Employee engagement – its real essence : … and how it helped to transform a top‐four UK bank

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how opening up decision making to those who can add value helps to transform organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach – Reveals how this was achieved at a top‐four UK bank. Draws on some of the ideas presented in the author's latest book, The CEO: Chief Engagement Officer . Findings – Emphasizes the difference between flawed internal‐marketing programs, born at the tail‐end of the command‐and‐control era, which simply viewed employees as internal customers who were marketed at as any other “stakeholder group” when plans were afoot to refresh a company's strategy, and modern employee engagement, which involves taking the risk to reach down and engage the people it affects and the people who must deliver the end result. Practical implications – Presents a toolbox of practical processes that help leaders to take the risk of sharing power, to engage the creativity of their people. Originality/value – Advances the view that, by empowering leaders and employees to become partners in pushing an organization forward, good engagement planning is the “missing 50 percent” of strategy formulation.