What if Engagement is Natural?

A law of nature not legality.

We’re often told people are not engaged. But what if that’s not the real issue? What if the problem is that there are obstacles or conditions that cause them to disengage?
What if people want to participate, contribute, and make a difference, and if they’re not doing so, there’s something in their way?

That’s the foundation of my services.

Given the right conditions, people will always want to participate, contribute, be valued and appreciated.
This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s human nature, and businesses, especially in hospitality, ignore it at their peril. My services are designed to enable the Natural Law of People flourish in your business.

🧩 The Four Elements of the Natural Law of People

Every Human Being wants four basic things:

To participate in something important to them.
To be able to make a contribution.
To know their contribution was of value and valued.
To be appreciated for their contribution.

These are not luxuries. They are the essential conditions for meaningful work and vibrant organisations. This is not something new; it is how people naturally organise themselves in the world. It is only when ineffective organisation design is imposed on people that the obstacles to the natural law of people emerge. It is not the people who are at fault; it is the way we are organising work that is at fault.

Individuals feel most fulfilled when participating in and contributing to someone or something they care about, when their contribution is making a difference, and when they are being appreciated for their contribution. 

That is the Natural Law of People at work. It is just like the law of gravity. You cannot avoid it!

However, when you are most fulfilled doesn’t necessarily mean when you’ve contributed to others…Most people don’t care enough about others!  We actually only care about the contribution we make to a select group of people, a select number of values or beliefs, causes or communities. You feel most fulfilled when you contribute, in whatever way that is, to something you care about.

Unfortunately, since the Industrial Revolution started, mankind has done everything possible to control other human beings. In the developing world, we have attempted to control what, when and how people contribute, which has led to the natural law of people being largely suppressed. This is reflected in the figure reported in Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report, which indicates that only 10% of UK employees are engaged at work. This is one of the lowest levels of engagement globally.

The key findings were:

• 90% of UK employees are not engaged or actively disengaged, up from 87% in 2013.
• 40% of UK employees experience daily stress
• 27% of UK employees experience daily sadness
• 20% of UK employees experience daily anger
  It concluded that UK workers have worse emotional well-being than their European counterparts.
  

The challenge is to identify the obstacles that prevent employees from wanting to participate and contribute, because when they do, they demonstrate in the most straightforward way possible that they are engaged.

🔍 Positive Impact Mapping® : Find Your Natural Energy

Every business has people who, without being asked, naturally uplift those around them. These individuals are your positive energisers, and they are living proof of the Natural Law of People in action. They:

• contribute proactively
• connect across silos
• generate enthusiasm
• make others feel seen and heard, capable

The challenge for most businesses is that they don’t know who these energisers are, or how much impact they really have. That’s where Positive Impact Mapping®  comes in. It is a tool that can accurately identify the positive energisers in your organisation, allowing you to create the conditions for their energy to flourish.

“Positive energisers are not just ‘nice people.’ They’re high-performance accelerators. And every team already has them.”

🎯 What Positive Impact Mapping reveals

Positive Impact Mapping reveals who the natural contributors to culture, clarity, and energy are. What it is measuring is the positive relational impact they have in your organisation. It enables you to identify where they are located in your organistaion and how and with whom they are connected. (Not always where you’d expect.) This is the first time leaders have had a tool that helps them identify the individuals responsible for generating energy in teams and removing obstacles to growth and sustainability.

In the past, leaders and managers have often only discovered who these people are when they leave, because that is often the time when morale dips, silos form, and minor problems fester.

Now, instead of waiting until things start to go off track, you can amplify their influence safely, strategically, and with joy whilst they remain within your organisation. It is a way of protecting and growing your organisational intelligence.

🌱 From insight to action

When you map your energisers and create the conditions that enable them to thrive, you create a blueprint for scaling contribution across your business. When you create the right conditions for your positive energisers to interact widely in your organisation, you increase the Relational Intelligence RQ.  As relational intelligence increases, engagement, participation and contribution increase rapidly. By continuing to remove the obstacles to participation and engagement the speed that RQ spreads through the organisation continues to increase.

Natural Law Lever

Build flexible teams & cross-talk spaces
Study what supports their resilience
Develop the skills that make appreciation systemic
Let them design onboarding, peer support, and knowledge flow

Positive energisers are not the exception. They are evidence that the Natural Law of the People is real. Positive Impact Mapping

• Introduces the natural human tendencies to the organisation,
• Shows how they already exist in your business through energisers,
• Provides a tool to map them,
• Leads to removing obstacles and designing the right conditions for them to participate and contribute.

🔥 The Core Truth for Leaders

If someone is not engaged, it’s not because they’re lazy or broken; it’s because something is stopping them, getting in their way. Deciding that people are lazy or have a poor work ethic is accepting a convenient truth, and that makes it easier for you. The truth is that the work environment that you are responsible for is putting obstacles in your employees’ path that prevent them from being seen and heard, and they experience not being valued

It might be as simple as a confusing system, a rigid hierarchy, a lack of context (poor communication) or just no space to speak. The good news? These are things you can fix. Leadership today is less about charisma and more about creating the conditions where people can thrive and shine.

🧠 The Science Behind the Simplicity

Yes, there is a significant amount of research into poorly engaged employees and the associated costs to industry. The disengagement costs to the UK hospitality industry, which run into the tens, if not hundreds, of millions, are not inevitable.

There is also a wealth of information and advice on how to motivate disengaged staff; in fact, it is an industry in itself, closely linked to the benefits and rewards sector. The thing is, whilst benefits and rewards are nice to have, what employees need is for obstacles to be removed. This means that leaders and managers have to change their behaviour towards the employees that they are responsible for. The need to learn how to build relationship and to see and listen to their teams.

Creating conditions that enable employees to participate and contribute their best enhances the guest experience, which in turn increases average guest spend, performance, and profitability.

🏨 Why This Matters Most in Hospitality

Hospitality runs on people. AI can help with bookings, but it can’t smile, be intuitive or show character or personality. The Art of Hospitality comes from the heart, and the Business of Hospitality comes from the head. The guest experience is 100% reliant on the interactions that guests have with people. The decor, facilities, and food are all important, and yet the one ingredient that brings everything together for the guest is the way the employees treat them.

The employees are the heart of hospitality and the source of the art of hospitality. They see, hear, and sense everything.

As one GM put it:
“If employees feel part of something exciting, they’ll want to be involved.”
Ben Young, The Alverton

Another added:
“The people who are probably doing it right realise that you can learn from everyone. The team has the heartbeat of the hotel running through them.”
Veryan Palmer, The Headland Hotel

Three Things Successful Business Leaders Can Do

To retain, engage and inspire their employees.

Many small business owners and managers buy into the myth that BIG company solutions don’t work in small companies. The truth is that BIG company ideas adapted for small businesses are even more effective than the original ideas in BIG companies.

WHY?

The simple truth is that small businesses are more agile, adaptable, and flexible and can act quickly. Do not think of these ideas as BIG business ideas; they apply to all businesses and are even more effective there, and are even more potent in small businesses if the leaders and managers can learn how to apply them. This is discussed in length in the book The Power of Clean Leadership.

Appreciate, Acknowledge, Feedback

Successful leaders know the value of appreciation. They recognise  the participation and contribution of others and celebrate it, they give fare and fact based feedback to improve performance. They understand appreciation.