Big Picture: The Journey Called Engagement

Over the last four years I’ve had the privilege of working with a long list of people, including top management in all aspects of sales, marketing, finance and human resources, to develop a formal framework and action plan for the implementation of Engagement strategies within organizations of any size. I had the further opportunity to test this framework in half-day sessions with front-line management in marketing, HR and corporate communications to test how this approach applies in actual circumstances. This framework has been thrown at a lot of walls and it seems to be sticking. What did we learn from this process?

That many companies have already begun the journey and have identified a similar overall framework on their own.
Those involved almost always call it a journey, because until now there has been no formal blueprint for actualization.
Engagement continues to face headwinds caused by traditional silos, which create a perceived barrier to action.
Engagement isn’t the province of any one tactic – social networking, recognition, learning, collaboration, etc. – it’s a combination of all of these and more, based on the audience, business situation and objectives.
The best way to start often involves applying the principals to a single organizational goal – such as a sales, productivity, or wellness initiative within a specific time frame – to better understand what’s involved.
Engagement, at its heart, is a 21st century form of leadership aimed specifically at connecting people to organizational results, an issue of growing importance in the era of social-networking. It’s a framework that should be understood by anyone in management.

The purpose of the Enterprise Engagement Curriculum and Certification program is to hasten the implementation Engagement principals within organizations by establishing an overall framework and tactical menu that everyone can agree upon when creating an Engagement strategy or program. Almost any major field, including advertising, customer relationship management and accounting, have frameworks that provide a solid foundation for strategizing a specific solution. By working off of the same framework and using the same language, people can focus their efforts more effectively without constraining the discussion, since the framework merely identifies the issues that have to be addressed and potential solutions – every situation is a snowflake.

The Curriculum and Certification program is primarily designed to signal an understanding of Engagement so that others you do business with who are familiar with this growing field will know you speak the same language.

And keep in mind that an established framework and implementation process doesn’t eliminate creativity any more than it does in the Advertising field; it merely provides a more efficient way of identifying the key issues that have to be addressed and the best way to approach them.

The result of all of this is the Enterprise Engagement Curriculum and Certification Test, both of which are available free online at www.enterpriseengagement.org (see the Key Resources box on the upper right of the home page). You can prepare for free by accessing the recorded webinars and reading white papers, or just test your knowledge by taking the test to see how you do.

Welcome to the journey.

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