The High Engagement Work Culture—Balancing Me and We

The financial Crash of 2008 was not just about government regulation or lack thereof; the low tide of the Crash also revealed just how vulnerable our societies are to those organizations which focus so much on their own self-serving goals, that they ignore the damage they can do outside their walls. To counter this, the authors ask whether there is a better way to run this capitalist system of ours, instead of being tempted to throw it out and replace it with something much worse. Their prescription is to create the high engagement work culture in our organizations through a greater balance between the urges of 'me' and the desires and needs of 'we'; a work culture which brings real benefits to all stakeholders, not just the few, and drives the performance of our organizations to new heights. This is not 'pie in the sky': it is being lived by those companies featured in detail in these pages, such as Whole Foods Market and BMW.

DAVID BOWLES is an international management consultant, speaker and author in the area of morale and engagement at work. Before 1988 he was a Senior Vice President with HayGroup, the global consultancy, directing Hay's corporate culture and morale/engagement activities in the western and southwestern US. Since that time he has been Managing Director of Research & Consulting International in Rancho Santa Fe, California, whose projects center around the measurement and enhancement of morale/ engagement and corporate culture. Dr. Bowles has a Ph.D. in Management Sciences (emphasis: organizational psychology) from the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology, UK (UMIST), and has worked across all major industry and non-profit groups from his two bases in southern California and Bavaria, Germany. His first book, Employee Morale, Driving Performance in Challenging Times (also with Cary Cooper) was published by Palgrave- Macmillan in 2009. He can be reached at db@moraleatwork.com and blogs at www.moraleatwork.com.

CARY COOPER is Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at the Lancaster University Management School, UK. He is the author of over 125 books, has written over 400 scholarly articles, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, television and radio. He is a Fellow of the British Academy of Management and also of the US-based Academy of Management. In 2001 he was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. He was Founding President of the British Academy of Management, and formerly the Chair of the Sunningdale Institute in the National School of Government, UK. He was also the lead scientist to the UK Government Office for Science on their Foresight programme on Mental Capital and Wellbeing, and was appointed a member of the expert group on establishing guidance for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence on stress management in the workplace in 2009. Professor Cooper is Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences, President of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, President of RELATE, President of the Institute of Welfare and Patron of Anxiety UK. HR magazine named him the 5th Most Influential Thinker in HR in 2011. He was awarded the Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award at the Times Higher Education Awards 2010.