Page 6 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

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B FOREWORD

he authors paint a bleak picture that is all too familiar. Yet, their
solutions to the disengaged workforce go beyond the simplistic
T panaceas offered by so many who have not done their homework.
If you thoroughly read what Leigh and Mark offer—rather than scan
it, looking for a quick fix—you will come to realize that engagement
is not a program, a survey, a software package, or, worst of all, a mo-
tivational speech. True sustainable engagement is a function of an
organization’s culture, which is the result of leadership’s vision and
behavior.
A culture of engagement prevails through the worst of tragedies. It
is a way of life, a family of values that does not waver. The problem for
most companies is that their cultures, perhaps workable in good times,
cannot carry the load or resist the forces that cataclysms bring. Time
and again, between the lines as well as explicitly, the authors show the
research that lays out the true path to sustainable engagement.
Leadership that spawns and supports a naturally engaging culture;
culture that is the bedrock for policy; policy that leads system design;
systems that run engaging processes—all leading to individual objec-
tives based on an understanding of the whole. This is the formula for
engagement that the authors are describing.

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