Talk the Walk

Designing a Clear Path to a World Class Employee Experience

Dana Wright-Wasson

With expanding to-do lists, shrinking resources, and meaningless mission statements, it can be a struggle to keep employees excited about their job and workplace. Creative approaches to engagement, such as adding nap pods and implementing engagement surveys, are part of the story but alone don’t solve the problem. Building an engaged workforce requires a purpose-driven leader who can help employees rise to their individual and collective potential, bringing their very best selves to the task. Leaders who listen to the needs of employees and encourage them to design better ways of working help build a culture that retains and attracts top talent.

Dana Wright-Wasson, president of Take Action Inc. and renowned speaker, shares the components necessary for leaders to design an exceptional employee experience. Using design thinking, studies, and stories from more than twenty years of facilitating employee engagement within teams and organizations, Dana will show you how to develop your leadership strengths, recognize good ideas, and give voice to your teams. She also uses examples from admired global corporations that are creating real impact, including Zappos; Google; Netflix; and Mars, Incorporated.

Written with wit and wisdom, Talk the Walk is every leader’s guide to creating a culture that inspires employees to show up with passion, solve hard problems, and make the company better—together.


Reviews

“Dana Wright-Wasson provides a much-needed assessment of what it takes to create an engaged team, culture, and organization. She also provides the necessary frameworks, ideas, and resources for readers to get started today building an energized, purposeful, and aligned corporate culture where people can’t wait to come to work.”

“With all of Dana Wright-Wasson’s experience as well as knowledge of business, she has successfully engaged and captured her reader! This book is a wonderful motivator to ‘Never Stop Pushing the Best You Can Be.’”

“As Michelle Obama said, ‘Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.’ Talk the Walk is a definitive map, written from the heart and full of powerful examples and supported by wonderful graphics. Take this journey with Dana Wright-Wasson and enjoy the abundant returns for you, your teams, organizations, and ideally our world at large.”

Talk the Walk is a wonderful trip through the world of leadership, engagement, corporate social responsibility, and so much more related to successful businesses. It’s a must-read for those in the business world. Readers will learn how to move themselves and their organizations to even greater success.”

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“Backed by studies and examples of best practices from real companies, Dana Wright-Wasson shows us the value of recognizing the whole self of the employee—not just the skills a person is hired for.”

“If you’re looking for a ‘quick fix’ for your company’s culture, look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for deep expertise in how to to make your employees feel heard, empowered, and invested in your company’s vision, this may be the book for you. Dana Wright-Wasson’s approachable writing style and many anecdotes make this challenging topic feel accessible and actionable in a way few can.”

Talk the Walk is a brilliant guide to enhancing employee experience. From leadership to culture, systems, and processes, Talk the Walk provides practical takeaways for leaders at all levels.”

Talk the Walk is timely and readable. Dana Wright-Wasson offers practical insights in how to rethink employee experience in your organization now—emphasizing the role of leadership and communication. Companies that genuinely focus on employee experience are creating a strategic business differentiator to drive results.”

“Simply genius and perfectly timed. Dana Wright-Wasson advances the emerging conversation of employee experience with a model linked to design thinking. That is already innovative enough, but it’s the anecdotes, the case studies, and the bite-sized chapters that make this book both practical and a delight to read for leaders of any kind of organization.”

“Dana Wright-Wasson is brilliant at creating the most inspiring experience for groups of all sizes. Talk the Walk is a very entertaining and informative read with a no-nonsense, and easy-to-apply tone that can be successfully used by anyone who wants to positively impact the engagement experience.”

“Put down whatever else you’re reading right now and buy this book. Talk the Walk is so much more than a book about world-class employee experience. It contains the wisdom from decades of work helping organizations become their best. Reading it was like taking a graduate-level course in what it takes to create and run a healthy, sustainable organization. Dana Wright-Wasson’s style is accessible, even neighborly, yet unquestionably learned. In considering employee experience through a variety of lenses Dana covers organizational culture, leadership, people practices, and more. What’s more, she backs it all up with relevant stories from real organizations reflecting the struggles and choices of living, breathing folks like you and me. Whether you’re a manager, an executive, running a line in a factory, or sitting in an office, you will find Talk the Walk an irreplaceable resource on your journey to making your work and workplace more powerful and meaningful.”

“Employee engagement, leadership, and culture are all well-worn topics that you’ve probably read a dozen books about. Each. But you need to read Dana Wright-Wasson’s outstanding book Talk the Walk because it’s better than most books on any of those topics. Dana shows you the subtle (and not so subtle) interconnections between your efforts in these areas—and how to finally dial in the unique combination that will work and last for your specific organization to transform your results. Buy a copy for everyone on your team and watch what happens.”

“Getting the most out of yourself and your team is a daunting task. We’re told that workers find themselves increasingly disengaged from their jobs, their colleagues, and even their authentic selves. In this book, Dana Wright-Wasson provides a guide to a powerful collection of frameworks you can leverage to increase knowledge of yourself and enhance engagement within your team.”

“Dana Wright-Wasson’s book is rich with tips, stories, quotations, and anecdotes that will undoubtedly play an important and instructive role in shifting the conversation about what ‘engagement’ means. Dana’s deep experience in the field, along with her comprehensive inquiry into leading practices, help us to reveal the humane nature of engagement. Dana’s wisdom is simple but not simplistic: start conversations, create the space for stories to happen, and listen.”

“Smart executives and entrepreneurs understand we’re moving from the ‘Experience Economy’ into the ‘Engagement Economy.’ This book shows a variety of ways to increase employee engagement so team members are more productive, loyal, and motivated. Read it and reap.”

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Dana Wright-Wasson MSOD thrives on human connection. With her extensive business background in leadership and strategic planning, Dana is passionate about creating amazing employee experiences; she wholeheartedly believes that engagement is an outcome—an effect of the way people are treated in organizations. Her grasp of leadership, organizational change, and group processes have all been built into her groundbreaking approach to employee experience.

Thinking out of the box, Dana uses graphics and visual templates to increase participation and inspire people to act. Applying creativity in all facets of work and life are Dana’s hallmark. She remains curious about the ways of the world—she has visited thirty-eight countries so far—taking cooking classes as she traverses across the globe. Dana is a recognized author, CEO of Take Action Inc., and founder of the Work Happy Project. Dana is happily married with two daughters and two stepsons. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit www.take-action.com.


ISBN 978-1-989025-82-6
$29.95 CAD $24.95 USD
Published March 11, 2019
6 × 9 326 Pages
Paperback, ebook