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Opening up Engagement

The concept of employee engagement is a pretty divisive issue. Some people think it’s the answer to many organisational woes, others that it’s little more than the corporate wolf of unpaid overtime in fluffy sheep’s clothing. The idea has been kicking around for about a quarter of a century, and it’s widely recognised that in his 1990 article, “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work.” William Kahn provided an early formal definition of personal engagement. He described it as:

“The harnessing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances.”

Since then it’s become a more widely debated idea, and many businesses use surveys and other tools to try and understand it better, and even to try and measure it. I’d advise caution here, as trying to link simple measurements to more abstract human qualities, doesn’t always go to plan.

Like many others, I’ve spent time and effort looking at engagement and what it might mean for us. I volunteered in the discovery phases of what was to become Engage for Success, a process which I disengaged myself from after a few years because although I witnessed plenty of good conversations, I wasn’t seeing any significant shifts in the way we work. I left the matter to one side until the good people at Symposium events contacted me recently and invited me to attend their forthcoming Employee Engagement Summit. I’m happy to go along and see what’s changing – here are a couple of thoughts on what would help reopen my interests.

Improving Responsiveness

I was recently in a conversation with a friend whose work patterns are currently undergoing a lot of shift. The project they are currently working on involves lots of deadlines, lots of travel, and multiple points of accountability and responsibility. The work is mostly interesting, and quite hectic – with the result that my friend’s mood, or level of engagement if you prefer, varies frequently and significantly.

The fluidity of work and our need to be adaptable is often poorly served by many business processes – some of which may be necessary. When it comes to the employee engagement survey as a necessary business process, I’m not convinced.

This scenario I discovered when talking to my friend is not uncommon and is an excellent demonstration of why the shelf life of employee engagement survey results may be too brief to be useful. I think we all feel dramatically different about our work from day to day, and sometimes hour to hour. “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?”

I’m hoping to hear about new ways in which organisations are trying to be more responsive to employees’ needs.

Broadening the debate

Continuing the conversation with my friend, she suggests that more broadly, maybe engagement is a symptom, rather than a goal or outcome. It’s what occurs when people have challenging, meaningful work and feel valued. It can also be a great avenue to discuss really important issues, like diversity and inclusion, in ways that don’t make people feel defensive and shut down. I’m keen to learn if and how organisations are exploring the concept in this way. Previously I’ve seen thinking on the subject get quite stagnant. When engagement is such a broad concept, there should always be room for creative and important work inside the idea. I’m hoping I will find some on March 10th.

A version of this post was first published on the Symposium web site.

Wandle II – The DNA of a river

I enjoy my walks along sections of the River Wandle, and after my recent abstract painting ‘River Wandle‘ sold within minutes of going into my Etsy shop – I decided to revisit the idea.

This time I have scaled up from an A4 size work to this much larger 20″ x 16″ canvas.

Wandle II

I really like how this work has turned out and I am grateful that Carole suggested I leave some spaces in among all the colour. I’ve subsequently entered this painting and my drawing titled ‘Bookcases‘ into the 2016 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. My entries are among a further 11,998 pieces of work so this is a long shot – but you’ll never get picked if you don’t enter. Fingers crossed!

Working Responsively

I’m sometimes asked to help out with team building activities. When I first think of team building – I often experience vaguely naff ideas floating into my head. Images of groups high fiving each other, doing trust falls, building bridges out of drinking straws – that kind of thing. These thoughts may be a little unfair but they are drawn from years of experience of turning up at team building events and having something done to you. It can be a tricky thing to overcome.

When I work with groups I like to ask people questions which help establish the mood and tone of our work together, as well as what expectations/needs/requirements folk have, from the project, from themselves, each other, and me. This practice helps us get closer to working coactively (doing things with each other) rather than coercively (doing things to each other).

Recently it was my pleasure to spend time with a firm of accountants who wanted to explore how they could use art to enhance their work. Among other interesting things, when we met they expressed a need for spontaneity and a requirement to create art for their office. Neither of these have surfaced in previous sessions – the responses are often much more ‘work’ related.

Here are a couple of examples of how people responded to their invitations to be spontaneous and to create some art for the office. To meet the need for spontaneity we used a basic printing technique to give us unpredictable results.

Art for the Office 1 Art for the Office 2

There is a real sense of adventure, of experimentation in these pictures.

After the session I spoke with the owner of the firm and he reflected positively that by working together, we had overcome that sense of coercion. He also shared that he appreciated me not deferring to him as the leader in the room – but instead encouraging a sense of leadership to ebb and flow to where and to whom it was best suited at the time. What a lovely thing to notice. Even though I’ve been using art as a lens through which to help people explore work for several years now, I’m still learning and being motivated by the benefits people experience when working like this.