Nonverbal Cues: Your Silent Partner in Engagement
Imagine you’re checking out a new apartment. While getting a tour of the place from the current renter, who would be your roommate, he starts acting odd. I mean, really odd. He walks rapidly around the apartment. He holds his water glass high above his head. Next thing you know, he is shuffling backwards on […]
What Each Level of Engagement Needs in Your Community
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow published an article in Psychological Review titled, “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Maslow proposed that humans have five levels of needs that build in sequential order. The needs are (in order), physiological, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization. For a human to care about self-actualization, the other four needs are […]
Everyone Plays a Role in Engagement: Finding Community Leaders
“You have to meet Ms. Peaches! Everyone loves her. She takes time to talk with each one of us to really understand the challenges we’re facing. When I talk with her, I can tell she really cares about our success. She goes out of her way to help anyone who needs it.” When I first […]
8 Universal Factors of Employee Engagement
Engagement is a tricky thing to measure because there are many factors that can play into an employee’s overall engagement. Each company will want to measure engagement in its own way, based on the company values and culture. Apple will care about different things than Facebook. It’s important for leaders to understand the key factors […]
Creating an Engagement Dashboard for Your Organization
For two years, I sat on the board of the NY Entrepreneurs’ Organization as the Head of Member Engagement. At my first board meeting, I asked the group for some prior data on member engagement. My aim was to find a baseline level of engagement which I could use to build goals for the future. […]
The Two Ingredients Required for Successful Engagement
At some point, every facilitator eventually runs out of activities they can do with a group. It’s natural and bound to happen. This exact thing happened to a friend of mine, Kevin Prentiss, who was running a 10-day long summer program for a group of students at Stanford University. After 10-days of facilitating activities and […]
Fun Is The Easiest Way To Change Someone’s Behavior
A group of psychologists seated themselves between a staircase and an escalator in a U.S. shopping mall to run a study. They set out to answer two questions: What percentage of people choose stairs over an escalator when given the choice between the two? How would behavior change if people were made aware of the […]
Party for One – The Value of Social Proof
Sylvia is the kind of person that wants to make a difference. When she sees an issue, she takes action. So when it was finals week at her university and she knew everyone was going to be stressed, she woke up early and drew the words “Free Hugs” on a large poster board. Then, she […]
When Recruiting… Make Sure To Show Not Tell
During a recent visit to Pittsburgh, I set aside some time to visit with a former intern of ours studying at Carnegie Mellon University. As we walked through their beautiful University Center, I noticed a large number of campus clubs with tables set up trying to solicit students to join their organization. Every table was […]
Get in the Habit of Giving Praise With Your Team
It was easy to see the smiles exponentially light up around the room as the co-workers gave each other praise for various things. Even the thickest skinned member of the team couldn’t help but smile when a co-worker thanked him for supporting her with an RFP coming due. The team of hard-nosed marketers turned into […]