The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities [Hardcover]

Jim Haudan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0071544852 | ISBN-13: 978-0071544856 | Edition: 1

"Haudan's approach helps organizations bring strategies to life by engaging the hearts and minds of their people.”
-Marcus Buckingham, bestselling author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work

Almost any business leader will admit that creating a strategy is far easier than executing it. That's because the majority of organizations don't know how to bridge the canyons that exist between executives, managers, and front-line employees. Most strategic initiatives fail when a company tries to execute strategy despite its people rather than through them.

As CEO of consultancy Root Learning, Jim Haudan has more than twenty years experience helping businesses bridge these canyons and achieve their strategic goals. Here, he shares his secrets for driving this strategic execution. Refreshingly accessible, this important book presents executives, managers, and team leaders with a proven, effective way to communicate, empower, and motivate employees at every level of an organization.

Through stories, illustrations, and insightful observations Haudan explores the concept of engagement in business--from the “roots of engagement” to the six reasons why so many workers rank themselves as disengaged to the keys to unlocking engagement in any organization. He also includes a framework for implementing the process of strategically engaging employees as well as a self-assessment for checking your own company's level of strategic engagement.

The Art of Engagement equips you with a range of tools--sketches, illustrations, and highly visual “learning maps”--to help employees speak the same language, see from the same point of view, and connect their individual actions to the success of the whole company. Included are:

• Engaging visual learning tools designed to help you communicate more effectively with your workforce
• Proven methods for successfully engaging employees at every level of an organization
• Real-world case studies of such organizations as Harley-Davidson, Pepsi Cola, and Blockbuster

A strategy may look perfect on paper, but it's worthless if leaders forget that human beings have to implement it. The Art of Engagement arms you with the knowledge and the know-how to engage your employees and drive effective strategic execution.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

“We're using the insights in The Art of Engagement to redesign every element of our training systems. We've eliminated the manuals and PowerPoints, and we are building everything around visual images that stimulate dialogue and drive action.”
-Tom Davin, CEO, Panda Restaurant Group, Inc.

“Root Learning's Strategic Engagement Process has proved invaluable in ensuring that our executives, managers, and frontline employees all know and understand how their efforts directly connect with our strategic plan.”
-Rich Meelia, President and CEO, Covidien

“This book represents a career full of learning that Jim and his colleagues have acquired through years of helping organizations link 'boardroom' strategy to front-line execution."
-Connie Colao, Chief People Officer, Taco Bell

“Dialogue is the oxygen of change. The principles in The Art of Engagement have been vital in assisting Textron to change our conversations-which ultimately changed our results.”
-Lewis Campbell, CEO, Textron

“Haudan's ideas have helped us find new and compelling ways to engage every single employee at Harley-Davidson. These insights were a important contributor to the Partnership Philosophy--a philosophy that was pivotal to our success.”
-Rich Teerlink, Former Chairman and CEO, Harley-Davidson

“Jim Haudan and the team at Root Learning have been instrumental in helping our brand grow through employee engagement. This has strongly contributed to creating a common vision and strong ownership of our Hampton brand.”
-Gina Valenti, Senior Director, Hilton Hotels Corporation

About the Author

Jim Haudan Jim Haudan is CEO and co-founder of Root Learning, an international management consultancy. He and his colleagues have helped hundreds of companies worldwide to engage their employees in the execution of strategy through the use of dialogue and visualization.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (July 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071544852
• ISBN-13: 978-0071544856
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A How-To Book for Human Capital, August 30, 2008

By 

Jon P. Tveten (Redlands, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities (Hardcover)

Human capital is a concept that has been evolving to explain a major portion of the intangibles underlying market valuation of a company. Jim Haudan is providing the key to leveraging human capital. Investment of financial capital is routinely justified by monitoring the return on investment. Investment of scarce resources in human capital can deliver outsized returns, as Haudan clearly illustrates.

There is a difference in performance between a company whose employees routinely deliver discretionary effort and a company whose employees are marking time until the end of the work day, work week, or retirement. The contrasting depiction of engagement and disengagement in this book shows the path to energizing employees, who then deliver results.

The Art of Engagement offers an abundance of wisdom in how any organization can benefit from the hearts and minds of its membership. These incredible resources are all too often wasted, but the chances of that will be far less for those business leaders who embrace Haudan's lessons of engagement.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Field Guide to Strategy Execution, August 25, 2008

By 

Arden Brion (Sylvania, OH United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities (Hardcover)

For executives searching for innovative ways to execute strategy effectively, Jim Haudan's "The Art of Engagement" is an excellent field guide for that journey. Many will want to keep it as a deskbook, especially for those dark days when strategy stalls, or never gets off the ground.

Haudan offers a refreshingly practical approach to executing strategy by engaging people to think and act much differently about strategy. It is about how to use strategic conversations and visualization of systems to accelerate strategy execution through people. Haudan's company, Root Learning, connects diverse group of people to complex messages through creative engagement methodologies that generate ownership of those messages. In short, Root Learning helps people "get" strategy and want to particpate in implementing it.

Loaded with innovative ideas and lessons learned from Haudan's 20 years of helping executives in some of the world's largest companies bring their strategies to life, the book also offers readers an opportunity to test some of Haudan's proven methods through free downloads of strategic learning applications discussed in the book.

Here is a caveat: Don't buy this book if you think you can execute strategy despite your people, and not through them. Quite frankly, it will waste your time.

But if you want to learn about proven methods to engage the hearts and minds of your leaders, managers and front line to execute a shared mental model of strategy, then grab a bunch of copies for your team and test the concepts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taping into The Human Spirit, August 27, 2008

By 

Bill Achenbach - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art of Engagement: Bridging the Gap Between People and Possibilities (Hardcover)

One of the most daunting accomplishments to which any one organization can aspire is breaking the code on how to create an environment where employees enthusiastically not only pour their minds and bodies into their work but also their heart and spirit as well.

Providing employees the opportunity to understand and influence their work and how they contribute to achieving the overall mission of the organization is highest form of recognition any company can give.

The Art of Engagement provides a terrific framework to begin thinking and acting on those participative management practices that if done well can elevate an organization to a whole new level of performance.

I recommend Jim Hauden's book to any entity who truly believes the people within their organization deserve the opportunity to understand and feel inspired about their job and the organization for which they work.