In The Bahamas, purple is considered a royal color, but in other cultures it represents enlightenment, deep intuition and awareness of an unexplored dimension. At least that's what Jane Sunley, CEO of learnpurple, claims in her colorful new book, "Purple Your People".
In 24 short chapters, the author demonstrates the philosophy and practices of learnpurple, a UK-based company that has worked with a diverse range of organizations to enhance employee engagement. "Purple Your People" is an introduction to motivating people and getting results by using holistic techniques, rather than rules, regulations and threats.
Sunley adopts a humorous style and makes extensive use of punchy, vivid purple colored summaries, resulting in an easy to follow and well-presented guide to people management. Better still, many of the principles can be used independently and could potentially be adopted to support an organizations appraisal, induction and training policies.
At the end of each chapter, the reader's mind is focused by the mantra of "if you only do three things". The aim being to identify the key actions that ultimately impact upon:
1. The why and how of employee engagement and why it starts here.
2. How to become a people magnet and attract talent that fits your company.
3. How to manage aspirations and plan for success.
Sunley should be commended for avoiding complex theories, instead focusing on tangible outputs that support the effective implementation of change. Each page of "Purple Your People" is about targeting problems, areas for development, performance improvement and finding workable solutions.
The tantalizing reward is that if you get the people stuff right, the result will be a happier workforce, better recruitment, improved staff retention, increased profit - all with the added bonus of less stress. In a nutshell, the guide provides a direct route to better corporate performance, success and growth by stripping away the "what" and the "how" of employee engagement to its basics, and forces our attention on the "why".
The "what" and the "how" are based on internal factors such as culture, values and resources, and to help you on your way the book comes with a set of online tools, articles and podcasts to suit all learning styles.
To conclude, "Purple Your People" presents a colorful human resource strategy that could brighten up many Bahamian businesses.
"Purple Your People" by Jane Sunley. Published by Crimson and available from www.amazon.com.
o Keith Appleton JP, BA (Hons), N.Dip.M, MInstLM has extensive experience within a managerial and strategic leadership role. This is underpinned by his academic background and membership in the UK Institute of Leadership & Management.
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