Back in 2004 I found myself, somewhat unexpectedly, pregnant with my first child (Harry). On seeing the “you’re pregnant” lines on the tester kit a strange thing happened… literally overnight it seemed my world became populated by pregnant women, and babies. They were everywhere, and yet just 24 hours previously I hadn’t noticed them. I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience, not the unexpected pregnancy, but the weird coincidences.
In fact, this is not a weird coincidence at all, but the work of our ‘in-built spam filter’. We are bombarded with billions of pieces of data all day long, and if we were to notice it all we’d go mad. So there is a part of our brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) that helps filter out all the unnecessary noise. The RAS works at a subconscious level, scanning our surroundings to help us pay attention to information that could be useful to us. This is why once I had found out I was pregnant and it was dominating my thinking, I then noticed everything to do with pregnancy and babies.
What’s cool is that we can program the RAS to pay attention to specific information. We do this by thinking about information that will be useful to us. What we need to do is to create a very specific picture of our goal in our conscious mind. The RAS will then pass this on to our subconscious – which will then help us achieve the goal. It does this by bringing to our attention all the relevant information which otherwise might have remained as ‘background noise’
You might be thinking this is all very interesting but what does it have to do with employee engagement? Well, we know that having a clear vision, or a strategic narrative, is one of the key enablers of employee engagement. Having a clear compelling vision of where the company is heading and why, is not only critical for engagement but also for business success. We’ve all heard the story about the janitor at NASA explaining to JFK that he was ‘helping to put on man on the moon’, not simply just sweeping the floor.
We work with lots of companies to help them develop their strategic narrative and understand their equivalent of ‘helping to put a man on the moon’. We begin by gathering people together to share stories about their experiences of working for their organisation. We look at how they felt when they joined, times when they have been proud, moments that have stood out for them and much more. We use these stories to help people understand the difference they make, to appreciate that ‘sweeping the floor’ makes a contribution to an overall purpose, of ‘putting a man on the moon’. We take these stories and work with teams to help them develop their strategic narrative, thus ensuring it resonates with them.
If you would like to find out more about how we help companies develop their strategic narrative and then us it to develop engagement we’d love to hear from you. You can also download our free ‘top tips here’
P.S. If you have any other questions about employee engagement just ask here, and we’ll give you a call back
