David Zinger’s post Friday (marvelous wordplay and puns) was all about freedom—freedom from clothes.

It seems that a Dave Taylor, a business shrink in the UK, recommends “Naked Friday” to boost team spirit—taking casual Friday to a whole new level.

“Inviting an organisation to go naked is the most extreme technique I’ve used. It may seem weird but it works. It’s the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other.”

Seems like naked is the rage among folks with those great accents.

Air New Zealand has made both an ad and a safety video using its own employees, including CEO Rob Fyfe, fully dressed—in body paint. (It’s probably the first time anyone paid attention to a safety video.)

“Each clip took one day to shoot and cost about 10 to 15 per cent of the cost of a major brand commercial.”

But don’t look for anything similar in the US any time soon.

Can you imagine the harassment lawsuits? Even if the staff agreed, someone would accuse someone else of staring and the simplest action would border on inappropriate.

The same with the commercial.

Can you imagine the lawsuits if an airline crew walked through a major airport here clad only in body paint?

The awards for developmental damage to children, the pain and suffering of the adults and the general flouting of public decency could pay off the TARP loans.

Perhaps this is where the US went wrong.

Our Puritanical roots are very close to the surface and we’ve lost our national sense of humor—if we ever had one.

There is nothing like laughter to take the hot air out of the leading windbags who dominate all viewpoints in our national news, whether business, religion or politics.

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: AirNZnothing2hide on YouTube

Last week I wrote about both the need and approaches for management to communicate bad news openly and honestly. Wes Ball commented on the need to keep employees involved, which is what I was planning to talk about today.

The language of employee involvement keeps changing, so if you want to do more research, “engage,” in its many forms, seems to be the term of choice for now.

There are five basic rules that must be followed when your focus is to create, enhance or increase engagement.

Rule One: Engagement is based on trust. If employees don’t trust their management then management can forget about engaging its employees.

Rule Two: Engagement requires involvement. Asking for employee input after the decision(s) are already made is a con and breaks trust.

Rule Three: Engagement is based on fairness. Treating a select minority as royalty and the rest like replaceable dirt disengages everyone (including the royalty) and breaks trust.

Rule Four: Engagement requires management to make its decisions first for the sake of the company, second for the sake of the group and third for the sake of themselves. Done in any other order break trust.

Rule Five: Engagement requires courage, authenticity and genuineness (see Notes). Any form of lie/cheat/steal/trash breaks trust.

And while Rule One is the primary rule it is also the corollary of the other four.

Engaging your people, whatever your level of management, starts in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

No matter how well taught, implementing the mechanics of engagement can proceed no further than your belief in, and adherence to, the five rules.

If your MAP acknowledges a need to break the rules don’t waste your time on engagement efforts, because they are doomed to fail. That energy would be better used on recruitment, since your attrition rate will be far higher than any layoff could account for.

NOTE: Two of the best sources on engagement mechanics are Steve Roseler and David Zinger.

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: flickr

David Zinger writes about employee engagement; Phil Gerbyshak at Slacker Manager today posted a link to a new ebook that David facilitated from the Employee Engagement Network. All good stuff.

According to Wikipedia, “An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work.”

What I have for you today is employee engagement on steroids, in action at a place called Nucor Steel.

Way back in May 2006, Business Week wrote, “In an industry as Rust Belt as they come, Nucor has nurtured one of the most dynamic and engaged workforces around.”

I’ve written more about Nucor and its culture several times, but it’s come to the fore again.

On January 2, 2009, the Charlotte Business Journal named Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco Business Person of the Year for 2008.

First, a bit of history,

“Ken Iverson, Nucor’s pioneer and guiding spirit, stepped down as chief executive in 1996… Earnings remained flat through 1998, when board dissidents forced Iverson out of the chairman position and off the board. Nine months later, they ousted John Correnti, Iverson’s handpicked successor as CEO.

The board made DiMicco CEO in September 2000. Nucor’s four other executive vice presidents and CFO Terry Lisenby, were candidates for the top job that went to DiMicco. But all stayed, sharing his basic vision for a bigger Nucor built on reinvestment in mills, exploring new technology and market niches, strategic acquisitions and international growth through joint ventures.”

And a pay system that many (most?) companies should adopt, “…it’s not only the workers who get paid mostly on performance. Managers all the way up to the top executives have a relatively low base pay supplemented by specific performance goals.” But they won’t, because most management, as well as the rank and file, believe they should be protected from the results of their actions—unless, of course, they’re positive.

The team took over in 2000 just as the dot com bomb blew up the economy and now, just eight years later Nucor is the largest steel maker in the US.

It’s another economic meltdown; Nucor has $2 billion in cash, so I expect it will emerge even stronger.

All of this is still more impressive when you consider that Nucor actually makes something—as opposed to pushing money around—and their product contains neither chips nor software.

If you want to know more about what truly engaged employees do, how real leadagers act and what a culture should be. Take the time to read the articles—then tweak as much as possible to use in your company.

Image credit: flickr