Engagement is a very important marker predictive of a lasting, impactful, and joyful learning experience. High levels of engagement lead to better retention, greater focus, and a more positive learning experience. To be completely engaged is to experience a state of mind where action and awareness merge. It is no coincidence that when we become one with what we do it leads to optimal performance, cognitive and physical.
The mental state of true engagement was first studied in depth by a Hungarian psychologist Professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. He discovered, in his years of research into creativity and productivity and interviews with people who were deemed successful in a wide range of professions and many of whom were Nobel Prize winners, that the secret to their optimal performance was their ability to enter the state of true engagement, also known as flow, frequently and deliberately. They would describe feeling a sense of competence and control, a loss of self-consciousness, and such intense absorption in the task at hand that they would lose track of time.
Check out our new article about Business Games and Engagement on fligby.com: