I won’t even ask if you’ve ever had a low-energy day; it happens to the best of us. You know how it goes. You’ve got a million things to do already, with more coming in every time your phone rings or your e-mail pings. You’ve got deadlines, commitments, l
by Site Staff
December 1, 2003
And through it all, you just can’t seem to get anything done. You work and you work, but you end up feeling like you’re bailing out the Titanic with a teaspoon.
That’s a low-energy moment for sure, and you know it’s costly. Whether it lasts all day or all of five minutes, it’s lost time you’re savvy enough to know you need.
Now, imagine you’ve got a workforce of 10,000 people. How much does your company lose if 1 percent of them have get up and go that’s got up and gone? What if it were 10 percent? Fifty percent? If your level of confidence is descending as those numbers are ascending, I know I’ve made my point.
Energy is more than a motivator in Wheaties commercials … it’s the way things get done. It’s the most precious resource we have as individuals, you have as executives and your enterprises have as means of advancement. The workforce may be the most valuable asset, but without the energy and drive to make the teams perform, its value is limited.
Hating to present a problem without a solution, let me take a minute now and introduce you to the newest members of Chief Learning Officer magazine’s team of expert authors, Jim Loehr and Jack Groppel. Jim and Jack are co-founders of LGE Performance Systems and pioneers in the field of performance science. Together and separately, they’ve coached thousands of people in business, law enforcement, health care, education and sports. The pair will co-author the “Engagement” column in every other issue of Chief Learning Officer, starting this month with their column at www.clomedia.com/engagement.
Energy is a common theme in their work, along with the byproduct of improved energy, “full engagement.” In essence, engagement is the pinnacle of the involvement pyramid, the place you want your employees to be. In a recent seminar Jack Groppel hosted, he contrasted engagement to its evil twin, “presenteeism.” In his definition, that’s the worker who shows up, but is disengaged from the job he or she is supposed to be doing. It may not even be terribly visible, depending on the job role, but when Groppel tells a room of executives that a Gallup poll cited 75 percent of the workforce as not being engaged and assigning it a price tag of $250 billion in lost productivity, you literally could have heard grass grow. It’s a powerful fear about a common occurrence with a painfully high price tag.
The good news is good leadership can make a great difference; that’s where you come in. Jim and Jack will share some tips and tricks with you through their column, helping you to identify the truth in your organization, to define the purpose to correct what needs correction and to implement the plan that will allow your enterprise to both maintain and expand its capacity for growth.
“Imagine the power when everyone’s energy is invested in the service of the organization,” Groppel says in his workshops. Imagine indeed.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that whether it’s positive or negative, energy is contagious, able to grow and mutate in new ways. Your role is to direct the growth of the organization through education. Why not start at that fundamental level and see where it takes you?
Norm Kamikow
Editor in Chief/President
norm@CLOmedia.com