Engage to Survive

  Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

When dysfunctional processes are entrenched in an organization, decision-making stalls and employees disconnect. Five principles of engagement can make a difference, says Steve Goldstein, whose new book offers techniques to help leaders connect with teams and customers, including “cultivating an outsider perspective.”

You’d think a Sears store in sunny Miami would be the last place to stock snowblowers, but this is not the stuff of Dilbert cartoons. It really happened. (And has since been fixed.)

This is one of several surprising anecdotes that anchor a new book on leadership by Steven D. Goldstein. A veteran executive, Goldstein argues with clarity that top-level leaders need to improve the way they engage with their teams, employees, and customers in order to survive.

Lack of engagement is a systemic problem. A highly cited Gallup Poll shows a full 70 percent of adults are generally not engaged with their work and 17 percent of those were "actively disengaged.”

To Goldstein, this is the fault of corporate leadership. You can see this perspective on display throughout his book: Why Are There Snowblowers in Miami?: Transform Your Business Using the Five Principles of Engagement (Greenleaf Book Group Press; Sept. 2016). He weaves personal reflections and one-to-one interviews from his 35 years of experience working as an operating executive at both …

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