brodsky was using a simple, yet highly effective program to build Ingagement through the ranks of his organization. Each month he held a lunch meeting for seven or eight employees, always at a local restaurant. The meetings were not exclusively for middle managers or executives; anyone could attend. “I didn’t want to give the lunches a formal name,” he explains, “because I wanted to keep everything somewhat loose.” Yet Deb Binder, a former CCA employee who was working there at the time, recalls that “If you got an invitation to go to lunch with the CEO, that was pretty exciting.” If people who had not been invited wanted to attend, they were welcome to do that. Everyone could ask anything they wanted, and no professional or personal topic was off-limits. Practical new ideas emerged from those meetings, but the greatest benefit was that people felt they were valued. Their ideas would be heard, and often tested or used, by an organization that wanted to hear what they had to say.

A Simple Yet Powerful Example of Ingagement

When I was president at Carpet One, we took our entire staff on a retreat once a year. We did team-building exercises in the mornings, and in the afternoons, we invited all the employees to attend open meetings that were held in a big room outfitted with nothing but chairs and flipcharts. Senior management (comprised of me and the people who reported directly to me) did not attend. All the attendees were invited to walk up to a flipchart, write down any topic they pleased, and start a discussion about it. In essence, we were giving people a forum where they could discuss anything without worrying about upsetting anybody from upper management or being judged. As the meetings progressed, people were able to review the flipcharts and topics that were under discussion and offer new ideas. An extraordinary number of great ideas emerged like ideas about HR, customer service and relationships, and operational efficiency. When the retreats ended, we had people put the very best ideas on big pieces of paper from the flip charts, and when we got back to our home office, we posted those sheets on the wall, got working on them, and posted progress as it was made. People could see that their best ideas were not only heard but were put into practice. As a result, they felt motivated to suggest even more ideas—it was a real benefit to both the employees and to the organization.

The Power of Ingaged Meetings

When I was at CCA, we created a series of monthly team meetings called ECHO (“Everyone Collaborates and Helps the Organization”) meetings. They were unusual meetings because the participants were from three different companies that were all involved in different aspects of the floor covering business. We created subgroups by function—such as marketing, merchandising and distribution—and had meetings where members of each of those groups could meet their counterparts from the other companies. People were encouraged to discuss challenges that they were facing, to share solutions, and more. Numerous great ideas were generated, and participants discovered many new ways to cooperate, save money, and become more efficient. The participating companies realized, for example, that they could save money by using the same printer to produce their brochures. They discovered that if they shipped their displays at the same time with the same trucking company, they would save even more by negotiating lower shipping costs. Then, the ECHO participants dug a little deeper internally and found new ways to use their ideas to benefit as many different divisions of their companies as possible. All three companies benefitted because they were able to share ideas freely. They were saving money, boosting profits, generating new ideas, and building a lot of Ingagement and excitement through their ranks—it was a huge success!

Ingaged Town Hall Meetings

At Carpet One, we launched a program of 12 Town Hall meetings. First, we invited all our 780 members to contribute their ideas for our new strategic plan. We then held meetings with our Advisory Council, where those ideas were developed. Again, we hosted 12 more Town Hall meetings and presented the plan. The result was a very strong and motivational plan that we used to create an infographic that was distributed to every location, to be shared with all employees.

Ingagement Works Its Magic at a Convention

The managers of a leading consumer brand approached me in 2013 with a very specific challenge. Their annual convention was coming up, an event attended by owners of their brand-specific stores across America. The executives were planning to unveil a new store design, and they wanted me to help them increase attendance at the convention.

In previous years, only about 20% of store owners had come to the convention, and it was a very big priority to get as many of them as possible to attend. Without their buy-in on the new store design, its adoption and use would not be as successful as the company leaders were hoping.

Company leaders were hoping that I could get as many as 40% or 50% of all store owners to come to the convention, but I surpassed that number. I was able to get more than 85% of store owners there.

How did I help this company achieve those dramatic results? Plain and simple—through Ingagement. I began by asking a group of franchisees to describe their experiences at the annual conventions. Most of their comments were similar to this: “I have a lot of fun and everybody socializes, but there is no real reason for me to go. I will never learn anything that company management will not tell me via other means.”

So, I went to management and asked a simple question. Instead of simply pulling the curtains off one new design at the convention, would they consider bringing three or four designs-in-progress and then allowing franchisees to make suggestions about them? Management agreed and showcased several new designs. After franchisees reviewed them, we encouraged them to make suggestions and refinements.

With the changes, I was able to shift the dynamic of the convention from “They’re going to talk to me,” to “They’re going to talk with me.” That changed the whole meeting from “95% listen and 5% contribute” to “50% listen and 50% contribute.” What a difference.

The result was not only a good design, but also one that reflected the front-line, real-world intelligence that only store owners could provide. People who provided input were excited about the design that resulted because they had enjoyed a role in creating it. I predict that as stores roll out the new design, their customers are going to love it, and profits will increase.

Ingagement Works

So, Ingagement works. I could add many more examples of it, because it is a philosophy I use every day with my clients. If you would like to learn more about it, I encourage you to read my new book Ingaging Leadership: The Ultimate Edition.

 

 

Evan Hackel
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