Follow This Path

The Gallup organization applies its poll-taking skills to the human capital revolution by researching the workplace qualities that create engaged, productive workers. They found that workers hired for the right job, trained by personally committed managers, and encouraged to use their hearts can offer tremendous returns on a company's investment in them. The data they summarize is stunning, often depressing in terms of what most organizations are like, and explained with clarity and skill. Hearing about the obstructive, demoralizing practices of many companies today, listeners will wonder how these organizations survive, let alone succeed. A well-grounded lesson on the importance of emotional honesty and respectful relationships. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

October 1, 2002
Rejecting conventional "rational actor" theories, this dense volume of management theory argues that emotions deeply impact economics. Customer loyalty comes from a non-rational, even addictive "passion" (such that customers "can actually suffer from withdrawal" if "deprived of a specific brand") based on personal "emotional bonds" to a company's employees. Workers, in turn, must feel emotionally connected to managers who value their contributions and give talent its head. The authors, management consultants for the Gallup Organization, deploy a complicated theoretical apparatus-drawing on cognitive neuroscience and elaborate statistical analyses of mountains of survey data-to prove that companies profit when workers and customers feel appreciated and listened to. This is a welcome message, enlivened by anecdotes illustrating good employee relations, salesmanship and customer service, but in extolling "a management style that doesn't try to 'tell people what to do,'" the author's disparagement of training and organization in favor of "innate talent" and "emotional engagement" sometimes seems excessive. Worse, the passages celebrating "The Gallup Path" and the Gallup Organization's proprietary methodologies for assessing "talent themes" and emotional states read like excerpts from a brochure for the company's consulting services.

October 1, 2002
Rejecting conventional "rational actor" theories, this dense volume of management theory argues that emotions deeply impact economics. Customer loyalty comes from a non-rational, even addictive "passion" (such that customers "can actually suffer from withdrawal" if "deprived of a specific brand") based on personal "emotional bonds" to a company's employees. Workers, in turn, must feel emotionally connected to managers who value their contributions and give talent its head. The authors, management consultants for the Gallup Organization, deploy a complicated theoretical apparatus-drawing on cognitive neuroscience and elaborate statistical analyses of mountains of survey data-to prove that companies profit when workers and customers feel appreciated and listened to. This is a welcome message, enlivened by anecdotes illustrating good employee relations, salesmanship and customer service, but in extolling "a management style that doesn't try to 'tell people what to do,'" the author's disparagement of training and organization in favor of "innate talent" and "emotional engagement" sometimes seems excessive. Worse, the passages celebrating "The Gallup Path" and the Gallup Organization's proprietary methodologies for assessing "talent themes" and emotional states read like excerpts from a brochure for the company's consulting services.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.