Introduction W E the research behind this book seven years ago in response to our experiences working with a number of organizations that were struggling to translate high levels of employee motivation into better individual, team, and organi- zational performance. A noteworthy example comes from an employee opinion survey we and our team at Hay Group con- ducted in 2004 for a new client in the pharmaceutical industry. While the results were highly favorable overall, and confirmed strong employee engagement throughout the organization, there were some troubling signals coming from the manage- ment layer immediately below the executive level. Given the importance of these individuals to the company for executing on current strategies and as future leaders of the business, we INITIATED