Praise for Ingaging Leadership
Having known Evan Hackel for more than 40 years, and personally observed his business acumen and personal commitment to enlightened approaches to executive leadership, I know that his thoughts on ingagement strategies ring true to his personal and professional true north. He has learned through the experience of numerous business challenges that understanding the art of human communication and organizational dynamics is absolutely key to overall business success. You may consider some of the concepts in this book absolute common sense, but you would be surprised how few people actually use them to their advantage. Dont be one of them.
Rear Admiral Bob Day , U.S. Coast Guard (retired), CIO and Cyber Commander, 20092014 and Principal at Bob Day & Associates LLC
Ingaging Leadership is a brilliant and masterfully written book. It is fantastic for any business or organization. Ingagement, attitude, and communication are the foundation stones for any organization. Ive had the privilege to learn and experience Evans leadership first hand as one of the Flooring America Dealers. The results have brought me huge success over the years. Evan is The Real McCoy and I can say that since I am a Hatfield.
Phillip Hatfield , Executive and Business Coach, Zig Ziglar Corporation
Ingaging Leadership is a timely and eminently practical book that will definitely help leaders to improve their ability to bring out the best in others. The strategies and case studies Evan Hackel shares are relevant to businesses of all shapes and sizes. I particularly gained a lot from the sections on how to improve personal communication.
Greg Nathan, author of Profitable Partnerships and Founder, Franchise Relationships Institute
A New Approach to Leading that Builds Excellence and Organizational Success
EVAN HACKEL
For Paul Hackel
I dedicate this book to my father Paul Hackel, who passed away as this book was nearing completion in June, 2015. He was an inspiring man who allowed me to begin working for his company when I was only 10, affording me the opportunity to observe, admire and learn from him as he conducted business with the utmost care and dedication. To him I owe both my success and my love and knowledge of business.
Published by Motivational Press, Inc.
1777 Aurora Road
Melbourne, Florida, 32935
www.MotivationalPress.com
Copyright 2016 by Evan Hackel
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means: graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission, in writing, from the authors, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, article, book, or academic paper. The authors and publisher of this book and the associated materials have used their best efforts in preparing this material. The authors and publisher make no representations or warranties with respect to accuracy, applicability, fitness or completeness of the contents of this material. They disclaim any warranties expressed or implied, merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The authors and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. If you have any questions or concerns, the advice of a competent professional should be sought.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-0-9846732-7-8
Table of Contents
Foreword
By Howard Brodsky,
Co-Founder, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, CCA Global Partners
Over the last 25 years, I have had the privilege to work closely with Evan Hackel. When Evan joined CCA Global Partners, we were a very small company. He was our fifth employee. Evan was very instrumental in helping the company grow to over 10 billion dollars in system-wide sales. Evan helped us expand and establish departments to manage Marketing, Training, National Programs, and Recruitment. He also helped us launch many new businesses, including ProSource Wholesale Floorcovering, Stone Mountain Outlet, Lenders One, Savvi Formalwear, Biking Solution and BizUnite.
Perhaps Evans biggest accomplishment was leading our effort to turn around the Flooring America Franchise, which we bought out of bankruptcy. At that time, Flooring America was doing about $700 million in system-wide sales. Within four years with Evan as the executive in charge, Flooring America had achieved $2 billion in annual system-wide sales. Evan could never have been that successful without being the leader he is.
It has been great to watch Evan grow as a person and as leader. Early in his career, Evan wasnt the ingaged leader he describes in this book. But over time he evolved. It has been fun and inspiring to witness first-hand the evolution of his leadership. As a leader, Evan has not taken an easy path or focused solely on the day-to-day issues of doing business. He has, in fact, committed himself to the mastery of an ingaged leadership approach that has required him to seek a deeper understanding of himself, of the people he leads, and of the organizations where he and employees ingage with one another to create both sustainable profits and growth. I think that is remarkable.
In this compact book, Evan shares not only his philosophy of leadership, but also a range of reality-based, practical solutions that support it. His advice is concise, clear, actionable, easy-to-digest, yet powerful enough to help any leader quickly reach new levels of success.
I commend Evan for writing this book, and I recommend it highly.
Introduction
What Is Ingagement?
Even before you begin to read this book, you are probably wondering about why I chose the title Ingaging Leadership rather than Engaging Leadership. If you visit a bookstore, you will find books about engagement. So why have I chosen to write a book about ingagement, not engagement? What is the difference?
T he first difference is that the word ingagement cannot be found in dictionaries. The word engagement can. If you look it up, you will find definitions like these:
A commitment to be somewhere for a designated period of time.
A formal agreement to get married.
A level of belief in a process.
Of those three definitions, the third a belief in a process comes closest to what I mean when I refer to ingagement. Yet ingagement is a bigger concept, I like to say that the I stands for I nvolvement. Ingagement is a process where you involve people to make decisions. From taking part in that process, they become both engaged and ingaged, and believe in the process.
To be clear Im not referring to a Democratic process where people vote to make decisions. Im talking more about a process of involvement in which people are able to contribute ideas so that management can make the best decision.
A true ingaged leader does not create phony engagement as a way to manipulate people into being involved. A true ingaged leader genuinely believes that better ideas and processes will develop through active involvement. Ingaged leaders are great leaders because not only do they get the people that work with them to believe and support the initiatives they create, but to create better initiatives through the involvement process.
