Peak Performance: Aligning the Hearts and Minds of Your Employees

There was a time, not too long ago, when employees were encouraged to check their emotions at the corporate door. The workplace was considered a strictly professional environment, in which personal emotions had no place. Management theorists finally woke up to the realization that this practice didn't, in the long run, actually benefit the company. In Peak Performance, Jon Katzenbach expands on this realization. He asserts that today's companies will get the best work from their employees and beat the competition only when they actively seek out, cultivate, and sustain the energy generated by their employees' emotional commitment to work.

Though many companies pay lip service to the notion of employee fulfillment, most do not actually focus critical attention on this vital component of corporate success. Those that do, Katzenbach contends, consistently attain higher levels of workforce performance than their competitors. While these companies share some characteristics in their employee management ideals, they do not follow identical methods of achieving and sustaining the emotional commitment of their employees. In the course of conducting extensive research into the high-performing workforces of more than 20 companies, Katzenbach has identified five distinct paths that, he believes, achieve a balance between enterprise performance and employee fulfillment: Mission, Values, and Pride; Process and Metrics; Entrepreneurial Spirit; Individual Achievement; and Recognition and Celebration.

To define the leadership philosophy and illustrate the defining characteristics of each path, Katzenbach uses case studies and extensive interviews with the employees of such enterprises as The Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, the U.S. Marine Corps, Avon, the Silicon Valley underwriter Hambrecht & Quist, McKinsey & Co., and Marriott International. He explores the different ways of aligning the workforce energy that is generated and demonstrates the necessity of enforcing disciplined behavior. The result is a book of evidence for company leaders interested in getting the best and the most from their workforce; it is not an altruistic plug in support of the happy worker but rather a pragmatic exposition of the best conditions for achieving peak performance. --S. Ketchum