THE FOURTH BARRIER TO ENGAGEMENT

Patience is a virtue we don't traffic in that much anymore. Our instant gratification genes have become dominant. Modern Western homo impatiens wants results and wants them now - and the organizations we create are no different. However fast we get, we want faster. 

But engagement isn't fast. Because the pace at which relationships form hasn't kept pace with the myriad of old and new ways we have to create and destroy them. It still takes time to build a relationship. Sure, first impressions matter and happen in an instant. But a first impression isn't a relationship, it just determines the potential for one and how hard it will be.

Besides, unless you're a fresh new startup, most organizations are far beyond first impressions. You have relationships with your clients/customers/citizens, even if you've neglected them. So you're not talking about building fresh, shiny new ones. You're talking about changing the ones you've got - the ones with history. If we're lucky, those are positive relationships and you're trying to improve or sustain them. But odds are that if you're only starting to think about engagement it's because the relationship isn't working - or at least not to your satisfaction and probably not to theirs either.

Repairing an existing relationship takes even more time and patience than building a new one because you're not only trying to get me to feel something about you, you're trying to change how I already feel. That's hard work, like any effort to overcome the inertia of the status quo. You're not just trying to build trust or confidence, you're trying to overcome distrust and suspicion and the scar tissue built up around them. 

That's why engagement takes time, and time is the one resource even the most committed organizations are reluctant to assign to the work. But we need to. Because it's a long game, where the results may not be visible now but they will be worth the wait.