What's your engagement currency?
I recently had to address some issues with my 14-year old son - nothing out of the usual. We had tried verbal persuasion. After these lengthy bouts of monologue, he would engage in the desired behaviour - it worked! Not so quick... we quickly found out that it was short-lived and we'd find ourselves in the same monologue. Luckily he was quite open about it. One day he let us know that it was less painful to engage in the behaviour for a short period of time than to listen to our monologue. What I didn't realize in the moment was that we had not found the right currency to engage in meaningful conversation about the gap in behaviour. Without the right currency, dialogue could be ignored and we would find ourselves in verbal persuasion.
We are all engaged by different things. Those things that engage us the most, in some ways, form a sort of currency. Lately, I recognized that access to the computer was an important currency. When we find ourselves off-course on the behaviours we agree to, we use this as a currency to drive a desire to engage in dialogue. Rather than force dialogue (verbal persuasion), we create a compelling reason to engage. The result? What previously took 10 minutes of verbal persuasion, took away from building our relationship, and had short-lived results, turns into 3-minutes of dialogue around desired behaviours and helps to solidify our relationship. As my good friend David said "engagement requires intention and attention". Find someone's engagement currency and you can get their attention and build their intention.
What's your currency?
We are all engaged by different things. Those things that engage us the most, in some ways, form a sort of currency. Lately, I recognized that access to the computer was an important currency. When we find ourselves off-course on the behaviours we agree to, we use this as a currency to drive a desire to engage in dialogue. Rather than force dialogue (verbal persuasion), we create a compelling reason to engage. The result? What previously took 10 minutes of verbal persuasion, took away from building our relationship, and had short-lived results, turns into 3-minutes of dialogue around desired behaviours and helps to solidify our relationship. As my good friend David said "engagement requires intention and attention". Find someone's engagement currency and you can get their attention and build their intention.
What's your currency?
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