Incentive - October 2008 - (Page 20)

INTERVIEW By Alex Palmer Seeing the Possibilities Jim Haudan says that for incentives to work, everyone needs to be on the same page—and picture he title of Jim Haudan’s new book, The Art of Engagement, is a bit of a play on words. According to Haudan, art is a key tool to ensure that everyone becomes invested in an organization’s goals and strategies and understands where each individual fits into them. “There’s a very big difference between familiar words and shared meaning,” says Haudan. “Visualization allows [people] to carefully eliminate the fuzz that exists with just words.” Haudan, who is the CEO of the management consulting and publishing company Root Learning, points to an exercise he practices with clients to demonstrate that words and meaning aren’t always the same thing. He asks the group he’s speaking with to say the first thing they think of when they hear the word “bear.” Responses range from “teddy” to “aspirin.” If one word is hard for a group to sort out, translating a complex T organizational flow leaves managers with their work cut out for them, says Haudan. To demonstrate the type of dysfunction that results from this kind of muddled communication, Haudan chooses not just to describe, but to show, with a picture of “The Canyon” (above). As the image reflects, a company’s leadership has to navigate some treacherous terrain as it attempts to turn its plans into action. Haudan says the solution is to, literally, give every employee the “big picture” of the organization’s goals. Root Learning incorporates sketch drawing into its programs with clients. For example, when Pepsi-Cola’s leadership decided they wanted to shift into being a “total beverage company,” they sought to engage their staff by visually mapping the changes to the beverage industry. Incorporating the decline in carbonated soft drink growth and increasing demands for health, convenience and variety, the final result was the “Revolution on Beverage Street” image to the right. Haudan describes a boss who urges the staff to manage risks and cut costs, then says a week later that they must take risks and innovate, as if money were no object. “What people will say on the front line or shop floor is, ‘The leaders are idiots. It’s like they have this thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, and every day they send a couple more pieces across the table and they say the exact opposite things,’ ” says Haudan, “It would be so much easier if they would just send the [puzzle’s] cover box across the table, so they could see how it all fits together—because it takes an understanding of the whole for the pieces to make sense.” “Or” Versus “And” This jigsaw idea illustrates the paradoxes that Haudan says exist in organizations as 20 | Incentive | October 2008 | incentivemag.com http://www.incentivemag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - October 2008

Incentive - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note Headlines Cover Story: Face Time with Senior Executives is the Top Motivator of Cisco Systems' Chairman's Club Winners Incentive Interview Safety Incentives: Safety Drives a Limousine Service's Motivational Efforts Case Study Primer Learning: Diving into Incentives for the Mind Enhances Both Loyalty and the Bottom Line Research: Travel IQ Travel News Florida Coast to Cost Caribbean Escape Potentials Here and Now Gadgets & Power Tools: High-End Roars Seen at the Motivation Show Advertisers Index Off the Cuff

Incentive - October 2008

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