The Invisible Employee

Realizing the Hidden Potential in Everyone

By: Adrian Gostick, Chester Elton

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Most employees feel invisible to their leadership, and many times prefer to stay hidden in the corporate shadow lands. The Invisible Employee, part fable, part business advice, teaches managers how to actively engage employees, and find the way to bring out the best in them. This audiobook focuses on how managers can lead people from obscurity to achievement and take companies from ordinary to extraordinary by something as simple as setting a guiding vision, providing rewarding work, and then recognizing the right behaviors.

Like other best-selling business fables, The Invisible Employee combines a good yarn with great business advice and practical guidance for managers. Following a group of people as they attempt to live and work together on a mysterious island, the audiobook combats one of the most common negative attitudes in business, that smart employees should keep quiet, keep their heads down, and try not to draw attention to themselves. The Invisible Employee argues that this attitude undermines our efforts at building great companies and that effective leaders can break their employees of this negative attitude.

The Invisible Employee guides management to learn to engage their staff by setting a clear guiding vision, recognizing the strengths in their employees, and providing a sense of visibility and connection to corporate values and goals. In short, employees feel invisible to corporate leadership because leadership allows them to. This audiobook shows managers how to get involved and lead their people from obscurity to achievement, and reap the rewards across their entire organization.

©2006 OC Tanner Company (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Alan Sklar's familiar voice takes listeners through this eye-opening management tool, entertaining them while passing along the authors' lessons. Sklar brings the stories to life with subtle phrasing and intonation, differentiating those sections from the instructions on management techniques." (AudioFile)

Older book. Still relevant.

This book was good as far as some of the content. Of course, I’m reading this over a decade after it was published, so the climate has changed.
It was a little to rah rah for my taste and made it sound too much like a game.
I will agree some of the tools will still work, but the narration was a bit gruff and the examples a little off putting.

Boss made me read it

I can't tell whether my boss made me read this as a joke or if he is truly that disconnected from his employees.

I am by all definitions in this book, an invisible employee. The book was fantastic and made me realize I work in the "hell" described in the book. Managers, read this book if you truly want to make a difference and bosses, only give this book to employees if you're willing to live by it's principals as well.