The Invisible Employee
Using Carrots to See the Hidden Potential in Everyone
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
There is a crisis in business today: the invisible employee. Feeling threatened, ignored, and unappreciated, invisible employees fight back the only way they know how—by staying hidden in the corporate shadows, doing just enough to get by, grumbling about this and that, and passing these techniques along to new workers. After all, why bother shining when no one notices your achievements? Why bother trying when you could be let go in the next batch of layoffs?
A business fable packed with hard-won wisdom, The Invisible Employee follows a group of people who live and work together on a mysterious island. In this second edition—updated with new case studies and current survey results—managers learn how to combat one of the most common negative attitudes in business: that smart employees keep their heads down and never do more than is asked.
Bestselling authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton show how effective leaders change this mind-set by engaging their people in their cause—setting clear goals, encouraging productive behavior, and celebrating every success along the way. The end result is an organization of productive employees who feel noticed, valued, and appreciated. In other words, they feel visible.
In today’s competitive environment, all of us are looking for the next big product, the next big capability or solution. But great managers are finding that recognizing people leads to a more engaged workforce and a more successful business. The Invisible Employee shows you how to bring out the hidden potential in your team and your business.
Learn more about growing a Carrot Culture at carrots.com
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This book has a simple message: praising employees is the "single business strategy" that meets "all your business objectives simultaneously." Praising employees generates commitment, which leads to high-level performance, which causes customer and investor loyalty, it argues. The authors' point is illustrated through a long, tedious fable about a tribe of "Highlanders" who are showered with gems by a tribe of "Wurc-Urs," until, that is, the Wurc-Urs start to disappear because they're so frustrated by the lack of praise. The book contains a list of 70 ways to recognize employees (buy them a garden statue, write them a funny song, etc.), as well as a few bits of more journalistic evidence (brief accounts of business studies, a story from the Wall Street Journal about an employee who quit when his employer gave him a gold Rolex without offering to pay the income tax on the gift, etc.). Savvy managers are unlikely to buy into the idea that lavish praise is all it takes to generate profits and make the stock price go up, but the book may provide them with a few new ideas for how to make their employees feel appreciated.
