Marc deGuzman | Value through agility
Disengagement is growing
How do we increase engagement?
Our focus clings to this dilemma. We inevitably reach this point rather than problem finding because we’re chasing the wrong questions while looking for opportunities. “What are the requirements to boost involvement, commitment, and activity?” Squeezing out more engagement doesn’t make sense at a time when there’s already so much going on. Take a moment and absorb that.
Could it be that engagement campaigns are inadvertently causing fallout? When we talk about increasing engagement we rarely mean pull tactics. Perhaps registering the differences of pull vs. push and the associated consequences, they still mean “what’s it going to take to get them cornered, where we want them, and behaving as we want.” We discount the reason people should be involved, committed, active, and participating when engagement numbers are the goal.
Let’s look at 3 different roles and how they must handle disengagement in an increasing noisy culture of more, more, more.
Value seller
Is it engaging? As a seller, you are injecting promotional communications into the system. Think about what it is you are selling and whether it’s value is shareable.
Is more content better?
It is possible to limit your messaging to produce high-quality and genuine interaction events where engagement is an individual decision. There is an apparent prestige in communicating the opposite, however. where channels believe engagement is an aggregate of total traffic, creating a dangerous formula for volume. More content + more exposure = more engagement. Meanwhile your audience is saying “you’ve got our attention, now what?”
Communicating value does not need more to convey why the audience should care. The seller’s concern is gaining the attributable value to them in their space, at that moment.
Value deliverer
Why should they engage with you? As a deliverer, you aim for a target that’s committed to producing value. This looks like using engagement around key activities or important events. Your engagers can’t see wholly what’s in it for them at the time of request and participation – yet.
It’s a major balancing act.
Occasionally, more engagement serves the mission while not directly valuable. You won’t always get 100% buy-in, if that even is relevant to the effort, because healthy conflict is necessary. Especially when it comes to driving valuable change. Solely targeting engagement in change messaging is a failing strategy, once again pushing the seller’s formula and promising efforts will pay off or at least will result in some acceptable form. It’s like gambling is on debt.
Deliverers must be curious about disengagement to better manage engagement in an environment where methods, process, and “value” are trendy topics.
Value realizer
Does it matter if they engage with you? As a realizer, you’re the one who cares to investigate “what caused the disengagement.” You know that engagement can’t be pushed because you’ve lived that in the past.
Elevate the potential.
Those following may or may not have similar experiences but are imperfectly human, with subjective interest, selective attention, and a limited capacity for inauthentic messaging. So, flip the script. Raise the issue and bring others along with you in the effort, engaging as needed. Only when needed. Ideation phase is an example, refining content over time, while embracing the progressive nature of engagement and disengagement.
Realizers optimize involvement – not just engagement. Involvement and participation outmatch engagement because we individually shepherd valuable things when they truly matter to us and others.
Value driver
Why are we so focused on engagement? The current state of disengagement in change is concerning. Increasing engagement is no doubt on the agenda every time there is a new idea, project, or initiative. Meanwhile, we are witnessing major faults in our systems:
- Sellers communicating the perceived value does little to address audiences’ needing real, attainable value.
- Deliverers producing value dependent on engagement isn’t really valuable, now is it?
- Realizers leading value-driven missions in a “do as I say” culture guarantees disengagement.
Given these three roles, we can curate content, balance messaging, leverage talent potential, and show leadership at all levels to investigate disengagement. Which role will you evolve while designing and managing valuable change?