Engagement is how we feel about how we do things around here. The success of our culture is measured by how engaged with it our people are.

In essence, people like to be successful, and the more successful they feel, then the more they will contribute to our organization. 

To feel successful, our people need to know why they are doing something; this is the deeper why. Not because I told you, not because someone else told me, this is the rock-solid what connects our mission with the organization's purpose.

Successful engagement will require leaders who:

• Connect our people with their purpose regularly, not through a poster on the wall but in an ongoing dialog
• Recognize and nurture individual team members, and identify how they can best contribute 
• Act with authenticity and transparency, and don't hide or spin
• Make space for their people to grow and actively participate in their development
• Inspire people to do their best by respecting their time and their talent
• Don't subscribe to stupid rules or bureaucracy
• Thank people for their contribution and celebrate their successes

Why do we do this? Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees), highlights that the three factors that are likely to make people feel unengaged at work are anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement:

• Anonymity: No-one, particularly those in charge, knows who we are. We feel like a cog in the machine—"My name isn't Cheryl, it's Shirley!" 
• Irrelevance: Day after day, we turn up to work, but without a connection to the people who benefit from what we're doing, we have no way of telling if our work is valuable or even useful to them. Hopefully, we're making a difference, but who knows?
• Immeasurement: Without any constructive feedback, we're unable to grow, and we're not sure what our career path is or if we're moving in the right direction. We certainly have no way of gauging if anything we do to "change up" is making a difference. A sense of apathy is sweeping across us. Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere for work.