NSF wrote; [QUOTE]we were entering a new period of engagement with our managers [QUOTE]
Interesting what the dictionary has to say about the word...
Engage
Make over as a pledge, pawn, mortgage. Put at risk, compromise. Bind by legal or moral obligation. Urge, persuade, induce. Secure for one's own use. Enter into. Insert into. Attract and hold fast. Fasten, attach.
With reference to combat; Enter in to combat, bring to battle, (of combatants), bring together preparatory to fighting.
It can be very instructive to examine the real meanings of those unusual/misplaced words so widely scattered into management wankspeak, they expect you to be wowed and impressed with their cleverness in using words that hitherto had never been used in that context, and hope to demonstrate their intellectual superiority by bamboozling you by it's use. They are always careful imply, but never confirm the word's "new" out of context meaning, and it is of course seldom what you thought it would be.
I have long deplored the use of "engage" in this context as having an implied meaning of "cosying up to to" or similar, when as you can see it really means "insert into", "enter" and "engage in battle". All thoroughly well understood principle of certain companies' "managements".
None of the other definitions given here are particularly positive either.
Listen to what they actually mean, not what you thought they said!
Management wankspeak is nothing more or less than verbal fraud.
Again, a well known technigue.
Personally I don't want to be "entered into" any further by management, thank you. My eyes are watering enough as it is.