Here are 10 ways to ensure your own engagement is high, stays high, even gets higher!

• Keep Score. Create and apply your own personal scoring scale. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 1-5, A-F, 100 points. It does matter that you use it regularly. As humans, we want to “do better the next time.” Scoring your own level of engagement every week gives you reason to strive continuously for more and better engagement.

• Note the Good. Regularly identify those area(s) in which you are highly engaged. Ask and answer: How can I increase my engagement level? HINT: write down your answers for future reference.

• Note the Not-S0-Good. Regularly identify area(s) in which you are NOT so highly engaged. Ask and answer: How can I improve my specific engagement in these areas? HINT: write down your answers for future reference.

• Go 360. Institute an informal, verbal 360 feedback process with your employees. Just ask each of them 2 questions:
  • Would you like me to be more engaged in your performance development? (Be prepared to define “engaged” and “performance development.” )
  • What would you like to see me do to be more engaged?

• Learn More. Read about employee engagement. Information, tips, techniques about employee engagement are everywhere. This morning I Googled “employee engagement” with quotation marks and turned up about 812,000 results. Feel free to subscribe to this blog and be informed of each of the 3 postings every week.

• Set a Goal. Create short-term goals/objectives relating to engagement for yourself. Acknowledge those goals. Hold yourself accountable for achieving them. Share your efforts and successes with others.

• Partner Up. Partner with other managers who are committed to employee engagement. Partner with others within your company; that lets you share immediate, familiar turf and witness  each other’s engagement results. Partner with associates outside your business; this broadens your perspective and gives new, different ideas that you may adapt to your needs.

• Make a Note of It. Use a notebook. It’s virtually impossible to remember every good idea you have. Carry a notebook around with you. (It’s a good idea if it’s an attractive notebook that’s convenient to carry and that you actually enjoy writing in.) Any time and every time an engagement idea crosses your mind, jot it down in your notebook. A weekly review of your notebook returns repeated value in ideas you can revise and refine and apply.

• Record Your Successes. Treat yourself to the simple feel-good of jotting a note or two about your successful engagement, your success stimulating engagement among your people, your success in discovering new procedures that grow engagement in your business. These records may be kept in your notebook, or perhaps in a monthly calendar, giving you a small space to enter every day’s engagement achievements.

• Sign Up. Sign up to receive my weekly Engagement Tip. Once a week I’ll e-mail you a quick-and-easy tip to boost your own, personal engagement.

To download this and the other list of C.O.R.E. Engagement Tips, click here.