In 1983 Judy Wicks started the White Dog Café in Philadelphia. It has become an exemplar for a community-based enterprise. Where I live, community enterprise is slowly but surely being eroded as an increasing number of national or international chain stores supplant local stores. While this typically provides benefits such as cheaper goods the longer-termContinue reading “Engagement and community building – the White Dog Café”
Category Archives: Communication and engagement
Stakeholder engagement pays – a silver bullet?
Effective stakeholder engagement contributes both directly and indirectly to the bottom line. This post provides a sample of some proven benefits of stakeholder engagement for the major stakeholder groups. What is exciting, is that the generic communication skills at the heart of engagement are effective in diverse stakeholder settings. Surely engagement capability has to beContinue reading “Stakeholder engagement pays – a silver bullet?”
Engagement and change: part 2 – lean thinking
This post by guest blogger Alex Twigg is the second part of a two-part post. Much of the change in workplaces over the last few decades has been predicated on notions of economic efficiency and have been known variously as “downsizing”, “rightsizing”, “outsourcing” and more recently as “mergers and acquisitions” – and as the KotterContinue reading “Engagement and change: part 2 – lean thinking”
Employee engagement and change – part one
When thinking about employee engagement I am struck by the how similar the employee engagement scores are from around the English speaking world. The results are all similarly low – around the 25 – 30 % mark. And it seems little really changes year after year. The costs of low engagement and ineffective change management David McLeod,Continue reading “Employee engagement and change – part one”
Engagement explosion
If you consider the relatively recent development of stakeholder engagement, its fair to say that there has been an engagement explosion. Edward Freeman first articulated stakeholder theory in his 1984 book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. It took a decade or so to emerge from obscurity and the concept had to survive criticism from thoseContinue reading “Engagement explosion”
Staff engagement – more evidence
The evidence for the vital role of staff engagement continues to mount. The July/August 2011 Harvard Business Review includes a series of articles on collaboration. Yochai Benkler’s article The Unselfish Gene explores the fundamentals of human nature, challenging concepts of rational self-interest promulgated for so long. Scientists, psychologists and economists are now stating that peopleContinue reading “Staff engagement – more evidence”
Building capacity for employee engagement
The great thing about building engagement capability is the broad range of benefits. Engagement reshapes the nature of the relationship the organisation has with its stakeholders, be they customers, suppliers, owners, employees or the community. Reshaping the relationship with employees appears to have significant potential. It doesn’t take long to find a damming array ofContinue reading “Building capacity for employee engagement”
Engaging stories: rebuilding Christchurch
The City of Christchurch, New Zealand was devastated by a series of earthquakes. The largest, on the 4 September 2010 wrecked havoc in the central city, but the second quake on 22 February killed 181 people and all but destroyed the central city. The response of the people of Christchurch is an inspiring engagement story.Continue reading “Engaging stories: rebuilding Christchurch”
Stakeholder engagement pays!
This blog positions stakeholder engagement at the leading edge of sustainability and also, as a core process underpinning a superior business model is transforming older, extractive and exploitative models. However, it is also great to have evidence that stakeholder engagement supports financial sustainability in addition to environmental and social sustainability. Witold Henisz led a majorContinue reading “Stakeholder engagement pays!”
Sustainability – what’s real?
There are a belwildering array of sustainability ratings – but what do we believe? How do we know they are measuring and evaluating the right things? In their Rate the Raters documents, SustainAbility identified over 50 sustainability rating agencies. SustainAbility will offer insights into how credible each rating system is, but I suspect that many imponderables willContinue reading “Sustainability – what’s real?”
Bruce-Iri 