Increasing Employee Engagement-Pt.1: Impact of Global Trends

Business is confronted with facing and embracing a new reality surfacing in the form of human spirit. The drive to tap more deeply into the creative talent individually and collectively is gathering in momentum. Unfortunately, most business leaders are too busy to notice or are absorbed in old habits of action, missing the sensitivity to detect the distinction between what appears to be a problem and what is actually an opportunity. In so doing, they are at risk of missing the largest wave of human creative expansion ever.

Understanding the drivers behind the dynamic of engagement requires an insightful read on how global trends pressure evolution toward a radically different way of perceiving how the world works and the role of business. External forces outside of the control of the individual and the company meet internal forces arising from the individual's need to contribute purposefully to create a confluence which utilizes mass collaboration, Web 2.0 and community to achieve goals.

What are these trends? In 2004, when Dannemiller-Tyson held a Think Tank one of the five meta-trends was increasing connectivity and mobility - meaning communications and personal/professional life boundaries no longer existed. Looking through the lense of this trend we can see the work-life balance issue surface, the natural support for social networks and the subsequent shift required from autocratic to participative. Rod Collins, former COO of Blue Cross-Blue Shield is interviewed on the Evolutionary Provocateur podcast. He explains quite clearly what changes in thinking are required to make the jump. Changes in thinking are only the start. The other set of skills lie in the more intuitive/sensory domain. These are impossible to tap into when the mental/intellectual processor is working on hyperdrive. They are much more sophisticated skills; natural and not much valued in an environment where fear prevails and efforts are made to think through complexity rather than feel through using insight.

Websites like www.globalforesight and http://www.thefutureofwork.net/blog offer insight into the impact on work, leadership and personal lives yet oddly enough the implications of the web of interactions are still not translated into action. Why? That is the subject of the next article in this series.