An Engaged Organization: Building Accountability and Commitment
How do we engage the minds and hearts of our staff so they give their best efforts? How do we build a committed workforce? How do we create a culture of accountability? How do we engage their commitment and inspire them towards our vision?
“The task of leadership is to produce engagement.” – Peter Block
The key for creating an engaged and connected workforce is to convene people together for powerful conversations. These conversations support the individual in clarifying his own choice on how he will relate to the organization. We build a culture of engagement by changing our conversation and language.
Creating organizations where the choice to be engaged in service to the larger whole is the purpose of this workshop.
The Promise
Targeted outcomes include:
- Approaches to build an engaged workforce
- Techniques to deal with cynics, victims, and bystanders
- Ways to create an environment where people choose accountability
- Methods to overcome the cycle of blame and defense
- Means to lead and engage in powerful ways
- Approaches to deal with difficult relationship issues
- Methods to shift from lip service to authenticity
- Develop a plan to begin applying these skills in the series of dialogue meetings
The Concepts
Changing your way of thinking about leadership
Choosing to be accountable means each employee takes the leap of faith to choose to commit to the success of the organization. Leadership makes this happen by the way it convenes people and the focus it gives to the discussion.
Change strategies based on invitation rather than mandate
Mandate creates its own resistance. Invitation contains both an offer and a hurdle and lets you create an alternative future with those who show up. Transformation is about depth, not scale. The task is to create partners and owners.
Viewing all change as a shift in conversation
Accountable conversations are more than just talk. A shift in language is what constitutes a change in action. The workshop helps participants create language that builds the capacity of others to choose accountability. It also underlines the power of questions rather than answers.
Valuing Dissent
Expressing our doubts is the first step to commitment. Supporting people’s doubts without necessarily agreeing with them creates the conditions which makes widely shared partnership possible.
Changing the architecture
Changing the architecture means not only changing how you do the work but also changing the room, the building and the context within which the work is done.
Focus on gifts rather than on deficiencies
The challenge is to bring the gifts of those on the margin into the center. It is about acting on our intentions and being willing to take responsibility to create the culture we live in.
Agenda
Day 1 (9.00 to 5.00 pm)
Changing the Way We Think about Engagement
Connection before Content
Changing the Conversation to Change the Culture
Introduction to the Six Conversations
Four Powerful Questions
Crafting an Invitation
Facilitating Powerful Conversations
Intentions and Crossroads: Crossroad and Possibility
Room Redesign: Who Owns the Room? (Experiential Exercise)
Ownership Conversation: My Contribution to the Problem
Gifts Conversation: Gifts I Hold in Exile
Day 2 (9.00 to 5.00 pm)
Redesign Architecture
Dissent Conversation: Doubts, Reservations, Postponement of Refusals
Commitment Conversation: What is the Commitment I am Willing to Make with No Promise of Return?
Dealing with Cynics, Victims and Bystanders
Action Plan: Designing and Facilitating Dialogue Meetings
Gifts Conversation: Gifts We Received from Each Other
Evaluation and Closing
Methodology
The workshop is highly interactive. Brief lectures are used to present key concepts. Participants will become deeply immersed in the materials through interactive stimulations with other attendees. The workshop also includes written exercises to apply key concepts to your own unique situation. Participants will leave with a specific plan to bring these ideas to your organization.
