After twenty years of trying to get it right, few organizations truly understand employee engagement or have failed to see improvement in employee engagement in their company. And yet, other organizations have increased engagement but find their employees are drained and depleted. Why is this? Because almost no one could have anticipated the unbending nature of what Energy Architect and co-founder of Juice, Inc., Brady G. Wilson calls “the engagement paradox”: the more companies focus on engagement, the more disengagement they produce.

So what causes this paradox? It’s simple. Managing engagement turns out to be just another drain on the most precious resource in business today – energy. It’s not that employees don’t want to be engaged. They’re committed and loyal workers, however, in today’s “over extended” era, they’re simply struggling to make it to the weekend. Lacking energy, they resort to quick fixes, workarounds, and reactive firefighting, thereby hardwiring depletion into the system. Simply, they need a pep in their step and Wilson’s the guy to give it to them.

His newest book, Beyond Engagement: A Brain-Based Approach That Blends the Engagement Managers Want with the Energy Employees Need, is constructed with these busy leaders in mind. Readers can grasp the essence of the ten ideas simply by reading the ‘What’ – what’s the brain science?, ‘How’ – how does this show up at work?, and ‘Why’ – why does it matter? sections at the beginning of each chapter. They also each end with a case story illustrating the amazing results of managing energy and an energy management question intended to spark dialogue between the reader and their fellow leaders.

Wilson devotes a chapter each to ten leadership principles based on the findings of brain science. These principles, listed below are the key to moving beyond engagement:

1. Manage Energy, Not Engagement
2. Deliver Experiences, Not Promises
3. Target Emotion, Not Logic
4. Trust Conversations, Not Surveys
5. Seek Tension, Not Harmony
6. Practice Partnering, Not Parenting
7. Pull out the Backstory, Not the Action Plan
8. Think Sticks, not Carrots
9. Meet Needs, not Scores
10. Challenge Beliefs, Not Emotions