By David Harder on February, 6, 2018

The Five-Minute Engagement Booster

“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”

Steven Spielberg

Take a moment to think of the people who stay organized while getting enormous quanties of work finished, and others who look busy but are not producing results. One of the significant contributors to employee disengagement is frenzy. Busy-ness does not equate to engagement. In fact, it is the new trance. Perhaps the single greatest casualty from frenzy is the mission, vision, and purpose that defines our lives. Every single one of us is born with a unique purpose. Every single one of us lives in a world where we grow as never before. But, taking the time for skilled self-reflection feels out of reach because we are juggling tasks, taking endless phone calls, meeting deadlines, getting the kids through school, and navigating through miles of traffic.

Organizations retain Inspired Work to deliver an engagement program. It is so ironic that at the beginning of many programs, we encounter individuals who are resentful. Why? They have too many tasks to complete. They think of getting even further behind. I usually smile because I am thinking about how much their lives are about to improve.

Employees are not motivated by working on shareholder value. All too often, it is the lack of personally defined and owned mission, vision, and purpose that supports trance-like outlooks. But, it is the lack of mission that also contributes to a going through the motions way of showing up. When we are too busy to define our own lives, we will also be ill-equipped to get through challenges and crisis’s. Without personally defined vision, trances can be comforting.

Martha Beck said,

“One reason most people never stop thinking is that mental frenzy keeps us form having to see the upsetting aspects of our lives. If I’m constantly brooding about my children or career, I won’t notice that I’m lonely. If I grapple continuously with logistical problems, I can avoid contemplating little issues like, say, my own mortality.”

We complete engagement programs with teams in 48 hours. When we are finished, everyone is connected in ways they could not have anticipated. These short-term transformation must be supported with the kind of resources and rituals that deepen the breakthroughs. One of them is to engage in a daily ritual of guided self-reflection, which takes all of five minutes.

They work off of customized questions created for their role and culture. Here is a general example:

What is today’s ideal blend of strategic and tactical work?
Who needs my attention? Why? Who needs support? Who needs praise?
How can I best market my ideas, initiatives, or agenda?
How can I best take care of myself?
What is the biggest problem I am ready to solve?
How can I expand my support system? Internally? Externally?

Yesterday, I was working with an entrepreneur who is growing her business. We agreed on what we are going to accomplish in the next couple of weeks. She turned to me and said, “But what about this big need over here?” I laughed and told her that part of my role as a consultant/coach/advisor is to establish the discipline of priorities. When we prioritize our time, we get more accomplished and spend less time in a state of overwhelm.

In the winter before I launched Inspired Work, someone that I worked with in the music industry dropped dead of a heart attack. From that point forward, I realized that if I was to be happy with my life, I would have to define what was meaningful within my life. I also realized how fleeting time really is. We don’t need to have brushes with mortality in order to establish meaning in our lives.

Our time, our lives, our minutes are precious. Use them wisely

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

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