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What is engagement?

In business literature today you’ll find a lot about engagement: community engagement, employee engagement, customer engagement, and more. Articles range from working in “green” buildings to the latest press releases from the CSR department, the notion that using Twitter as a broadcast medium does NOT create engagement (True, that.), to levels of job dissatisfaction (i.e, lack of engagement). Engagement seems to be the business buzzword du jour.

As with most buzzwords, what’s important to keep in mind is: What does engagement mean? What will make the term useful? If we don’t know what engagement is, it’ll be difficult to discuss, measure or nurture.

en·gage·ment n. [en-geyj-muhnt]

1. the act of engaging or the state of being engaged.

Engagement is related to participation.

par·tic·i·pa·tion n. [pär-ˌti-sə-ˈpā-shən, pər-\]

1. the act of participating
2. the state of being related to a larger whole

What we almost never talk about is:

Engagement and participation are specific acts.

They’re things we and the people around us actually do.
That’s good news, because they’re observable. You can request and reward certain actions.

What’s more difficult is that engagement and participation are also states of being.

This is what normally gets left out because it’s more difficult to discuss. We each need to ask ourselves:

• Who should people in our organization Be?
• What should they Do?
• Who do Leaders need to be to call forth, allow for these ways of being and acting?

As a leader, then, whether you have direct-line authority over anyone or you act as a Leader for your colleagues & customers, ask yourself:

• What are the rituals in that kind of workplace?
• What will you reward?
• What should be celebrated?
• What will entice this type of people and behavior?
• What will you expect?

People exist in networks of conversation.

What conversations are happening around you, in your workplace?  Really listen. Are people talking about not having enough time? Are they complaining a lot?  Or are the conversations around you creative and inspired. Are people coming from “have to” and “should” or “wouldn’t it be cool if…?”  What conversations will you fuel?

Draw boundaries if necessary so people know what kinds of conversations to have around you.

Breakthrough Ideas happen in collaboration.

How will you support collaboration?  Exactly what actions & behaviors do you want to induce, reward, and normalize in your corporate cultures?

The answers to these questions serve as your blueprint. You’ll want to write them down.

It’s Not About Us & Them. It’s About You & Me.

Usually when we speak of engagement we break down into Us/Them dichotomies. The conversations sound like this:

“How do we get THEM to re-engage?”

“If our leaders acted differently or made better decisions, maybe we’d be engaged.”

“Maybe the space or environment gets and keeps people engaged.”

Have a look at those sentences again. Who’s the active participant? None of that is not our most powerful thinking.

It really comes down to you and me. Who will you Be? What will you Do?

I’ll never forget the moment I realized TNM’s culture called for different actions from most work teams: I’d just started. On a small group training call, we were scheduling our next meeting. One date/time was thrown out and I said, thinking out loud, “I’ll be in Italy and don’t know about Internet access… I’m sure I could come into the lobby and call in via Skype.” Zoran, who was running the meeting, said, “No, no… don’t do anything that doesn’t work. We’ll find a time that works.”

That simple exchange set the tone of much of our interaction, and I started to understand the rules of engagement at TNM.

• What are the rules of engagement in your workplace?
• How does your organization define, cultivate and measure engagement?
• How do you reward the acts or actions you’d like to see?

Here are some resources to guide your way.

Dan Pink studies the science of human motivation. He asserts that there’s a mismatch between what we know about motivation and what we implement in business environments. It’s not about bonuses, incentives, and other commonplace extrinsic motivators. Instead:

Rewards narrow our focus and work only for narrowly focused, simple tasks, taks with clear sets of rules and single solutions. If you want people to think strategically or creatively and think way out of the box, Start with Why, as Simon Sinek explains in this Tedx talk:

You might want to also write down:

• This is what we Believe:
• This is Who You Can Count on Us to Be:
• These are Things We Do:

Finally, Steven Johnson studies environments in which ideas take flight. What can you use in your environment?

There’s another thing: Conversations Disappear.

The breath moves over our lips and before you know it, everybody’s busy doing something else. This isn’t something you set up once. You’ll need to create times, space, and continuous reinforcement. Have fun with it: Leaders Lunches, Idea Breakfasts, online spaces for collaboration, maybe even a Leave Your Complaints & Concerns Here box by the door – so people can literally leave those at the door.

Go forth and engage. It’s up to you and me!