In 1998 when I wrote The On-Purpose Business, I shared the concepts of employee engagement on two dimensions: "Technical" and "Tingle." Traditionally, most employers hired on the Technical merits of a candidate – how well they fit the job description. With Tingle, the idea was to identify how well aligned the candidate / employee and the company were with purpose, vision, mission, and values. In short, pay high attention to the culturally fit and cause connection. The On-Purpose (TOP) Performers are those who bring both Technical and Tingle.
Truly, I had heads of some very large organizations tell me back in the 1990s that I was wasting their time. In one case I was hired and fired as a consultant to a hospital service organization to address massive turnover in a low skills job. By simply rewriting the position posting and advertising to reflect and attract high tingle interest and seeing the job for what it could be, I calculated that my concept was worth over $250 million/year in cost savings system-wide. Plus, it would have improved patient safety, care, and experience while easing operational tension. A ridiculous "waste of time," huh?
Fast forward now to the SXSW 2011 Conference in this Fast Company Magazine panel interview moderated by Anya Kamenetz and featuring Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Chris Hoyt (@TheRecruiterGuy), and Scott Belsky (Behance). Invest a minute and nineteen seconds to see what is discussed as the future of employee engagement.
As forward thinking as The On-Purpose Business was in 1998, only about 10% of the concepts in this book are approaching the mainstream. Most of this is because so few people really understand the power in purpose, let alone how to harness it for the good of self and society.
You are ahead of the curve… on-purpose!
