Levels of Engagement

Rather than the standard three levels of engagement often put forward, development in neuroscience is now leaning towards the identification of five.
These are:
• Actively disengaged – a high average threat state
• Disengaged – an average threat state
• Neutral – Midway between threat and reward states
• Engaged – On average reward state
• Deeply Engaged – a strong average reward state

We often ask a group, or team, to self-identify their level and challenge them to individually take actions to “come up a level”. The interesting thing about these levels is that we can sustain them as a state for around thirteen minutes; at that point we’ll go up or down. What this means is that when you’re talking to a group who are broadly ‘neutral’, then moving them to ‘engaged’ is a pretty simple matter of exciting their reticular activating system (RAS). It’s a mixture of the language you use (make it BIG!), the tone of your voice and the body language that you use. The good news is that from neutral to engaged is only one step!

If you want to know more about his system of the brain have a look at this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCnfAzAIhVw