The New Bill of Rights for All Students

By Brandon Busteed, Executive Director of Gallup Education

Gallup has a silver bullet for solving many of the world’s problems. Here it is: Every student in the world, from pre-K to higher ed, needs:

• Someone who cares about their development 
• To do what they like to do each day
• To do what they are best at every day

That’s it. It should be the new bill of rights for all students -- and frankly, all people -- worldwide.

This insight is rooted in Gallup’s most important findings -- everyone in the world wants a good job, and no one ever became successful by trying to improve their weaknesses. They became great by playing to their strengths and leveraging their innate talents. These two findings have absolutely everything in common with the new bill of rights.

A “good job” is not just any job. True, it’s regular work -- a job. But most importantly, it’s about being engaged in your work -- something Gallup is an expert on, having conducted more than 24 million workplace engagement surveys worldwide. And being engaged in your work -- experiencing “flow,” as some experts call it, at its finest -- is mostly about three key ingredients: having a manager or someone at work who cares about your development, doing what you like to do each day, and doing what you’re best at every day. We know that if you have a manager who focuses on your strengths, for example, the chances of you being disengaged are virtually zero. On the flip side, if you have a manager who ignores you entirely, there is virtually no chance that you are engaged.   

Ad man of the century, Roy Spence, has become a nationally-renowned guru on how individuals and organizations can find their “purpose.” His message is that the purpose of life is to play to your strengths. And yet, our entire educational system and work environment is built around a deficit-based model. We have created a world where we spend almost all of our time focused on what is wrong, rather than what is right. 

Throughout the U.S. educational system, we harp on what is wrong with schools, how ineffective teachers are, and what our kids don’t know. We do this across our workplaces as well when managers give employees reviews -- that is, if you’re lucky enough to have a manager who actually takes the time to give you one. The focus is on “constructive criticism,” the polite way of saying what you’re doing wrong and what you’re no good at. Imagine what the world would look like if we found a way to maximize human potential by everyone doing what they are best at every day. The impact is unfathomable. 

Gallup estimates that -- at most -- 30% of the United State’s workforce is actively engaged in their work. We also know the outlook is pretty miserable in schools; in elementary school, engagement peaks at 76%, but then decreases each year students are in school -- down to 61% in middle school and then 44% in high school. If schools focused on students’ strengths rather than their weaknesses, students would be more engaged throughout their entire education.  

After surveying citizens in 160 countries for the past six years, Gallup knows what a life well lived looks like. Those who rate their lives the highest in the world have one important factor in common, a factor that is the strongest predictor of how they view their lives: career wellbeing. In short, they like what they do, they do what they’re best at, and they most certainly have someone who cares about their development. 

We need a new Bill of Rights -- not just for students and not just for the United States -- but for humankind. If you want to “fix” our economy and “fix” the education system that fuels it, we’ve learned the hard way that it can’t be accomplished by hammering away at weaknesses. 

We need to find what’s strong, not what’s wrong. And that starts with each human being playing to their own strengths. That’s a journey that starts at birth and goes until death, from pre-K to post-career. Share the new Bill of Rights now:

1. I have someone who cares about my development.
2. I do what I like to do each day.
3. I do what I’m best at every day. 

It will change the trajectory of students’ lives -- and of human development throughout the world.

Learn how to achieve better student outcomes in higher education with the Gallup StrengthsQuest Operating System.

Brandon Busteed leads the development of Gallup’s education work. His career spans a wide range of important work in education as an educational entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and university trustee. Busteed’s work involves integrating Gallup’s research and science on selection, strengths, engagement, and wellbeing to improve student success, teacher effectiveness, and education outcomes. His mission is to create a national movement to measure the education outcomes that matter most, connect education to jobs and job creation, and to promote a paradigm shift from knowledge mastery to emotional engagement in education.

Banks: If You Want More From Your Customers, Rethink Your Marketing Efforts

by Ed O'Boyle, Global Practice Leader

This post is part of Gallup's ongoing series on the shifting landscape for financial institutions. It provides insights into channel optimization, emerging customer behaviors and preferences, product penetration and relationship growth, engaging the most critical affluent and business customers, and reshaping banks' overall value proposition.

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As banks face economic and regulatory challenges, they are looking to grow their market share by cross-selling and upselling to their existing customers. But many banks are missing these valuable opportunities by using generic marketing with their customers. Banks’ fully engaged customers -- those who are rationally and emotionally connected to the bank with which they do business -- are the group that is most likely to be put off by these “one size fits all” marketing offers. Most banks have a large amount of data on customer behavior at their disposal, but are not using this information to personalize marketing offers for their most engaged customers.

Gallup asked nearly 9,000 customers in its most recent U.S. Retail Banking survey how they feel about the offers they receive from their bank. Sixty-six percent of fully engaged customers felt the most recent offer was very general, 41% found the offer annoying, and, stunningly, 53% of customers already had the product the bank was marketing with the bank. Using generic and annoying offers with your most engaged customers is a particularly serious problem for banks because fully engaged customers are the group that is most likely to be open to new products or services.

To make your marketing campaigns more effective, you should:

1. Identify who your most engaged customers are, and review the products they already have with your bank.
2. Have good need-based assessments so you can make solid recommendations to customers on what products and services they should have with your bank.
3. Make sure your employees have the flexibility to customize offers, rather than just “sticking to the script.”
4. Equip your people with the right information, including analytics on customers’ past behaviors, so they can target and maximize their customer conversations.

Getting customers to deepen their relationship with your bank is hard work. It requires talented front-line employees who are able to provide individualized marketing to your customers -- marketing made possible as you provide these employees with the tools, information, and systems they need to tailor their marketing approach. It’s time to rethink your marketing offers and what you are really trying to accomplish with them.

Ed O’Boyle is Global Practice Leader for Gallup’s workplace and marketplace consulting. His role is to drive growth by leading initiatives that ensure that Gallup’s science and consulting have the creativity and flexibility to meet the business needs of Gallup clients. Prior to joining Gallup in 2006, O’Boyle served in marketing, brand management, and innovation roles at PepsiCo, Diageo, Barclays, and Capital One.

How High Schools Win the Gold Medal in Academic Performance

By Tim Hodges and Shane J. Lopez

U.S. News & World Report recently teamed up with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) -- a behavioral and social science research organization -- to find out which high schools are the best in America, ranking them gold, silver, or bronze. They based their rankings on two widely accepted success measures:

1. Academic performance on state assessments in reading and mathematics, and 
2. College readiness, as determined by participation in and performance on Advanced Placement examinations.

As these rankings grab the attention of America’s parents, educators, and policymakers, Gallup is studying the leading indicators of high school rankings and the predictors of high school student success. Gallup’s study of Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) finds that, in the district’s high schools that are filled with students who have high hope for the future, these schools are also in the gold level on the U.S. News & World Report’s high school rankings. The high schools in the district with the highest levels of student engagement are also more likely to rank in the top level in the U.S. News & World Report’s rankings for academic success and college readiness.

We started with data from the Gallup Student Poll, a brief student survey -- available at no charge for any public school district that wishes to participate -- that measures hope about the future, engagement and enthusiasm in school, and wellbeing. Hopeful students believe that the future will be better than the present, and that they have the power to make it so. Gallup research has consistently shown a link between students with high hope and having a higher high school grade point average, a higher graduation rate, and college success. Engaged students have an emotional connection with their school. They are more likely to show up for class and are active participants in the learning process.

Gallup analyzed the rankings of high schools in Maryland’s MCPS -- the 17th-largest school district in the country -- to see if they were also the top-performing schools on the Gallup Student Poll measures of student hope and engagement. Most eligible fifth through 12th graders in the district -- nearly 70,000 students -- participated in the 2012 Gallup Student Poll.

The MCPS high schools at the top of U.S. News & World Report's rankings -- based on achievement data from the 2010-2011 academic year -- and at the top of the 2012 Gallup Student Poll hope and engagement measures are remarkably similar. Of the 21 high schools in Maryland awarded a gold medal rating, seven are in the Montgomery County district, including the top six high schools in the state. All seven of the gold-medal designated high schools in Montgomery County were in the top half of MCPS’s high schools on Gallup’s hope and engagement measures. These findings, although only from one school district, may suggest that schools filled with students who have high levels of hope and engagement also rank highly in terms of academic success and college readiness.

While the U.S. News & World Report achievement data and the Gallup Student Poll data are from different academic years, previous research indicates that student hope and engagement leads to higher academic achievement and overall student wellbeing. The sustained success reveals that MCPS high schools have worked for years to create a great place for students to learn. The 2012 results suggest future student achievement will continue to be strong in these schools, in large part due to the demonstrated and sustained focus on hope and engagement -- important aspects of the student experience.

We believe that the high schools ranked highest on the 2012 Gallup Student Poll measures of hope and engagement will rank highly on the U.S. News & World Report’s list next year. For now, we encourage every school in the country to sign up for the Fall 2013 administration of the Gallup Student Poll.

Tim Hodges, Ph.D., is a Director of Research for Gallup’s Education Practice. He consults with K-12 school districts and higher education institutions and leads research projects in strengths development, employee selection, employee engagement, and wellbeing.

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., author of Making Hope Happen, is the world’s leading researcher on hope. He is a Gallup Senior Scientist and Research Director of the Clifton Strengths Institute. Dr. Lopez is chief architect of the Gallup Student Poll, a measure of hope, engagement, and wellbeing that taps into the hearts and minds of U.S. public school students to determine what drives achievement. It is available at no cost to public schools or districts interested in using it to start a hope conversation in their community. More than 1 million students have participated since its inception.

UPCOMING EVENT

July 18-19, 2013
Gallup Education Conference: Aiming at Career and Life Wellbeing.
Bringing together the best minds from K-12 and higher education to identify the ultimate outcomes for education.

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For First Time, Gallup Brings Strengths Coaching Certification to Washington, D.C.

Gallup is bringing our strengths-based development coaching courses to Washington, D.C. These courses are meant for anyone interested in becoming a certified strengths-based coach, whether you are learning about strengths-based talent for the first time or if you have been a strengths enthusiast for years.

The upcoming strengths coaching courses taking place at Gallup’s world headquarters in Washington, D.C., are:

Successful Strengths Coaching
This two-day course will give you the knowledge and foundation for becoming a strengths-based coach. It will teach you how to help your clients or employees understand, apply, and integrate Clifton StrengthsFinder results into their lives and roles. This course covers the following topics:

• Value of the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment as an effective instrument for measuring talent
• Identify and learn the 34 Clifton StrengthsFinder themes
• Understand and appreciate strengths-based development
• Discover how to use your dominant strengths as an effective coach
• Help your clients understand their talents and how to use them every day
• Conduct fundamental strengths-based coaching conversations
• Network with other coaches and establish a coaching community

Accelerated Strengths Coaching
During this advanced four-and-a-half-day course, you will gain sophisticated insights to help your clients or employees respond to situations, work effectively with others, accomplish their goals, and understand their biases and vulnerabilities. This course covers the following topics:

• Apply your greatest talents in your role as a coach and integrate your strengths to become a more effective coach
• Help your clients or employees understand their talents and how to use them to produce results and reach their goals
• Advise others on how to overcome obstacles, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities
• Educate your clients or employees about how to use strengths to transform their relationships
• Help individuals understand their unique strengths within the context of others
• Provide managers with techniques for using strengths-based development to address specific team-related issues and challenges
• Teach teams to discover, develop, and use their unique talents for greater team engagement and productivity

Now is the time to learn the strategies and solutions to help you maximize your coaching potential. Registration for each class is limited to just 25 seats, so sign up today!

For more information about each course, including dates and prices, please visit Gallup Strengths Center. For additional questions, please send a request to coaching@gallup.com.

Banks: Stop Missing Sales Opportunities

By David Leonard and Beth Youra

This post is part of Gallup's ongoing series on the shifting landscape for financial institutions. It provides insights into channel optimization, emerging customer behaviors and preferences, product penetration and relationship growth, engaging the most critical affluent and business customers, and reshaping banks' overall value proposition.

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One in every five bank customers opened up a new account or signed up for a new service from their bank in the last six months. The vast majority of these bank sales came from customers who already planned to open an account or buy a new service -- the bank did not need to do any marketing with these customers, since they were going to open an account with or without any prodding.

Even more importantly, an additional 13% of customers discussed buying something new, but opted not to do so. This points to two important groups of potential customers with whom banks are missing opportunities:

1. Those who are thinking about opening an account, but who need a nudge from the bank to take action. This type of customer currently accounts for 33% of bank sales. 
2. Those who aren’t thinking about opening an account at all, but who are moved to do so with a little push from a bank. These folks account for a small 8% of bank sales. 

Reaching and converting people who aren’t already thinking about opening an account is a tough job. What’s easier -- and where banks are missing a major opportunity -- is to convert more of those customers already pondering opening a new account, but who hesitate to do so for one reason or another.  

More than half of the customers who are considering buying a new product seek out information prior to the time of purchase. In fact, simply seeking out information -- from any source -- prior to a purchase leads to a 17% lift in sales conversion rates. The key for banks is to identify the most influential information sources for converting the “pondering” customer to the “sold” customer. 

Gallup’s Retail Banking Industry survey finds that social media and written materials are by far the most likely to lead to a sales conversion. Speaking to someone at a branch or to a customer service representative over the phone -- the two sales channels with the highest cost -- provides a comparatively smaller lift in sales conversion, even though they are primary information sources for potential customers.

These data underscore that bank customers live in a multi-channel world. To address this challenge, banks need to develop a comprehensive list of sales and marketing information resources available across channels and then ask themselves:

• Do we know where our customers, specifically, are looking for information prior to purchasing?
• Are we delivering a consistent message across sales information channels?
• How do we balance our resources between those channels that are high impact in conversion but low in usage (i.e. social media) vs. those that are high in usage but have lower impact in conversation (i.e. spoke to someone in a branch)?
• Do we know what our customers value in a bank and are we delivering on the message at every touch point?
• Do we know what actions we need to take to increase conversion rates in each channel?

Starting with this checklist will give any bank the basic insights needed to stop missing so many sales opportunities.   

David Leonard is a Senior Managing Consultant for Gallup who specializes in financial services consulting. He works with financial institutions worldwide to transform their customer experience and brand strategies.

Beth Youra specializes in financial services consulting, working with many financial services firms of all sizes and specialties to design and implement large-scale performance management systems. Beth also serves on Gallup’s financial services practice research team, tasked with leading Gallup’s internal financial services research, analytics, insights, and communication.

Higher Education and Employers: Thrive Together or Perish Apart

By Brandon Busteed, Executive Director of Gallup Education

No matter who you ask -- whether it’s a representative sample of Americans, incoming college freshmen, or parents of 5th-12th graders -- they say the most important reason for a degree beyond high school is to get a good job. But, few believe that those who have a post-high school credential are well-prepared for success in the workforce. And, although many workers who don’t yet have a college degree or certificate want to go back to get one, they see a number of barriers to doing so. The solution to these problems lies in new forms of collaboration between higher education and employers.

With a coming world-wide jobs war, it is imperative that higher education and employers get this collaboration right. If they don’t, we run the risk of destroying one of the things America is best known for -- our higher education system. If higher education and employers partner together, they will thrive. If they continue down their disconnected paths, a large number of colleges, universities, and businesses will perish.

Americans have given higher education a clear mandate: a degree had better translate to a good job, otherwise it’s very difficult to justify. Nearly every single American -- 97% to be exact -- says that education beyond high school is important. So, although America’s appetite for higher education is still incredibly strong, there are painful data suggesting the demand may come to a crashing halt if we can’t make a better connection between higher education degrees and jobs.

Half of recent graduates -- not even including the large percentage who drop out of college -- are in jobs that don’t require a degree, meaning we obviously have not built a direct pipeline between degrees conferred and the jobs available in the U.S. This is shameful. And it’s the direct result of employers and higher education failing to work together. Not only are they not working together now, they are barely even talking to one another.

Before employers start pointing fingers at higher education for failing to produce graduates with real work experience and 21st century skills, such as thinking critically, communicating effectively, and working collaboratively with diverse people and teams, they should look carefully at their own role in this problem. Gallup recently discovered that only 7% of high school students currently intern or work with a business, although 43% say they plan to start their own business someday. Employers are missing the mark right now just as much as higher education is.

Here are some ideas and examples for how business and higher education leaders can collaborate to make sure that those earning college degrees are prepared for jobs.

CEOs and other executive leaders of organizations must get to know their local college and university leaders. It is the obligation of employers -- especially those looking to fill jobs with talented people -- to make it clear what they are looking for. Make sure you build a relationship with your area educational institutions to connect their pipeline of degrees with your pipeline of job openings and ongoing training needs. The Manufacturer’s Institute -- an association of high-tech manufacturing companies -- for example, developed their own set of “stackable credentials” reflecting what they are looking for in those they hire. They partnered with community colleges, like Northern Virginia Community College, to offer these programs.

Colleges should give credit for outside knowledge and skills. Americans overwhelmingly support receiving college credit for knowledge and skills learned outside the classroom (87%), and they also support being evaluated and receiving credits for what they already know (75%). Northeastern University has one of the hottest degrees in the marketplace right now, thanks to their co-op program in which they actively seek a variety of Boston-area employers to participate by hiring students for six-month stints in jobs. These students earn college credit, and because they can spend more time in these positions than the typical summer internship, they are able to perform real jobs for the employers who hire them. Northeastern has blended real work experience with academic programming, and it’s working brilliantly. Many companies participating end up hiring students that were part of their co-op program.

Employers should ramp up internships of all kinds in their organization. These internships can be paid, unpaid, for high school students, college students, etc. The most desperate need of all students and schools is for real work experience in tandem with academics. Students can’t get this experience unless employers step up to the plate and dramatically increase the number of such opportunities.

Business leaders should offer “externships” for area teachers and faculty. One of the biggest disconnects in our system is the lack of teachers and faculty who have had real work experience in companies and organizations. If they gain a better understanding of today’s workplace and the needs of area employers, they will most certainly be better at adapting their curriculum to meet these new expectations. But they need the experience themselves, too.

In addition to building a much stronger relationship between employers and their local education partners, there are direct actions employers can take to dramatically improve the likelihood that Americans will pursue more and better educational opportunities.

Offer tuition assistance for employees pursuing degrees. Fifty-nine percent of Americans say their company does not provide financial support for enrollment in higher education courses. Employers could tie tuition assistance to retention efforts, by making the financial support contingent on number of years worked.

Help Americans overcome the biggest hurdle they cite to getting a college degree: “family responsibilities.” Fifty-one percent of Americans say they are not allowed any flextime to pursue additional education, and 54% say they are not offered on-site training that leads to a workforce certificate or certification. A unique benefit would be to offer flex hours to employees who take classes during work days and also subsidize or offer childcare support for parents without childcare coverage during evening and weekend times, when many continuing education degree classes are offered.

It is incumbent upon employers and education leaders to collaborate to make sure higher education degrees are a strong preparation for a good job. The world is changing far too fast for us to tolerate a disconnect between our educational system and the jobs our economy needs to thrive.

For more details on these findings and survey methods, read America's Call for Higher Education Redesign.

Brandon Busteed leads the development of Gallup’s education work. His career spans a wide range of important work in education as an educational entrepreneur, speaker, writer, and university trustee. Busteed’s work involves integrating Gallup’s research and science on selection, strengths, engagement, and wellbeing to improve student success, teacher effectiveness, and education outcomes. His mission is to create a national movement to measure the education outcomes that matter most, connect education to jobs and job creation, and to promote a paradigm shift from knowledge mastery to emotional engagement in education.

UPCOMING EVENT

July 18-19, 2013
Gallup Education Conference: Aiming at Career and Life Wellbeing.
Bringing together the best minds from K-12 and higher education to identify the ultimate outcomes for education.

Learn More / Register

Banks That Only Measure Satisfaction Are Leaving Money on the Table

By Jay Freeman, Senior Adviser

This post is part of Gallup's ongoing series on the shifting landscape for financial institutions. It provides insights into channel optimization, emerging customer behaviors and preferences, product penetration and relationship growth, engaging the most critical affluent and business customers, and reshaping banks' overall value proposition.

I had the opportunity several weeks ago to hear the head of retail banking for one of America’s largest retail banks speak at an industry-sponsored conference. It was notable that he spent at least half of his allotted time talking about what he termed “customer engagement.” While the speaker’s focus on customer engagement was commendable, he eventually revealed that his bank measures engagement by one metric alone: the level of customer satisfaction -- in effect, the customer’s response to the question “Are you satisfied?” on a scale of 1 to 10.

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Customer satisfaction is, no doubt, a good place to begin -- it just isn’t enough. Gallup research has shown that truly different customer behavior emerges when the customer is not only rationally satisfied, but also emotionally attached. Emotional attachment starts with satisfaction, but adds elements of confidence, integrity, pride, and even passion. By measuring these attributes, Gallup’s research has shown that customers can be grouped into four different segments ranging from actively disengaged to fully engaged. We say that these most emotionally attached customers are “fully engaged” with their bank.

Gallup recently polled U.S. retail banking customers as part of Gallup’s most recent Retail Banking Industry survey and found that those who are extremely satisfied with their bank are, in fact, more likely to consider their bank for a host of products, services, and increased deposits. Still, the research shows that banks that only consider customer satisfaction -- even extreme “top box” satisfaction -- without the emotional component, are leaving significant cross-selling and up-selling opportunities on the table. For example, while less than half (45%) of customers who are satisfied say they would consider their bank the next time they needed a product or service, that consideration skyrockets to 83% among customers who are both satisfied and fully engaged. 

Customers who are fully engaged and satisfied are also more likely to say they will open new accounts, switch an account from another bank, increase their balances, add ancillary products and services, or obtain financial planning advice than are those customers who are just satisfied.

 Competitive pressure and the slow economy are conspiring to create an environment where every bank needs to be thinking about how to improve customer engagement, and that is dependent on being able to accurately measure the customer experience. Customer satisfaction is a good place to begin, but it is customer engagement that produces differentiated financial results.


Jay Freeman is a Senior Adviser to Gallup, bringing more than 30 years of leadership experience in retail banking to Gallup and its clients. For more than a decade, Jay led Sales & Service Development within Wells Fargo’s Community Bank, developing bank-wide initiatives to both elevate the customer experience and deepen customer relationships. Jay now brings his executive insights and bottom-line focus to a broader audience, as a regular contributor to Gallup’s Focus on Financial Services blog series.