You Are Not Imagining It, Engagement Is Getting Harder

Do you feel busy? How about really, really, REALLY busy nearly all the time? Do you feel so busy it is as if you are a NASA flight commander 3 seconds until launch who is also herding a fleet of cats uphill both ways whilst and at the same time is mediating toddler siblings during a dispute over a mutually favorite stuffy while trying not to let dinner burn?

Yeah. Me too.

We are busy. The busyness never seems to let up. If anything, life gets busier and busier.

All the people we are trying to engage feel exactly the same way. No matter the profession, industry, or where they are in their career journey, they are busy. They are busy at work, at home, and during every slice of life between those two places. People used to drive home from work. Now we drive home from work while taking important phone calls, catching up on podcasts, compiling the grocery list, and dictating texts.

This busyness, this universal lack of time, is changing the nature of engagement.

People are not engaging the way they used to. They can’t. They are way too busy. Given our new time-strapped reality, we need a new mindset to engage people.

I’m about to say something SUPER controversial. Brace yourself. Braced? Okay, here goes.

I think we are focusing too much on value. Phew, I said it. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

Here’s the formula for engagement.

If we put that formula on a scale, it would look like this.

The scale doesn’t look like the above diagram in many organizations. It’s wildly out of balance. Instead, the scale seems a lot more like this.

Most associations are incredibly focused on value. We’ve mostly been assuming that value is synonymous with engagement. It’s not. There’s another whole element to leverage.

This is excellent news! Because it means we still have a HUGE opportunity to become more engaging.

Have I piqued your interest? Good! Because there’s so much more about how to leverage experiences in my book Elevating Engagement!