As I began to read Alan Gregerman’s recently published book, The Necessity of Strangers: The Intriguing Truth About Insight, Innovation, and Success, I was again reminded of how deceptively complicated the word “stranger” is. It could refer to someone we have never heard of, of course, but it could also refer to someone we have met or heard about. We know their name but nothing else about them. Then there is another type of “stranger”: someone we think we know well but really don’t. We have false assumptions, a mindset, about who they are and aren’t, what they can and can’t do, and whether or not they would be willing to provide or receive assistance.
Gregerman wrote this book to explain how and why – with all due respect to the importance of one’s family members, friends, and associates — it is imperative to engage, learn from, and collaborate with strangers. “People who are very different from us are essential to our growth and success as individuals and organizations. Just as Henry Chesbrough has devised an open business model, it could be said that Gregerman offers an open people model.
In Chapter Five, he shares his thoughts about rethinking employee engagement, a very important business subject, given the fact that (on average) less than 30% of those in a U.S. workforce are actively and productively engaged. During exit interviews of highly-valued employees, one of the reasons they most frequently cite is “feeling like a stranger.” Here’s what Gregerman recommends:
o Paint a clear and compelling picture of the organization’s vision and mission: Its values, objectives, and commitments.
o Make certain that each employee knows where she or he fits in this “picture”: The importance of their work, how it relates to the “bigger picture,” how much their efforts are appreciated.
o Convince employees that the organization’s leaders believe in them: Stress high hopes and great expectations with enthusiasm, indeed with passion.
o Challenge them to reimagine their role: How to create greater value for the internal as well as external “customers” they are privileged to serve.
o Help them to develop a clear and actionable plan to guide the changes that must be made: Improvements of what they do and how they do it, and, how they can help others to do so.
o Give them the resources to succeed: Time, tools, training, constructive feedback, patience…and, when necessary, protection.
“And we need to give them a sense that we don’t expect things to always go perfectly — that failures or blips are essential to learning how to be remarkable at the end of the day.”
It is no coincidence that, every year, most of the companies ranked most highly admired and best to work for are also ranked among those most profitable in their industry. What does that tell you?
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Dr. Alan Gregerman is a highly-respected and award-winning author, business consultant, teacher, keynote speaker, and all-around nice guy who has been called “one of the most original thinkers in business today” and “the Robin Williams of business consulting.” His work focuses on helping companies and organizations to unlock the genius in all of their people in order to deliver the most compelling value to their customers.
Alan’s first two books — Surrounded by Geniuses and Lessons from the Sandbox — challenge our thinking about people, the world around us, and where brilliant ideas actually come from. The Necessity of Strangers is his latest book and hopefully there will many more to come.
He earned his B.A. in geography, summa cum laude, from Northwestern University, and his M.A. in economic geography and Ph.D. in urban and technological planning, with the highest honors, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In his free time, he is the founder and president of Passion for Learning, Inc., where he is involved in efforts to build innovative partnerships between the business community and low-income schools in order to close the achievement gap for at-risk children.