Through his years of intensive work consulting to companies including Procter & Gamble, Sony, Toyota, Microsoft, Ford and Ernst & Young, with his firm The Energy Project, Schwartz has developed a powerful program for changing the way we are working that greatly boosts our engagement and our satisfication with our work and increases our performance. In this book he marshalls a wide range of powerful evidence from business research and psychology that shows that the current model of work – in which people are treated essentially as machines that should be able to perform at top speed for extraordinarily long hours, be able to multi-task, be always accessible and online, withstand often harsh and emotionally punishing treatment, and be primarily driven by the need to make profits – is not only not optimal, it is specfically counter-productive because it saps us of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy.

In order for us to perform at our best, we must make a set of key changes in our work lives – and in order to develop the full potential of their work force, our managers and companies must institute changes that will provide us with the regular physical renewal, emotional reward, mental focus and stimulation; and sense of purpose and significance that we need.