3 tips for being postively engaged

People do their best work when they are positively engaged - rather than partly or pretend engaged. Sounds obvious, so how can you put this into practice? Let’s explore these three kinds of engagement.

* Positively engaged.

Start by describing the activities in which you feel fully engaged. You feel absorbed and time goes away. When does this happen for you? Different people give different answers to this question. For example: “When I am teaching motivated students...preparing a meal...writing code...counselling a troubled person...solving a customer problem...selling to a demanding client.” Describe when you feel completely immersed in what you are doing. Try completing the following sentence.

The activities in which I feel positively engaged are:

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* Partly engaged.

Describe the activities in which you feel partly engaged. Sometime you are interested, sometimes not. The overriding feeling is: “I could be spending my time on something more worthwhile.”

One Chief Executive Officer zeroed-in on such activities when taking over a large company. He oversaw six distinct businesses, with the MD’s reporting into him. His predecessor insisted that all six MD’s attend a 3 hour joint-meeting every Monday morning, even though they had little in common. In management speak, the theory was they should ‘discuss the total business and look for possible synergies’. The reality was different. The previous CEO drilled-down into the complexities of each business, which led to most people turning-off. The new CEO scrapped the old format and held separate monthly sessions with each MD. He still brought the whole group together once a quarter - but made sure these meetings were stimulating.

So when do you feel partly engaged? If you work in an organisation, there are bound to be times when your mind wanders and you wonder: “What am I doing here when I could be doing something more useful?” That is part of the organisational package, but watch out if it occupies more than two hours of your day. Try completing the following sentence.

The activities in which I feel partly engaged are:

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* Pretend engaged.

Describe the activities in which you feel ‘pretend’ engaged. You feel uncomfortable, unreal and must make a real effort to appear professional. Something bugs you. Maybe it is the values of the people or company. Maybe you don’t believe in the ‘rules of the game’. Nevertheless, you summon-up energy to do your best - but afterwards suffer headaches. Continually putting yourself in these situations can have consequences for your health. Try completing the following sentence.

The activities in which I feel pretend engaged are:

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Move onto the final part of the exercise. Describe the specific things you can do to spend more time being positively engaged. Be savvy if you work in an organisation. Create or find exciting activities and show the benefits to the business. Positioning is all and people buy benefits. Show how these activities will improve the profits, product quality or people. If appropriate, do some ‘prototyping’ that demonstrates concrete results. You will then be in a better position to drop the unexciting parts. Try completing the following sentence.

The specific things I can do to spend more time doing the things in which I feel positively engaged are:

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“My first reaction to this exercise was ‘Oh no,’” said one person. “How on earth can I put together the activities in which I am positively engaged? Then the answer became clear. I began seeing my week as being like a string of pearls. At first there were only a few high points. But then I kept adding others - linking these together until they covered virtually the whole week. Nowadays I spend 80% of my time doing what I do best. Everybody benefits: me, the company and the customers. My family also see the difference. Spending quality time at work helps me to spend quality time at home.”