For those who missed this fabulous workshop  on October 8th, 2019 at the Institut de Neurocognitivisme (INC) are the highlights from “Engage for your best at work” , brought to us by Nathalie Colin. 

As an introduction, Nathalie offered us a basic definition of engagement: feeling involved in your job. With this understanding, we moved into an evaluation of each participant’s level of engagement at work. We observed a wide range of results and each participant took the time to share her score, which helped create a strong sense of sisterhood in the group.

As a next step, Nathalie used a contradictory approach and invited the group to dare imagine how to sabotage their engagement at work. The participants worked in sub-groups and gave all their energy and sense of fun into this task. The debrief all together helped list the potential behaviors that one can unconsciously (or consciously) activate when not feeling engaged at work. Here a few of them: stop communicating, criticizing and judging all the time, losing faith, being late, not daring saying no, accepting projects that don’t make sense, self-criticism, acting like a victim.

Focusing on dis-engagement helped the group figure out (by polarity) what is needed to really feel engaged. 

Based on these findings, the group was then invited to create a symbolic drawing of what engagement means. Each participant brought her own perspective that was fully integrated into the group’s creation. The energy of the group immediately rose and we could feel a sense of fun, compassion, and community. All the women in the group had the opportunity to comment on their symbolic drawing on their own engagement drivers. And listening to others’ drivers helped them enrich their own. Here are the top five that came out of this exercise: finding purpose, personal responsibility, joy, creativity, and a sense of belonging. 

Nathalie concluded by providing a complementary perspective about engagement with the concept of “Flow” from a study by Professor Csíkszentmihályi in 1990. “Flow” is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, Flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time. Professor Csíkszentmihályi has identified nine conditions for feeling in a state of flow: clear objectives, immediate feedback, right balance between challenges and personal skills, state of awareness, focus, perception of control about the situation, sense of losing self-consciousness, losing time perception, deeply committed and pro-active. Nathalie invited each participant to choose at least one condition and to define some concrete actions.  

We ended up celebrating women and engagement with some bubbles. The discussion kept on flowing and engagement was definitely in the air! Our participants left the evening with renewed energy. A final word from Nathalie: “I feel very grateful for the fantastic moment I spent with all these extraordinary women. I could really feel their desire to contribute even more to their organization. Their energy was contagious, and I have no doubt that their engagement will also be in their professional life.” 

Thank you, Nathalie! Thank you to the INC for hosting our DEVELOP - Unleash Your Talents  workshops this year and thanks to Muriel Janoir-Bessioud (PWN member) for making it happen. 

For more information on the PWN DEVELOP “Unleash Your Talents” programme,  please contact: Juliet Atkinson juliet@thecoachingconnection.com or Christine Mourgues-Bastide cmourguesb@gmail.com

The PWN DEVELOP - Unleash Your Talents workshops for 2019/2020 are kindly hosted by our partner the INC - Institut du Neurocognitivisme.