Numerology. Don’t get me wrong, I believe “the numbers” are important in employee engagement. By this I mean the relationships between engagement and productivity and profit. I also think the numbers of engaged versus disengaged workers is important to know. Yes, we must make the business case for engagement and organizations need engagement to stay viable.
Geometry. But what about geometry?
Geometry (Ancient Greek: γεωμετρία; geo = earth, metria = measure) is a part of mathematics concerned with questions of size, shape, and relative position of figures and with properties of space. Geometry is one of the oldest sciences. Initially a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes.
Down to earth. I like the idea of bringing employee engagement back down to earth. An earth measure that focuses on the size, shape, position, length, area, and volume of engagement not just the results of the survey. A geometry that connects the numbers with a bigger picture. A geometry of employee engagement that helps us see size, shape, and relationship. A geometry of engagement that may provide us with a richer image of engagement within our organizations and get us “thinking outside the pyramid.” I would love to see the circle as the quintessential shape for engagement rather than the pyramid or the box.
Geometric questions. Here are some questions about the geometry of employee engagement:
- How do we connect?
- What is the shortest distance between us?
- What is the shape of your organization’s engagement?
- What form does employee engagement take?
- Can you see it?
- Can you touch it?
- Will employee engagement have good length or dissipate away as the flavor of the month because of mind-numbing numbers?
- What would create the tipping point of employee engagement to foster a geometric progression of engagement in your organization?
- What are the spatial relationships between the key people and players in engagement: employees, customers, leaders, managers, shareholders, stakeholders, etc?
- Does employee engagement take up volume in the organization or is it relegated to the bi-yearly survey with big announcements about employee engagement devoid of true impact and robust resources?
Right Angle. Are you ready to start thinking about employee engagement from a geometric perspective? If you are, I think you just might have the right angle on engagement!
The image for this post came from the Wikipedia creative commons license: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Calabi-Yau.png
Hi David,
Good concept on dimensional attributes to something many say they feel but can’t define. I think I would add in some physics properties to capture the movement of engaged employees causing engagement in others.
Karin,
I agree with your physics properties. I love the notion of “a body at rest tends to stay at rest.” Could be the motto of the disengaged.
I think we need many languages to get at the complexity and richness of engagement.
David
Good stuff and I like the questions.
I find that passions, values, and purpose bring people together the fastest and the most enduring … while opposites attract, similarities bind.
J.D.
It is good to think outside of the trapezoid. I think we are in need of being multilingual on engagement and that geometry could be one of the many languages we choose to use.
David
I was just watching some videos on employee engagement at the site my name’s linked to… I was thinking that it would be nice to have some other way of relating some of these concepts. I think you’ve come up with a great way of making the concepts a little more “tangible”. It might not be what everyone needs to get a grip, but it helped me.