David A Coleman - The Path to Engagement: Enjoy more growth, Happiness and success

About the book

One of the most brilliantly insightful and useful books on leadership I have

ever read. This should be essential reading for anyone wanting to get the

most from themselves and their teams.

Stephen D Mayers, Inventor of First Direct

This is so much more than a business book. This is about maintaining

brilliant relationships, bringing out the very best in people and creating the

conditions for great success.

Scanes Bentley, Executive Chairman,

Norman Broadbent Group

I read David's book at a critical time in my life, when my ex-wife had just

died. I wanted to support my four teenage sons through this deeply

upsetting period. It helped me just when I most needed it. It has been

transformative. I found that its wisdom is applicable to all of life's

challenges, not just organisational leadership. I strongly urge you to read it.

Tony Ingleby, Leadership Coach and Dad

The Path to Engagement is an incredibly powerful step by step guide for people who want to create far greater passion, energy and optimism, in themselves and their teams. Have you noticed how some people can stay motivated, positive and happy for long periods of time, whilst others slip into cynicism, boredom, moods or moaning. It is well known that highly engaged individuals and teams dramatically out-perform their counterparts when it comes to profits, growth, innovation and customer satisfaction.

• Would you like to help people acquire a compelling sense of purpose and positivity?
• Would you like to know how to re-energize people that have become negative, bored or pessimistic?
• Are you interested in finding out how to release more of your own natural happiness and potential?

The Path of Engagement is about refining your gift for leadership and bringing out the very best in your self others.

About the author

David Coleman is an acknowledged expert in performance improvement, with 30 years experience, both as a director and an advisor to well-known international brands.

He has built a reputation for his thought leadership on staff engagement and his unusual ability to draw out the latent potential within teams and individuals alike. He is best known for building exceptionally high-performing teams and making sure everyone enjoys the journey, especially when the going gets tough.

The Path to

Engagement

David A Coleman

Good Habits Limited

Copyright 2016 by David A. Coleman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means

without the prior written permission by the publisher.

Acknowledgements

Id like to thank Ian Woody Woodhouse, who helped co-create some of the key ideas in this book. Our friendship has been a truly creative gift.

Id also like to thank my friends Tony Ingleby, Chilli Charlie and Catherine Llewelyn, who spent many long hours correcting my language and providing input on structure and readability. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Finally Id like to acknowledge that the spelling in this book is designed for an international readership. British readers will be horrified to see a z where s should be. Likewise, our US friends will see us in words like colour, where they shouldnt. I suggest we all see this as an exercise in accommodation and inclusion.

For my wife Sylvie

Contents

Big me, little me

I have always been aware that I can be two different people.

Theres the me when Im really firing on all 8 cylinders; I feel bright, open, naturally happy and making things happen seems effortless and fun. Theres also the me that occasionally runs on one or two cylinders; I can become distracted, defensive, disillusioned, suspicious and sometimes the very master of procrastination or cynicism. I see this in other people as well, the signs are quite obvious. You must have seen this too.

Some people seem to hang on to their positive, happy, optimistic side for long periods of time. My mum seems to have done this for most of her life, quite an amazing feat. Other people seem to spend unhealthy amounts of time lingering in a less joyful place, only occasionally coming up for air.

From my own experience, most of us seem to spend the majority of our time swinging between the two, with the odd visit to each of the extremities. Certainly in my business life, I see this happening everywhere I look. Some teams seem able to joyfully match any challenge thats thrown at them, whilst others seem to specialize in boredom, complaining or moaning. Ive spent considerable time in both types of team. Its like two different worlds.

Ive also witnessed some managers become really good leaders and forge great depths of loyalty and commitment, where others seem to build a deadening conformity, create unnecessary frustration or even inspire passive rebellion. Im sure weve all seen supposedly difficult people suddenly come to life under a new manager and conversely, have seen top performers lose it or fade away.

What makes people change like that? What makes a team fly or wallow in the mud? Why do I and other people feel engaged in one situation and turned off in another?

The purpose of this book is to provide a clear explanation as to what causes this and perhaps more importantly, what you can practically do to create far greater engagement.

If Im honest, I like to think of myself as a reasonably resilient, positive and self-motivated person. However, the truth is, I am also deeply affected by the situations I find myself in and the circumstances and events that happen in my life. Positive environments and relationships rub off on me to great effect. I am invigorated, enlivened and encouraged by them. The trouble is, negative ones rub off on me too. I know they shouldnt, but they do. Id like to admit up front, Im not from the school of simply blocking out the negative and only focusing on the positive. I think to do that, you have to stop feeling anything at a certain level and I dont want to do that. In my experience, if you cut out the lows through growing a thick skin, you also cut out the highs. I dont want a thick skin. Thick skins lead to dull senses and dull minds. If anything, I want to increase my awareness and refine my senses, whilst managing difficulty more intelligently.

On the work front, Ive noticed the huge impact engagement has on a broad spectrum of important elements: performance, creativity, colleagues and customers. It can be the difference between a good or a great company, the line between failure or success or, in more human terms, loving your job or just hating it.

This book is for anyone that is interested in transforming or improving that mood or atmosphere, whether it be at a personal, team or company-wide level.

The closest word that describes what Im referring to is Engagement, the extent to which you love what you do and are fully absorbed and enthused by it.

Ive held off a bit from linking engagement to supercharged performance, at this early stage. Dont get me wrong, as we shall soon see in a couple of chapters, there is undeniable, proven evidence that improved engagement leads to dramatically improved performance, across a broad spectrum of measures.

However, if you set about trying to improve engagement, but in reality, all you are really interested in is more profit, greater innovation or higher productivity, your spells wont work.

The great wizard Merlin, of Arthurian legend, revealed a universal truth when he said to Arthur The King and the Land are one. This wisdom can be equally applied to the nature of engagement itself. You cant fake it, you've actually got to give it to receive it.

In the same way, if you pretend to have rapport with someone, they will see through it, consciously or unconsciously and keep you at arms length. Rather than refine our pretending skills, lets work on our liking skills and our ability to let people in. The door to your house opens inwards, not outwards. This is the essence to the path of engagement.