Work engagement and development have everything to do with each other. Engagement is freedom and positive energy: the will to make something happen and get it done. And to be engaged, you need development. Coach Dick Zirkzee shows that developing means something different from what you might think.
Developing or wrapping up?
In the old days, to calm children down or get them to sleep, they were swaddled: wrapped tightly in cloths so they couldn't move. Do you sometimes feel the need to withdraw, under a blanket on the sofa, the cat snuggled up to you, watching a series with a glass of wine? Lovely! Or is it an escape? Are you stuck in your relationship, your job or your assignment? And has comfortable and safe become another word for dozing off?
In Dutch, the word for developing, ontwikkelen, literally means unwrapping: it is the opposite of inwikkelen, wrapping up. Off with the cloths, the cat outside, the chains loose: waking up and coming to life.
Developing yourself as a person, team and organisation usually means gaining knowledge and experience, learning, growing and performing. It seems as if we always have to add something that wasn't there before. Think of Maslow's pyramid, in which we stack need upon need until we arrive at self-actualisation. That strict hierarchy, by the way, is hardly found in research. Wahba & Bridwell There is also another, more important meaning of development.
Developing is letting go
The word 'development' literally contains 'unwrapping': unwinding what is wrapped around something. So you take something away rather than add something. You see the same in other languages: the English 'to develop', the French 'développer' and the German 'entwickeln'.
So you can grow and become who you are by taking something off. Or, in a word that is by now almost worn out: by letting go. Perhaps: by getting to the core.
When do habits and patterns start to pinch?
Take a lobster that is growing. At some point it notices that its shell is starting to pinch, because the shell doesn't grow with it. The lobster crawls under a rock, sheds its shell, and a new shell grows that gives it room again and protects it once more. It is the same with people. Sometimes our shell no longer fits, and we have to take it off to be able to grow.
In this context, psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung spoke of the persona: the mask we put on to adapt and belong. Call it coping, survival strategies or adapted behaviour. Our shells, masks and blankets on the sofa are sometimes very useful and nice, but not forever. Certain habits, patterns or conditioning can start to pinch over time. Do we then have to sit under a rock to shed our shell?
Turning your gaze inwards
Developing is turning your gaze inwards. Why do I do what I do? Am I awake enough to see that something is pinching somewhere, that there is something to be done? What is bothering me? Do I really want to see it? Where does the wrapping need to come off to experience more room? It takes courage to explore that.
That is why work engagement and development have so much to do with each other. Masks that pinch and ingrained habits are not pleasant. Being stuck gives no energy. By literally unwrapping yourself, you experience room and can feel engagement: bursting with energy, being dedicated and being absorbed in your work. UBES manual It fits with what self-determination theory says: the need to grow and feel competent is one of the three basic psychological needs of every human being. Self-Determination Theory
Three tips from Dick Zirkzee
- Pay attention to behaviour. You recognise patterns in people and organisations because they occur three times or more. You see them, hear them and notice them.
- Look at your organisation's goals. Make visible which patterns get in the way of achieving those goals.
- Dare to name the unnameable. Sometimes you think you can't say something. Say it anyway, because if it is in you, it is in someone else too.
Also read: job crafting to stay engaged.
About this article: this piece is based on a blog by Dick Zirkzee.
