Book excerpt: An engaged employee is someone who feels involved, committed, passionate and empowered and demonstrates those feelings in work behavior. This book explains that a more engaged workforce is really about better performance management. The authors expand the traditional notion of performance management to include building trust, creating conditions of empowerment, managing team learning, and maintaining ongoing straightforward communications about performance, all of which are critical to employee engagement. The "best practices" tools and advice in this book are based on solid research as well as the authors’ experience.