After twenty years of trying to get it right, precious few organizations have cracked the code of employee engagement. Why? Because few could have anticipated the unbending nature of what Brady G. Wilson calls "the engagement paradox": the more companies focus on engagement, the more disengagement they produce.
What causes this paradox?
As shown in this clear, concise, and compelling book, it is simply this: managing engagement turns out to be just another drain on the most precious resource in business today - energy. In today's exhaustion era, employees are simply struggling to make it to the weekend. Lacking energy, they resort to quick fixes, workarounds, and reactive firefighting, thereby hardwiring depletion into the system.
As a result, employees come to perceive engagement efforts as a management con game. A high percentage of the employee population believe no meaningful outcomes will occur as a result of the engagement survey. And this crisis of belief causes acute pain inside well-intentioned leaders who are doing their best to unlock employee engagement. They feel caught.
Now Beyond Engagement shows how to get beyond this kind of self-defeating engagement: by managing energy rather than engagement. The book offers a chapter each to ten leadership principles based on the findings of brain science:
1 Manage Energy, Not Engagement
2 Deliver Experiences, Not Promises
3 Target Emotion, Not Logic
4 Trust Conversations, Not Surveys
5 Seek Tension, Not Harmony
6 Practice Partnering, Not Parenting
7 Pull Out the Backstory, Not the Action Plan
8 Think Sticks, Not Carrots
9 Meet Needs, Not Scores
10 Challenge Beliefs, Not Emotions
Industry Reviews
"Beyond Engagement hits the nail on the head - today's employees are pushed to their limits. Infuse yourself and your staff with new energy and you will be amazed at the engagement and innovation that result." -MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Triggers
"Brady is an original. He advises us to 'manage energy not engagement,' to 'target emotion,' and to 'seek tension.' Bold, thoughtful, practical, and original insights with a strong foundation in cognitive science. Brady has Passion Capital! Read the book and take heart! The world of engagement is about to shift on its axis." -PAUL ALOFS, President and CEO, The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation, and author of the national bestseller Passion Capital: The World's Most Valuable Asset
"Beyond Engagement is a must read! Brady has unlocked the science to energize your employees on a personal level that will ultimately drive business results."-KELLY HARPER, Director, Customer Experience Learning, BMO Financial Group
"Beyond Engagement is inspiring and transformational in the world of engagement. The focus on energy translates into outcomes of increased business performance and energized employees." -SANDY RAM, Human Resources, The Co-operators
"Brady gets to the heart of the matter - why engagement is important and why so many companies fail at creating a culture that allows for employees to truly engage. He emphasizes targeting emotion and the remarkable results that come from humanizing the workplace." -ALEXANDRA DOUSMANIS-CURTIS, Group Head, U.S. Retail and Business Banking, BMO Harris Bank
"This positive, practical book shows you how to unlock the powerful energies in your people that cause them to perform at exceptional levels." -BRIAN TRACY, author of How the Best Leaders Lead
