Second, we know that if you do happen to work on a team you are twice as likely to score high on the eight engagement items, and that this trend linking engagement to teams extends to multiple teams—in fact, the most engaged group of workers across the working world are those who work on five distinct teams.

Third, just like Lisa, those team members who said they trusted their team leader were twelve times more likely to be fully engaged at work.

Each check-in, then, is a chance to offer a tip, or an idea that can help the team member overcome a real-world obstacle, or a suggestion for how to refine a particular skill. Check-ins can be short—ten to fifteen minutes —but that’s plenty of time to do a little real-time learning and coaching. And, like all good coaching, this has to be rooted in the specifics of the particular situation the team member is facing, the psychology she is bringing to it, the strengths she possesses, and the strategies she might already have tried. Again, the only way to surface these sorts of microdetails is to make sure that the conversations are frequent.

Of those who strongly agreed that they trusted their team leader 45 percent were Fully Engaged. Of those who didn’t strongly agree only 6 percent were Fully Engaged. A worker is twelve times more likely to be Fully Engaged if she trusts her team leader.

This suggests that team members who check in with their leader frequently have an enhanced sense of being able to use their strengths every day, of being recognized for excellent work, and of having opportunities to grow. Although this study did not distinguish between correlation and causation (we could not tell whether the increased frequency of conversation led to increased engagement or vice versa), subsequent research, a portion of which is described in the final section of this appendix, indicated that it was in fact the increased attention, via frequent conversation, that led to the increased levels of engagement.

In trying to persuade your team leader to establish a check-in routine with you, here’s some data that’ll help:

• Those team leaders who check in every week drive their team members’ engagement scores up 77 percent, and their team members’ voluntary turnover in the next six months down 67 percent.

• It doesn’t matter whether the check-in happens in person, by phone, by email, or in an app. What matters is simply that it happens.

• Leaders who wind up actually having this interaction with the team member about the four questions/answers drive statistically higher levels of performance and engagement in their team members. Here, too, it doesn’t matter if the interaction is voice to voice or text to text.

• Ratings of quality don’t seem to matter: even if you and your team leader don’t have a genius coaching moment during one check-in, don’t worry about it. You’re going to check in again next week, and maybe something will strike both of you then. What matters with a check-in is that it happens frequently, not necessarily that it happens brilliantly. When it comes to leading, frequency trumps quality.