Customer Reviews

Engagement Is Not Enough

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This book is about building passionate teams. The author states that we all want the same type of people on our teams - motivated, engaged self-starters. Too often, though, managers create environments that drive these types of people away. The coercive, control-based leadership style simply does not work.

Keith describes the ingredients, tools, and skills required to create an environment that is conducive to self-directed behavior - like developing people skills that build trust, understanding behavior styles, and becoming more self-aware. He then explains what is necessary to ratchet it up to the next level - to become a purpose centered organization versus an activity based one. Finally he provides an 8 step process for building a high performance team.

Keith is honest and straightforward, providing many valuable examples and models to explain his approach. This book will teach you how to be a better leader. You will also learn a little more about yourself in the process.

Nick McCormick - Author, Lead Well and Prosper

Employee engagement has recently received a great deal of attention, in part because of research studies (notably those of The Gallup Organization) suggesting that, on average, about 30% of employees have a positive attitude and are productive, about 55% are only going through the motions, and the remaining 15% take everything they can get while undermining the best interests of their organization. Consider the economic consequences: As Keith Ayers suggests in the Introduction to this book, "In organizations with only average levels of engagement, between 30 and 50 percent of their payroll is going down the drain." Worse yet, these toxic employees - with cunning and stealth - are disengaged with their organization's objectives but actively engaged in reducing their associates' productivity, weakening morale, causing delays of various kinds, and whenever possible, alienating customers.

In this context, I presume to suggest that these separate but related questions should be addressed:

1. Were these employees mis-hires from the beginning?

2. If so, why did we hire them? What are we doing to prevent hiring others who would also have attitude and/or behavioral problems in our company?

3. Or, were their attitude and behavior initially satisfactory and they became disengaged later?

4. If so, why? What could our company have done - and not done - to prevent that disengagement?

Ayers wrote this book to share what he has learned about getting as many employees as possible to be actively and positively, indeed passionately engaged. He offers no head-snapping revelations, nor does he claim to. Rather, and I do not damn with faint praise here, the program he presents is quite basic as well as comprehensive and cohesive. He guides his reader through a step-by-step process, with his initial focus on leadership. "The Passion Pyramid" is one of his core concepts. It illustrates an ascending order of employee needs, beginning with "Need for Respect" at the baseline and concluding with "Need to Be on a Winning Team" at the summit. (Apparently, Ayers is familiar with the works of Abraham Maslow and his "Hierarchy of Needs" although there are no references to them, nor an Index.) Ayers identifies "Four Steps to Success" and introduces what are identified as the "Whole Person Concept," the "Personal Responsibility Model," the "Responsibility-Based Culture Model," the "Give-Get Cycle," the "DiSC® Behavioral Model," "Values That Build Trust(tm)," the "Giving Feedback Model," the "Receiving Feedback Model," the "Team Dimensions Profile," and other such devices by which to consolidate and highlight key points. Personally, I think Ayers over-does it. What he frequently identifies as a "model" I view as a phase or stage of a sequence or process. One man's opinion.

The title of the book suggests that "engagement" alone is insufficient. The objective, obviously, is to what everything possible to hire and then support people who will immediately become and then continue to be actively, productively involved in helping (and helping everyone with whom they are associated) to achieve their company's objectives. The institutional development of this engagement, Ayers suggests, is a four-step process that consists of knowledge of what must be done, an awareness of how best to do it, and acceptance of the prevailing terms and conditions of engagement (e.g. policies, procedures, channels of authority and communication,), and meanwhile maintaining a positive attitude with appropriate behavior.

One final point: Presumably Ayers agrees with me that leadership is needed at all levels and in all areas of an organization. Therefore, the leadership development initiatives he proposes should include everyone, not only C-level executives and others with supervisory responsibilities. When interviewing candidates for a position, therefore, the extent to which each of them not only can but will be or become a leader should be a major consideration.

Cruise control is not the way to go through the world of business. "Engagement Is Not Enough: You Need Passionate Employees to Achieve Your Dream" is a guide focusing on motivating one's employees to work for one's desire with enthusiasm, instead of just coasting toward an easy paycheck. Advising employers to give their employees what they need to feel respected, feel like part of a team, love their job, and do what they can to improve the company because they care as much as the owner. "Engagement is Not Enough" is solid reading about the value of being motivated for one's job.

This truly is an outstanding book. I must admit for the first section, it took me a while to get into it, almost to the point of discontinuing it. Much of the first section dwells on how having employees that are not engaged are not good for a company -- duh!

It cited many statistical studies of how few employees are engaged and the damage it does for a company. Scary stuff.

In todays' turbulent times, employees are likely to be more engaged. They fear for their companies and know they need to go the extra mile. Fear is a very strong motivator. This is also a great time for companies to Topgrade - replace B players with A players (and usually the difference is just engagement between A and B players). And there will be a lot of very good people who need jobs because many larger companies reduce headcount based on only one dimension of what the person does or how they are. They lose the other golden attributes of their people.

The book calls heavily on some existing psychological theories like DiSC and different personality types.

It was not until Chapter 7 -- "Values -- The Missing Link" that I became truly inspired. I know for my own motivation if my values are aligned with my goals, I am unstoppable, so it should come at no surprise that the same is true of organizations. If people work for a company whose values are aligned with their own then clearly they will be highly engaged and unstoppable.

I am adding this to my list of "Must Read Books" for any business person.

This book gives a good model of what environment employees need to feel engaged in their work. Excellent reading on personal responsibility, building trust, etc. If you get the opportunity, the author, Keith Ayers, is also an engaging speaker.

Ayer's book is packed full of great models and tools to ignite the passion on any team. It challenges conventional wisdom that provides excuses for leaders who often look elsewhere for the causes of their challenges- rather than within. It sites research and paints powerful illustrations to help managers see the truth and basis for the tools and approaches recommended in this work.

It's loaded with practical take-aways such as the positioning `work to be done' as a "purpose" rather then a "task" and illustrates the impact these changes have with real-life stories. The book is honest regarding the time involved in transforming a culture to deliver a passionate and engaged team, but offers a solid glimpse at what it will take to get you there.

Susan Stamm, Author, 42 Rules of Employee Engagement