The essence of “zengagement” is paying attention.

This post is in honor of Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki, who’s book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind actually got me to hit a blank page in a book when all I could see on the page was a fly.

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Don’t break your monitor!

Focused attention is a robust way to ignite engagement.

A question I often hear is: How do I get fully engaged in my work? There are a myriad of pathways and methods but nothing simpler and stronger than paying attention moment-to-moment with the work you are performing.

Instead of asking how do we engage others start by paying close attention to them. I think most of the answers will come out of really noticing others and when they know you really notice them, they may also work towards higher levels of engagement.

In a future post I will write about paying attention more rigorously by pairing the Hawthorne effect with employee engagement.

David Zinger

I very excited to see so much support and activity on employee engagement.

The employee engagement network has surpassed 200 members in under 3 months!

Join us right now as we work towards being 300 strong. Not only will you learn more about employee engagement and be able to contribute your ideas and perspectives, you will also learn more about social media and the powerful tool it is rapidly becoming in the business world.

Click here to read forums, groups, blog posts, RSS feeds, and other resources at the Employee Engagement Network.

Engage along with me, the best is yet to be!

David Zinger

We can find ourselves moving rapidly from engaged to enraged.

Many of us are not only emotionally guided we are emotionally governed. Our emotions govern whether we do something or do not do something. Emotions are much more than touchy-feely fluff. If you take the “e” off of the word emotion you have the word, motion.

I appreciated William Ury’s book, The Power of a Positive No. Although the book is primarily about being a better negotiator I think it was valuable resource to think about emotions and engagement. I think we should all pay heed to his statement:

Anger can blind, fear can paralyze, and guilt can weaken.

How might these negative emotions interfere with your own engagement or engaging others.  Anger may blind you to potentials in others or your own role in engagement problems at work. Fear can hold you in place and paralyze you from taking actions to engage. Guilt may weaken your determination or resolve.

Fear or guilt may drive you to accommodate or avoid while anger can move you from engaged to enraged.

Ury is adamant that we don’t suppress our emotions. When you are in the grip of negative emotions do not suppress them or act them out. Take a middle road where you become aware of you emotions. Take control of them rather than have them control you.

William Ury also stated: The most effective way to deal with your negative emotions is not to act them out. It is to hear them out.

What role do emotions play in your engagement and the engagement of people around you?

Photo Credit: Story Clouds by http://flickr.com/photos/adrian_wallett/382889860/

Employee Engagement: Your 6 word story of working.

I appreciate the succinctness and pithiness of the 6 word story or memoir. At Slacker Manager I hosted a six word management story contest and we had 52 entries.

What is your 6 word story of working. How did you become engaged? or disengaged?

Here is some help to get you started:

1. Click here to read the 6 word stories from Slacker Manager.
2. Visit the website for Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoriesby Writers Famous & Oscure.
3. Click here or watch the 30 minute video of the editors of this book at a Google Talk. I especially enjoyed the first 3  minutes with a video montage of 6 word stories.

Here is my 6 word working story.

Fully engaged from me to we.

What is your work story?

Add your story by clicking the small comment link underneath the title of this post and writing your 6 word engagement story in the comments. Thank you for participating.

Photo Credit: Nature’s Number 6 by http://flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/76463757/

Zengagement: Really Knowing.

Ninety percent of the world’s woe comes from people  not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves ~ Sydney J. Harris.

Photo Credit: Shadows by http://flickr.com/photos/fod/190865289/