Maddie and I worked with a client last week on the topic of member engagement, and one of the insights that was particularly useful to this group was the idea that engagement is a two-way street.

When we think about engagement–which could mean customers, members, or even employees–we very often think of it in one-way terms. Like THEY engage with US. The members read our newsletters, attend our events, buy our products, join our association. The customers watch our ads, visit our stores, buy our stuff. The employees show up on time, do their work, stay at your company. All of this is true, and part of engagement, but engagement is fundamentally a relationship. It is the time, attention, and money that is spent by BOTH the member/customer/employee AND the organization and the people within the organization.

If you want to improve member engagement, have you even looked at where your organization devotes its time, attention, and other resources? Or is your focus only on manipulating specific behaviors in order to increase the specific, measurable pieces of their engagement (getting them to read more, buy more, attend more). True engagement is about meaning and value. It’s important. That’s why I think it works best to think about it in terms of a relationship, and like any relationship, it means paying attention to your own stuff and your own assumptions and your own behavior.