If My Book 'Manage To Engage' Was A Poem
Inspired by Poets Everywhere
When night comes we must ask ourselves
‘did we really engage our people
wisely, in this almost post pandemic world?’
That's the responsibility we carry.
A world we must create
where we prioritize people
and leverage our technology.
Because, we know that people power everything
and to manage to engage
creates relationships
that builds leadership.
And, as our management models age now
as quickly as
our operating models
and business models,
so we must level them up.
Step up to our accountabilities
creating fair-trade,
being fair-dinkum
and giving people a fair go
no matter a person’s position,
their gender, their race.
We do an exchange
our equivalent to meet a fair days work.
We must create a scorecard,
one that builds social capital,
management capital, a leadership license to operate.
Turning vision into verbs
and purpose into plans.
Turning aspirations in to actions,
strategies into schedules.
Before this bleak period of crisis of health and wealth,
there was already a crisis.
A pandemic of under engagement,
of people feeling less than all-in.
It cannot remain.
It can not be common place.
Because common sense says we won’t bounce back.
You have an impact.
As a leader of one or many.
What you do by day goes home with your people by night.
You make a difference,
you are the most important person in other people’s lives.
For better or for worse
you create the state,
you make the culture work, or not.
What climate change is to the planet
engagement is to the world of work.
We must remember
people power everything.
They rise up or sit down.
They persist or resist.
They create or debate.
They power our world of work.
You power theirs.
When we manage to engage
We must say ‘I've got this’,
we recognize our influence on
others, their willingness to participate and
bring their best selves to their work, to your work.
When we manage to engage
we earn the right to ask for change,
to launch our transformations,
to achieve.
When we manage to engage
we create a cause
from everyday effort,
we create a clean and meaningful workplace -
there is no lean and mean, there never was.
When we manage to engage
we create confidence that
this time is different.
We create connections and we connect.
We go heads up, raising our noses from our technology and connecting
with our humanology.
We humanize before we optimize.
We humanize before we digitize.
We pave the way for people and teams to collaborate across traditions.
We build community and capability
then we set our people free
to do the great work they want to
and bring their best selves to the work.
2Fs and 7Cs — the scorecard to be proud of.
We know great things happen at the intersection of people and technology
but only
if we connect,
if we have a new routine
One that makes people the center
of work,
a rhythm that shows we care, we are interested
We check in not up.
We know that nothing moves
until people
are moved -
their hearts, their heads, their hands.
Then we know we have a chance
to really make a difference,
to create the volunteers we need who give us their effort at work,
because we know
people power everything.
Long before pandemics
the young inspiring the old,
the old enabling the young.
When we manage to engage, we show up differently,
we enable others to step up. To speak up. To shake things up
during these tumultuous times.
When we manage to engage, different,
we become leaders.
We energize people to become remarkable,
to re-invent, to re-invigorate, to re-juvenate in these tumultuous times.
We connect.
Learn more about Managing to Engage in the book.
No poetry included!