I had a realization I wanted to share with you.

When I first created Clear Workspace, Open Mind—which is over five hours of video that systematically leads you to become powerfully organized and productive—the purpose was to help people make time to do more important things.

I accidentally discovered another function, perhaps its higher service, and the principle can help you manage better. It’s very simple.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how disengaged employees hide from themselves and others. We imagine them to be actively disruptive, insubordinate troublemakers, but this is like assuming there are no sharks nearby as long as you don’t hear scary music while swimming: in real life, it doesn’t work that way.

In real life, actively disengaged people mostly appear to be as engaged as everyone else. They seem upbeat, energized, and present. So my clients ask me, “If disengaged employees hide, how do I find them?”

It takes skill, and it’s the kind of thing we talk about in the Clear and Open Community. But here’s one I just discovered. What I’ve noticed is that when a manager gives the Clear Workspace course to one of their employees, the employee tells us a great deal about their level of engagement by how they relate to the course. As is said in coaching often, “How you do anything is how you do everything.”

Think about this. An employer gives their people a course at no cost to the employee that helps them eliminate overwhelm and become highly productive everywhere in their life, for the rest of their life.

An engaged employee would be grateful and excited, right?

A clever, disengaged employee would pretend to be.

But here’s the thing: they can only fake it for so long. Because the course invites people to make uncomfortable changes in their work habits, only someone who truly values excellence makes those changes.

Actions speak louder than words. That’s how you find disengagement. You give them food that only engagement eats, and see what they do with it. You listen to the actions.

Disengagement is then as easy as looking at their desk or their inboxes, if you decide as an organization that you simply do not do clutter anymore.

But there’s a price to pay, of course. If you don’t get organized yourself, you won’t have the eyes to see subtle chronic overwhelm in others and you continue to be fooled.

In other words, how engaged are you?

The realization for me is that actually all of the curricula of Clear and Open serves this purpose, because its fundamental teaching has always been about engagement. In other words, I create my courses in such a way that they can’t be done in a disengaged way. Unlike so much of mainstream and business education, Clear and Open actually challenges people to show up and change for the better.

If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

Here comes the real test. Are you ready to try it out with your employees? Take a look at the first lesson in Clear Workspace, Open Mind completely FREE right now.