Full Engagement! Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People
Brian Tracy
AMACOM (2011)

“Why are some companies more successful and more profitable than others?”

It is at least theoretically possible for an organization to have full engagement of its workforce and that any one of those involved is always fully engaged. That said, I view full engagement as an on-going process to achieve a strategic objective rather than as a destination that, once reached, ends the process. Presumably Brian Tracy agrees. As with the outstanding business books, this one answers a very important question: “Why are some companies more successful and more profitable than others?” As is also true of most of Tracy’s other books, this one offers observations, insights, and recommendations that are research-driven, with experience including Tracy’s wide and deep associations with hundreds (thousands?) of all manner of organizations. Also, he quickly identifies the “what” of full engagement, then devotes most of his attention to the “why” and “how” of initiatives to help those who read it to “inspire, motivate, and bring out the best in [their] people.”

Note: I wholly agree that supervisors can inspire those for whom they are responsible but I concluded long ago that motivation must be self-generated.

Credit Tracy with skillful use of reader-friendly devices that consolidate and highlight key points. For example, the provision of an “Action Exercises” at the conclusion of each chapter to facilitate adoption. Also, these…all included within the first four chapters:

• Twenty-five Ideas to Create a Peak Performance/Happy Work
• Environment (Pages 12-24)
• Four Ways to Change (24-25)
• How to Build Companies That Inspire Self-Ideal (53-56)
• Three Essentials of a Peak Performance Workplace (64-66)
• Four Keys to Effective Listening (91-93)

Tracy is obviously a world-class empiricist and diehard pragmatist, almost totally obsessed with understanding what works, what doesn’t, and why…then sharing it with various audiences. His approach is informal but highly-disciplined. His role is that of a personal mentor/coach to each reader. Tracy would be the first to agree, however, that it would be a fool’s errand for any reader to attempt to accept – without scrutiny — all of his assertions, and, to attempt to adopt all of his recommendations – without modification.