A model for engagement

Okay so how about this?

I’ve been trying to find a clear and consistent rationale for what I believe are crucial elements for effective community engagement. What are these key elements, how do they fit together and what do they mean in practice to ensure engagement is meaningful and actually ‘engaging’?

One thought always leads to another and more recently I’ve been thinking...

What if I drew inspiration from Aristotle’s Poetics as a basis for the various elements required to engage people effectively and profoundly.

Aristotle of course developed six elements of drama as key principles to ‘entertain’ an audience. The word 'entertain' coming from a Latin word meaning ‘to hold’ as in ‘to hold someone’s attention’; to literally engage an audience.

Engagement is about holding peoples’ attention in a meaningful way, including and involving people, communicating, collaborating with, inspiring and empowering people, hearing them and acting on what is heard.

PURPOSE

Aristotle calls this ‘Theme’: what’s the drama or story really about? Why are we telling this story? What do we want the audience to feel or do? The starting point for all engagement is why: why are we doing it? I love this important element of engagement for many reasons including Simon Sinek’s great TED talk about starting with why.

FLOW OR FORMAT

Aristotle calls this the element of ‘Music’: the rhythm of the drama, how the story moves and stops and ebbs and flows. What is the rhythm of your engagement? It’s important. How does it start? How does it move through the components? How does it build momentum, climax and then end? Surely this must be considered for good community engagement.

SPECTACLE OR SURPRISE

An important element in Ancient Greek (and all) Drama. It was often the role of the deus ex machina to provide the much needed spectacle at the end of a Greek Tragedy but this type of device is not the only way to achieve good engagement. In considering your own engagement needs, it could be as simple as using interesting technology to build conversations or facilitating a session in a surprisingly awesome way, incorporating an unexpected guest speaker or including a surprisingly interactive component to the engagement. Some folks give away ‘incredible incentives’ to try and engage more people but does it work? Often a free holiday or i-Pad is the least spectacular or surprising thing we can do to increase engagement. The idea to surprise or delight is right but must be in context, have relevance and integrate with our purpose.

CHARACTER (OR VOICE)

Everyone has a role and a part to play. Everyone has a voice and the potential to be included so let’s include them. Aristotle calls this element ‘Character’ and believes characters and people and their voices, their unique perspectives, can be used to hold peoples’ attention or to entertain or engage others. He was right. In good drama, characters are not treated as homogenous groups (other than a Greek chorus) but each character is intentionally distinctive with their own traits and unique voice. What if we treated participants we engage with in this light? Everyone has a voice, everyone has a role to play.

LANGUAGE

Another crucial component of good drama: how language is used. What people say matters, giving people a say matters. How we communicate the engagement, make it accessible and inclusive and invite people into our conversation - all crucial to good engagement. Like in good drama, language, words and clear, accessible, purposeful and relevant communication is vital to improve engagement.

NARRATIVE

Or Plot. An essential part of any drama. What actually happens which sits on top of what the work is actually about (the why or purpose). So what’s the narrative of your engagement? How do the characters transform by the end? How does it connect to your purpose? What’s the learning that takes place and the takeaway message? Because there always is one! How does the narrative and plot points of the engagement process build a journey of trust and connection? What’s the ending? The denouement? The point of the story, journey and engagement? And how has the narrative changed the world of the characters? How has the engagement changed our world? Because it should!

I’m going to try an experiment and include these six elements (inspired by Aristotle’s elements of drama which he developed to hold peoples’ attention) in engagement activities with the hope that using these components improves the quality of the engagement and participants feel more connected to and satisfied with the process and outcome!