Page 18 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

Employee Engagement C5

employee engagement scores of these two companies were outstanding—
any employer from any industry would be delighted to have their results.
At the conclusion of the awards luncheon, a number of guests were
heard to remark, “Well, I guess if a nursing home and meat-packing plant
can win, we don’t have any excuse for not creating a great workplace in our
line of work.”
Some of the stereotypes we have about certain jobs, and the com-
panies that provide them, may be well-founded in some respects. But
the leaders at places like Quality Living and Greater Omaha Packing
knew that great leadership and a positive culture could trump any pre-
conceptions their communities may have had about their respective
businesses. And because they declined to buy into those predisposi-
tions, they are thriving in achieving their respective missions.
In short, becoming a Best-Places-to-Work winner is not about
whether your industry is cutting edge or whether you are located in an
area of the country that has a mild climate. It is about embracing and
committing to a set of principles about how people should be man-
aged and about executing those principles with passion.

:
Take This Ship and Re-Engage It!
From time to time we’ll draw upon a story or image related
to navigating one vessel or another—rough waters, keeping
on course, watching for crosswinds, that kind of thing. We
chose the sailing metaphor to explain some of the critical
concepts in this book because we believe it fits the turbulent
times we now live in.
We were also inspired by a great contemporary leader,
Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, who took over a U.S. Navy
destroyer that had very low morale and high crew turnover
and, in his two-year tour, turned it into one of the most suc-
cessful, highly decorated ships in the fleet. In his book, It’s
Your Ship, he summarizes the sense of accomplishment that
came from re-engaging a seemingly ragtag crew: