The notion that an employee needs to be engaged, enabled, or energized is certainly not groundbreaking. But the problem is that they’ve generally been considered separately. Instead, think for a moment about these three traits visually, as shaded circles in a Venn diagram; when the three traits overlap, their three colors combine to form darker, richer tones. Any one without the other two is good but not sufficient for truly exceptional results.
A hamster on a treadmill is energized, for example, but it doesn’t really accomplish much by spinning its wheel. It isn’t enabled to take the wheel out for a spin in the woods. Likewise, an eager new military cadet may be engaged. He may care about the corps and be eager to serve his country, but without training and the right support, he’s unlikely to be of much use to his comrades. A teenager can be given all of the enabling freedom in the world, but if she isn’t engaged by an interesting challenge, she will likely be bored rather than energized and won’t accomplish much. Each of the E(energized) + E(ager) + E(ngaged) can be held hostage by an imbalance in the other two.
The flip side is that each of the three, when present, builds on each other, or you could say they combine as in a chemical reaction, becoming combustible.
