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At its heart, to engage another human being is to simply ‘hold fast their attention’. In doing so, a relationship is forged that builds understanding of others.
In organisations, engagement requires investing time and resources in a number of directions:
- Staff engagement
- Stakeholder engagement
- Customer engagement
The England Partnership defines engagement as ‘the building of positive relationships across systems that create mutual benefit for all’. This means that engagement is never a one-way process. To fully engage with others, time and effort needs to be expended by all. It is not just the domain of leaders or professionals to engagement with staff, stakeholders and customers but there needs to be a reciprocal exchange.
Consequently, our approach to engagement requires the ability to create ‘space’ where dialogue can take place that creates understanding and allows the exchange of ideas. In doing so, organisations gain new insights that allow them to innovate both with and for the benefit of all.
The England Partnership has helped inspire health colleagues by reconnecting them to the reasons they went into public service in the first place. They leave the courses re-energised, wanting more, and better able to influence and articulate the value of coproducing services with people across systems in our ever changing world.
Sue Newell, Wessex Voices