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You are here: Home / Disengagement / Time Out: Disengagement leading to Engagement (MMP #20)

Time Out: Disengagement leading to Engagement (MMP #20)

July 2, 2007 by David Zinger 2 Comments

Employee Engagement: Monday Morning Percolator #20

TIME OUT!

This is the week with July 4th in the United States and Canada Day, on July 1, in Canada. Many people, especially with children, use July to start their summer holidays and students have a long “time out” from school. I hope you have or had a good time on your holiday.

This leads into the post for today – the importance of time out or disengagement to enhance engagement.

Employee engagement is not a 24/7 way of being. Our engagement levels should fluctuate during the day, during the week, and during the year. Our energy levels change, the demands of work increase and decrease, and relationships at work can also fluctuate. Our rest and recovery can fuel our performance and give us a much needed perspective on our direction.

Do you consciously disengage to foster higher levels of engagement?

Much like a time out during a basketball game where the players huddle to get ready for the next few plays we must also consciously disengage from work to strategize for more efficient and effective performance. We need to pause or come to a complete stop to determine our next step.

Get Perking:

  1. Take time to savor and smell the coffee.
  2. Turn your phone or blackberry off for parts of the day. Do you really need to be available 24/7?
  3. Don’t bring work home with you – physically or mentally.
  4. Engage in an activity that takes your mind completely off of work — from playing with children to even playing basketball.
  5. After every 60 to 90 minutes of work take a few minutes to stand up, stretch, or walk around the office.

Foster more powerful employee engagement by making the effort to also consciously disengage from work. As Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote: you can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.

Filed Under: Disengagement, Employee Engagement

Comments

  1. relaxing portrait painting says

    July 2, 2007 at 10:35 pm

    Great tips. I think I’ll take all of your advice. It’s not always that I get to savor the moment of being alone, free and totally out of work. This is the right time for this and I think it will not make me less productive if I do all of the five.

  2. Z says

    July 2, 2007 at 10:49 pm

    It can seem strange that to be into work at times we need to be out of work. A bit of the yin/yang perspective on integrated engagement.

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David Zinger

Email: david@davidzinger.com
Phone 204 254 2130

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