Turn me on to engagement

Nora Jones has a wonderful song called, Turn Me On. Although it is about a personal relationship it made me think about employee engagement.

Here are a few lines from the song:

Like a flower waiting to bloom
Like a lightbulb in a dark room
Like the desert waiting for the rain
I’m just sitting here waiting for you
To come on home and turn me on
Turn me on

Are you waiting for someone else to turn the switch for you being fully engaged? Or is someone you work with expecting you to turn on their switch? Relationships can play a key role in engagement yet I believe it begins when we turn ourselves on to engagement.

We sometime believe that we must feel engaged to engage in work. Paradoxically, often even when we don’t feel engaged — yet engage in the task at hand, we find our level of engagement increasing. The emotion of engagment will often follow engaged behaviour.

Get engaged:

1. Determine the switches that turn on your level of engagement. Flip the switch.

2. See how well you can act as a catalyst to help another person flip their switch into higher levels of engagement.

3. As we approach the holiday season remember that it is also important to disengage from work to refresh ourselves.

Don’t forget to turn off the lights when you head home.

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