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The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance Review

Marshall Goldsmith wrote a book in which he asserts "What got you here won't get you there." In this book, written with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy, Tony Schwartz takes that insight a step further, asserting "What got you here won't keep you here, much less get you there." He insists, and I wholeheartedly agree, that with very few exceptions - such as the companies that are annually ranked the most admired, the best to work for, etc. - most companies have a workplace that is dysfunctional and perhaps even toxic. He cites the results of a recent global workforce study by Towers Perrin (90,000 employees in 18 countries in 2007-2008) that are comparable with the results of recent research by the Gallup Organization: on average, less than 20% of a workforce are actively and productively engaged, about 40% are capable but not fully committed, and a similar percentage are disenchanted or actively disengaged.

In his earlier book, The Power of Full Engagement co-authored with Jim Loehr, Schwartz offers a number of sensible recommendations that will help to increase the number of actively and productively engaged workers in a given organization. Perhaps his most important insight is that energy must be managed effectively. As have Malcolm Gladwell, Geoff Colvin, Daniel Coyle, and Matthew Syed in their books, Schwartz cites research conducted by Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University to explain the relationship between natural talent and superior performance. "Great performers, Ericsson's study suggests, work more intensely than most of us do but also recover more deeply. Solo practice undertaken with high concentration is especially exhausting, The best violinists figured out, intuitively, that they generated the highest value by working intensely, without interruption, for no more than ninety minutes and no more than 4 hours a day."

This revelation has profound implications for increasing productivity wherever people are involved (e.g. workplace, schools, colleges, universities). Schwartz suggests that there are four categories of energy needs that must be accommodated for people to work at their best: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Only by fulfilling these generic needs can we fulfill corresponding needs: sustainability, security, self-expression, and significance. The illustration of all this on Page 9 bears at least some resemblance to Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs."

The challenge for work supervisors as well as for those for whom they are responsible to (1) recognize and understand various multidimensional needs; (2) respond effectively to those needs with prudent but sufficient expenditure of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy; (3) remain acutely aware of the impact and consequences of what they say and do; (4) think inclusively while respecting differences; (5) avoid or overcome what James O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom"; (6) rest to re-energize ("sleep or die"); (7) sustain commitment to regular exercise and proper nutrition; (8) create a environment that is "energy efficient" is terms of its workers' physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health; (9) provide leadership to ensure the energy efficiency of that environment; and (10) define a set of shared values and a purpose beyond profitability that unites everyone involved.

Re this last point, that is precisely what Dave and Wendy Ulrich so eloquently recommend in The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win as does Simon Sinek in Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Those who are thinking about reading this book need to keep in mind that most people prefer a "known devil" to an "unknown devil": Their fear is not really of change but of what is unfamiliar. Most change initiatives fail because initial expectations are unrealistic (with all due respect to what Jim Collins calls "BHAGs" or Big Hairy Audacious Goals), ultimate benefits are over-sold, and those who will be most affected by the changes have little (if anything) to say about what will be changed and by what process.

Of course, Tony Schwartz is well aware of all this and wrote a book, this one, in which he offers a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective/energy-efficient program in which almost everyone within a given enterprise will become and then remain actively and productively engaged. They will demonstrate what Lao-Tzu suggests in my favorite passage from his Tao Te Ching:

"Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves."

The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance Feature

ISBN13: 9781439127667
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The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance Overview

The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working is one of those rare books with the power to profoundly transform the way we work and live.

Demand is exceeding our capacity. The ethic of "more, bigger, faster" exacts a series of silent but pernicious costs at work, undermining our energy, focus, creativity, and passion. Nearly 75 percent of employees around the world feel disengaged at work every day. The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working offers a groundbreaking approach to reenergizing our lives so we’re both more satisfied and more productive—on the job and off.

By integrating multidisciplinary findings from the science of high performance, Tony Schwartz, coauthor of the #1 bestselling The Power of Full Engagement, makes a persuasive case that we’re neglecting the four core needs that energize great performance: sustainability (physical); security (emotional); self-expression (mental); and significance (spiritual). Rather than running like computers at high speeds for long periods, we’re at our best when we pulse rhythmically between expending and regularly renewing energy across each of our four needs.

Organizations undermine sustainable high performance by forever seeking to get more out of their people. Instead they should seek systematically to meet their four core needs so they’re freed, fueled, and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

Drawing on extensive work with an extra-ordinary range of organizations, among them Google, Ford, Sony, Ernst & Young, Shell, IBM, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Cleveland Clinic, Schwartz creates a road map for a new way of working. At the individual level, he explains how we can build specific rituals into our daily schedules to balance intense effort with regular renewal; offset emotionally draining experiences with practices that fuel resilience; move between a narrow focus on urgent demands and more strategic, creative thinking; and balance a short-term focus on immediate results with a values-driven commitment to serving the greater good. At the organizational level, he outlines new policies, practices, and cultural messages that Schwartz’s client companies have adopted.

The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working offers individuals, leaders, and organizations a highly practical, proven set of strategies to better manage the relentlessly rising demands we all face in an increasingly complex world.

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Customer Reviews

Not Only A Better Way of Working, but of Living - Lisa Lahey, Author of Immunity to Change -
What I love about this book is that the authors have offered us a multi-dimensional picture of how to intentionally live our lives so that we can be more fulfilled. They provide the big picture--why we desperately need to find new ways of working if we are to be more productive and satisfied; the inspiration and existence proof that it can be done (via the many rich individual and organizational cases); elegantly simple visuals (quadrants) that summarize key concepts for each of the four human energy needs; research to support their claims; and recommended action steps towards how to change. The book is engaging and easy to read, and happily, not at the expense of acknowledging the real complexity of change.

Top 3 - Kevin W. Clark - Euharlee, ga United States
Just finished this book and I will be putting it in my top three management books to keep on any managers or supervisors shelf.

I didn't know what to expect by this book and I sure didn't expect what I got. The author show you how a human has more than one aspect to influence their performance. We are all emotional, spiritual, physical and mental beings. And while they all seem to influence us in different ways they all must work together. They all all influence each other and therefore influence how we do our job and live our life.

This is a must read for not just managers but anyone.

What if Employees Were People Too? - Karl Edwards - Los Angeles
American managers are in denial about the fact that their teams are comprised of human beings.

Content with a data-defying strategy of squeezing as much work as possible out of their teams for as little compensation as possible, these self-congratulating fools close their eyes to the facts and resort to childish name-calling (e.g. "soft") to anyone who dares suggest that human physiology and psychology are important factors in workplace productivity.

What if there were facts, though, about how people work that could multiply your productivity with only incremental additional costs?

I'm excited to come across a kindred spirit in Tony Schwartz in his new book, "The Way We're Working Isn't Working."

I've long advocated that people are an amazing, if complex, asset into which we should invest not a faceless, annoying expense that we should minimize.

Schwartz provides invaluable insights into how the human beings function and provides the practical means to transform these insights into a more energetic, renewing, and yes, productive workplace.

Specifically he looks at human physiology, emotions, our minds, and our spirituality. Far from hyping the latest feel-good fad, Schwartz methodically supports his case with data. If you look at the facts, certain things are true about what makes people thrive, commit, care, and work hard. On the downside, certain factors cause people to wear down, avoid risk, blame others and otherwise distance themselves from their work.

Far from being "soft," it is those leaders who have the courage, honesty and wisdom to face what I describe as "the hard facts about working with people" who have the mettle it takes to face the complex issues facing business going forward.

Gone are the days where people can be reduced to inter-changeable commodities to be discarded at the first sign of trouble.

Tony Schwartz is a must-read resource for any leader hoping to work effectively with people going forward.

- Karl D. Edwards

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Thursday, August 26, 2010