Mapping and managing productive organizational energy over time: The Energy Pattern Explorer tool

To strategically manage the deployment of collective human resources toward performance, managers must recognize, interpret, and align the volatile resources of productive organizational energy. Despite relevant prior work, research and practice still lack a comprehensive approach toward analyzing and managing energy patterns over time. We develop a framework for temporal configurations and prototypical trajectories of productive organizational energy. We then introduce the ‘Energy Pattern Explorer’ as a strategy tool to: (1) identify and predict actual patterns of productive organizational energy in organizations, and (2) suggest energy leadership activities specific to current and anticipated changes and patterns of productive organizational energy. We provide examples of how managers can use this tool and conclude with suggestions for research and practice. • A comprehensive approach towards understanding, analyzing, and managing patterns of collective human energy over time that shape organizational outcomes. • A framework of short-term configurations and long-term prototypical trajectories of productive organizational energy to conceptualize its evolution over time. • Introduction and guidance for application of the ‘Energy Pattern Explorer’ tool. • Identification and prediction of actual patterns of productive organizational energy in organizations. • Outline of a set of energy leadership activities tailored to current and anticipated patterns of productive organizational energy, that allow sustained evolution of collective human energy.