TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

The Enthusiastic Employee
by David Sirota, Louis Mischkind and Michael Meltzer
ISBN 0-13-142330-4
363 pages; hardcover; $26.95
Wharton School Publishing, New Jersey, 2005

Think the younger generation has a bad attitude about work? That Europeans are lazier than Americans? That a majority people of all ages and nationalities are unhappy with their jobs?

The authors of The Enthusiastic Employee say you should think again.

According to research conducted by the authors’ consulting firm, these and other misconceptions about employees are just plain wrong. Worse, believing them leads to a proliferation of similarly misguided management fads.

So what’s a manager to do?

The book offers a simple solution: Ignore the latest trend and rely on common sense instead. That conclusion is based on thousands of real-world employee responses to surveys conducted from 1994-2003. Ready for a non-surprise? Turns out workers want to be treated fairly, given recognition for their work and made to feel they are part of the company ‘community’. When those factors are present, commonly accepted beliefs about workplace dynamics fall by the wayside.

Refreshingly free from jargon and acronyms, The Enthusiastic Employee makes for interesting, insightful reading. Yes, you’ll find the usual motivational quotes, and the tired, overused illustrations from the same ‘star’ companies that seem to be featured in every management book. But there’s also practical advice for improving your daily interactions with co-workers, both upstream and down.

The book makes no claim about offering guidance for relationships outside of your work place. Still, you may find many of the principles are applicable in other aspects of your life.

You might even discover The Enthusiastic Employee is not only someone who works for you. The Enthusiastic Employee is you.

 

Review originally published July 2005.