Beyond Engagement

Beyond Engagement is a quick read with talking points and case studies at the end of each chapter. The book has a few philosophical concepts to get to workers to go beyond surface transactions, yet I get the sense the style would actually yield more transactional leadership vs. transformational or situational leadership interactions.

This book speaks of understanding the difference between rational engagement and emotional engagement (buy-in) and the need to get to the feels to truly inspire and persevere. As far as team building and managing change, an emotional bond to loyalty is definitely helpful when navigating new situations. By asking “what” drives the employee and having real discussions vs. canned surveys which tend to be a waste of time (I agree), managers can glean more honest information. Where I don’t view this book as mind-blowing, it is a suitable, supplemental book in the pursuit of learning about leadership.

3.5 of 5 Stars - ARC provided.

From the Publisher:

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

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