As the following chapters will show, Western civilization is in transition, awkwardly straddling two evolutionary eras, struggling to negotiate a compromise between their sharply contrasted value systems. The industrialized world is trying to balance an orderly worldview with a disorderly reality, with some frustration…but also with some promising strides forward.

And as we will see, against this emerging evolutionary backdrop, engagement is not one strategy among many; it is the foundation for all other strategies. It is the only reasonable response to complexity, enabling agents to act and react in fast response to unpredictable changes in the environment. Indeed, it is increasingly the only way to operate and survive. Though it is now a vaguely understood buzzword often used interchangeably with “motivation,” this book will demonstrate that engagement in its fullest sense holds the key to all creation. Rather than a fad or even an individual strategy, engagement represents a fundamentally different way of thinking about business and the economy. Like Bernoulli's principle of lift, it holds the key to transcendence.

As far as all this may seem from your daily to-do list, a clear understanding of the ongoing transformation is the necessary starting point to navigate into the new era. And a broad view of the ongoing shift is needed to embrace the full value and implications of Engagement Competency. The Wright brothers could not have flown without a full understanding of Bernoulli's principle, even as it seemed abstract and distant from the tangible nuts and bolts of their airplane.

For these reasons, there is significant competitive advantage – not to mention mental comfort -- in fully comprehending several things about the current transition:

   1. The nature of the journey.

   2. What we’re moving away from.

    3. Why we can’t stay here.

   4. What we’re moving toward.

These are the goals of this section of the book.