Who Turned the Tables?
Employees Now Setting the Agenda with Execs in Coaching Forums
Two cool things just happened.
ONE:I was just briefed on an event where the organizers are ditching the usual podium speech, where one exec (or "expert") feels like the celebrity, and shares what s/he believes is good information -- leaving, as these types of presentations generally do, the audience to consider how one or more of these information nuggets might help their particular situation.
In this use case, I love that the organizers are turning the tables in favor of giving celebrity-level love to the individual people in the audience. VALUE!
What's the event? A "personal," 1x1 speed coaching program, designed by the people of EMC, for the people of EMC. It will take place later this month in multiple US locations. It has full executive sponsorship and participation. All the people had to do to get it done was to ask.
What will it be like?
Envision 50 people getting personally-relevant coaching from multiple company executives in a spirited "speed dating" format. That is, in about an hour, these 50 individual employees be able to ask their questions, of importance to their particular goals or situation, in one-on-one fashion to three different execs. Chances are, these people would not have had the opportunity, or the personal comfort level, to ask such questions of these execs in the course of their normal business routine.
Who put this together? The people in EMC's Black Employee Affinity Group. Those at EMC can learn more and register for the event here.
But Wait! There's More!
They're even going to leverage EMC's internal collaboration network, EMC|ONE to document the event, share tips, take aways, and provide a repeatable "kit" so that the event's model could be replicated anywhere in the world by any person who chooses to put it together.
TWO:
I just got an invite in my mailbox that, once again, puts the people of the company in the drivers seat in a very personal way.
A group of people in EMC's marketing group (graduates of EMC's college hire "Marketing Leadership Development Program") decided to launch a "Lunch & Learn" series with EMC executives. They limit the amount of the people in the room to just those who can comfortably sit around a conference room table. They invite execs in to share their story, and to take questions from the other folks in the room, with a focus on the person and the personal. No Powerpoint. No product, organizational, or other real-time business content required. The focus is on the person, their careers, and knowledge exchange of relevance to the particular people in the room on that day.
Yeah, but what executives do the people get to have lunch with? A pretty good variety of folks, if you asked me. The invite that was just sent out has
[Photos: Brian, Art, Rich, Polly]
- a division President (of our uber-cool Security biz, RSA): Art Coviello
- two senior vice presidents in engineering who oversee the innovation within multi-billion dollar product lines, Brian Gallagher and Rich Napolitano
- and me
Those who work at EMC, can connect with the Lunch & Learn program, sign up for these events and be in the know about future L&L's here.
Revolutionary? No. Personal, yes. Cool, I think so.
Both events leverage EMC's internal collaboration network, and enable those who attended to share stories and insights relevant to their personal worlds.
------------------------Talk Back----------------------------
Are you getting personal career attention?
Are you thinking of ways to make that happen?
Career Growth and Development is always at, or near the top of the chart on desired factors by employees. In times of recession, employee views of career development tend to go down (or plummet!). I thought these were to interesting, free, and relatively easy ideas to put in play that can really be of value to the people. Everyone could use more love and attention, especially in times like these!
- Polly Pearson
http://www.pollypearson.com
http://twitter.com/pollypearson
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