Head: (4.5 of 5)
Heart: (4 of 5)
Leadership Applicability: (4 of 5)

This 2003 New York Times bestseller is already a classic in the field of personal performance.  It has helped millions make the mental shift from trying to manage time to managing energy, a far more precious resource.  The authors' premise is that in order to perform "in the storm" you must build the necessary capacity, much like a professional athlete must train for the game. High-pressure situations demand full engagement, which in turn requires four well-functioning components: physical energy, emotional connection, mental focus, and spiritual alignment.  Every action, thought and feeling affects, and is affected by, your level and quality of energy.

So how do you train yourself for optimal engagement?  Most executives make the mistake of over-exerting themselves in the mental and emotional realms and under-exerting in the physical and spiritual, leaving them out of balance and increasingly unable to sustain attention and focus.  Another key mistake they make is to act as if their energy supplies are linear and unlimited.  Working harder and longer hours may seem necessary, inevitable and the only way to get the work done, but it is counter-productive.  Instead, executives, and indeed anyone who has work to get done, should periodically build and then renew their energy.  This means scheduling times for rest and recovery every 90 to 120 minutes throughout the day, taking real breaks and vacations, and making quality sleep a high priority. 

Barriers to full engagement include negative habits that block, distort, waste, diminish, deplete and contaminate what the authors call stored energy.  To get rid of barriers, the authors developed a "Full Engagement" training system, the principles of which should be familiar to trained coaches in all fields, corporate and athletic. They conceptualize the four energy components as a pyramid, with physical energy at the base, then emotional, then mental, then spiritual.  Physical energy is the base, or foundation, of all of the rest; if your body is exhausted, you will not have much ability to think or interact with others.  But to change habits or train and develop any of the four, you must start with the top: the spiritual.

Spiritual, in the authors' definition, is the connection to or feeling of higher purpose based on our deepest values.  If you start with a stated intention based on this spiritual realm, and align your goals and resolutions with it, they will be much easier to reach than simply telling yourself, "I must do this."  The next step is to take a thorough inventory of your current habits and barriers to overcoming obstacles.  The authors think of character traits you might want to develop, such as patience or empathy, as muscles that need to be worked.  Taking the inventory raises the awareness of which muscle groups need to be worked, and then a simple plan of cyclical activity-exercise and then renewal-can be devised to work that muscle.  The key is to create rituals around this periodic activity, transforming the new behaviors into indelible habit.

The book is divided into two parts, "the Dynamics of Full Engagement," and "The Training System."  The first part explores the theory behind the system, which is covered in the second part.  In both parts, anecdotal examples serve to illustrate the concepts. The book also has an appendix full of summaries, key points, charts, and tools.

A more in-depth look at the authors' "training system" reveals a carefully thought-out and very readable guide to basic behavioral change and coaching theory.  Growth and development takes place from the bottom up-from many small practices or actions-but it is driven from the top down, they note.  What compels people to change is the spiritual energy derived from connecting to deeply held values and a purpose beyond one's self-interest.  "We become fully engaged only when we care deeply, when we feel that what we are doing really matters," they say.

The first step in their "training," or coaching, system is to ask their clients how much of a sense of purpose they have in what they are doing now.  How excited are you to get to work in the morning?  How much do you enjoy doing what you're doing for its own sake?  How accountable do you hold yourself to a deeply held set of values?  They ask.  Of course, answering these questions requires knowing what those values are.  How many people have thought to name and list these values? Once a client is settled on a list of key values as his or her touchstone, the work of change begin. From values come vision statements and action plans.

Another major step has to take place before clients design their practices, or rituals, as the author calls them.  This step is called "facing the truth."  Clients-and five of their closest colleagues and/or family members-are asked to fill out an extensive inventory of how they are managing their energy now, including all four sectors, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. These inventories are designed to break through defenses and bring into conscious awareness what is needed to change, and why. Deficits are framed as "expedient adaptations," for which are charted near-term benefits, costs, and long-term consequences.

Once awareness is raised and needed changes elucidated, clients are encouraged to develop precise, conscious behaviors as rituals that will become automatic and habitual over time. Rituals save energy, while chastising oneself for a lack of self-discipline depletes it.  Rituals should be designed to insure an effective, cyclical balance between energy expenditure under stress and energy renewal under rest.  The more specific and regular the practices are, the easier they will move into habit.  They should also be designed as positive actions (rather than "I will not eat fattening food"), support incremental change, and their progress charted.  With each successive phase of the action plan, the rituals can delve deeper, until reality meets the vision. Buy it.