EEA Impact Academy: Training and Certification in Stakeholder Engagement That Drives Measurable Results

Whether you are the CEO of a large organization, head of a department or any sort of team, or the director of a not-for-profit, you can benefit from the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) to accomplish any purpose, goals, objectives, and values. The 17-year-old Enterprise Engagement Alliance (EEA) is the only organization dedicated exclusively to applying TQM principles to people—aligning purpose, goals, values, and systems to improve engagement, performance, and financial outcomes.

Founded in 2009, the EEA was one of the first organizations to recognize and address the strategic connection between customer and employee engagement and financial results through a formal operating system.

TQM is a proven approach to engagement that addresses why customer and employee engagement remain at near record lows: the lack of a strategic and systematic approach at most organizations that is applied daily at over 1 million factories, laboratories, medical and engineering facilities worldwide that follow ISO 9001 quality standards.

A certification that stands out. The EEA Academy is world’s only education and certification program that systematically teaches how to design, implement, measure, and continuously improve people engagement practices across the enterprise using the proven principles of Total Quality Management (TQM). Unlike other courses that focus on isolated tactics, the EEA curriculum provides a standards-based operating system that aligns purpose, goals, values, and measurable outcomes for employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders. These are processes taught in almost no school, human resources, or marketing programs anywhere, making this certification unique among all others for its focus on value creation across the enterprise or a team.

The EEA’s Chief Academic Advisor is Gary Rhoads, Professor Emeritus of Integrated Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. He was also Co-Founder of Allegiance, one of the first companies connecting employee and customer engagement, which was later sold to Maritz, and of Xvoyant, a sales engagement company. The faculty includes over three dozen academics, experts in all areas of engagement and human capital analytics, and investors.

Now available–specific certifications focused on Employee, Sales, and Channel engagement are now available. Professionals seeking to demonstrate supplemental expertise in any of these three stakeholder audiences can take a supplement test demonstrating their specialized knowledge. All candidates must demonstrate core competencies by passing the core examination.

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The applications

TQM is a systematic, holistic approach to achieving any type of organizational, team, professional or personal purpose, goals, objectives, and values.

Sales

Align sales activity to clearly defined customer value and purpose
Standardize best-practice sales processes while enabling continuous improvement
Use measures beyond revenue (cycle time, win consistency, customer trust)
Improve forecast accuracy and reduce variability in performance

Marketing

Clarify purpose, target audiences, and value propositions before tactics
Treat campaigns as systems with feedback loops, not one-off initiatives
Align stakeholders (sales, partners, customers) around shared outcomes
Measure what matters: impact, not just impressions or clicks

Leadership

Create clarity of purpose and priorities across teams
Align strategy, execution, and measurement into a single operating system
Reduce risk by replacing ad-hoc decisions with predictable processes
Build a culture of learning, accountability, and continuous improvement

Human Resources / People Management

Align talent, incentives, development, and engagement to organizational purpose
Define roles, expectations, and success measures clearly
Improve onboarding, performance management, and retention through systems thinking
Shift from programs to sustained capability building

Personal Life

Clarify purpose, values, and success criteria for major life decisions
Align family or personal stakeholders around shared goals
Reduce stress and conflict through clear roles, routines, and communication
Learn from experience and make better decisions over time

TQM is not about bureaucracy—it’s about clarity, alignment, flow, and learning, whether in business or life

Why This Matters Now

Just as TQM transformed manufacturing quality, stakeholder alignment is redefining performance today. Despite billions spent on human resources, incentive and recognition programs, engagement and loyalty remain near record lows.

The issue isn’t effort—it’s a failure to harmonize the interests of stakeholders and to better align engagement and capability. That’s why we created the EEA Impact Academy in 2009, based on a decade of research indicating a clear connection between customer and employee engagement and financial results.

The Economics

Major research continues to validate the financial benefits of strong stakeholder engagement:

The Human Capital Factor (validated six consecutive years by J.P. Morgan analytics): the HAPI ETF has outperformed the S&P 500 by over 4% annually since launch.
Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre: Companies with happier, more purposeful and less stressed employees significantly outperform peers across financial metrics.
JUST Capital ETF (Goldman Sachs): Companies scoring high in customer, employee, and community engagement have earned 14% annually since 2018—matching or exceeding the S&P 500.

Topics

History and principles of stakeholder management
The economics
Framework
Operating systems
Tactics
Metrics
Continuous improvement processes

Applications

TQM principles can reset or strengthen:

Organizational or team purpose
Goals, objectives, and values
Sales, HR, marketing, operations, and manufacturing alignment
Measurement systems capturing both behaviors and outcomes
The management of any type of organization, team, not-for-profit or even family issues
The basics of meaningful sustainability reporting

Why the Impact Academy?

Most training on engagement teaches tactics: training, communications, voice, rewards and recognition, job design, analytics, etc. We teach alignment based on the same principles that transformed quality in manufacturing based on the principles of W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker and the Japanese translation of these principles known as Kaisen for continuous improvement.

The Impact Academy shows how to integrate human resources, sales, marketing, learning, communications, recognition, rewards, sales, and operations into a single operating system—based on ISO 9001 quality management standards used by over one million organizations worldwide and the newer ISO 10018 people engagement standards designed for use in service industries and professional fields.

This is the only curriculum that directly connects engagement, performance, and financial results.

Faculty

The faculty of the Enterprise Engagement Alliance: The Roadmap textbook and nine-video program includes multiple contributors in all areas of the front-lines of engagement, as well as the authors of the following books included in the program.

Enterprise Engagement for CEOs – Bruce Bolger, Author
Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap – Bruce Bolger, Allan Schweyer, Richard Kern
The Power of And – Responsible Business Without Tradeoffs – Edward Freeman
Grow the Pie – How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit – Alex Edmans
Building Corporate Soul – Ralph Specht
Humanizing Human Capital – Dr. Solange Charas and Stela Lupushor
The New ROI – Going Behind the Numbers – Dave Bookbinder
5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace – Paul White and Gary Chapman

Membership and Certification Options

All EEA members receive RRN and ESM weekly newsletters and monthly members-only newsletters offering previews of research and and other insights not featured in weekly newsletters and/or special offers or discounts shared by the Enterprise Engagement Alliance community.

Free EEXAdvisors program. Sign up to receive:

Core education, learning resources, and study guide for those seeking a low-cost way to earn the Certified Engaged Solution Provider credential demonstrating a basic understanding of TQM for people.
A weekly newsletter with news and research and special offers for discounts on events, products, and services.
A monthly insider e-newsletter with a preview of information to come in the month ahead and special offers.

Basic Individual Academy Membership for Enhanced Professional Engagement Certification Support— $150 per year. Accelerated certification path, with:

Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap textbook
Study guide enhanced with nine videos with over two dozen experts in all areas of engagement, updated annually starting in 2026
Online test for Certified Enterprise Engagement Practitioner designation

Advanced Individual Academy Membership for Complete Support — $425 per year. Deep learning plus coaching

Nine-part video curriculum with over two dozen expert speakers and panelists on all aspects of implementation
30 minutes of live coaching
Five books out of eight book library offered for reference (print or e-books–see below)
Discounts products, events, services and implementation tools, including access to the PVIC impact value calculator
Includes one year of Academy membership

Certified Engagement Professional Test ($150 every three years for non-members)

A timed and recorded multiple-choice test from a randomized bank of questions—30 minutes
A 15-minute live and recorded oral exam.

Corporate Academy Membership — $1,075 per year. For organizations and internal leadership training.

Training and certification for up to three team members
Additional members: $350 each
Discounts on measurement tools
Optional People Value Impact Calculator (PVIC): $300 per year

Solution Provider Membership — $1,500 per year. For consultants, agencies, and providers.

All corporate benefits
Certification and basic marketing support in EEA media
Opportunity to publish thought leadership
Optional PVIC impact measurement tool

Professional Services Training & Support — from $2,500. Advanced implementation and commercialization support.

For HR, consulting, marketing, incentive, and loyalty firms
Enables new client value propositions
Includes training, certification, and ongoing support
Optional Appreciation at Work culture enhancement program

Start Free. Advance at Your Pace.

Build expertise. Increase professional value.
Create measurable impact for yourself, your organization or clients.

Paid Membership (advanced level and up) Includes

Up to five books from pioneers in stakeholder management and people analytics
Nine-part video series with leading academics and practitioners
Advanced Excel templates and SPC tools for impact measurement
Access to the PVIC platform for ROI and correlation analysis
Advisory support and help desk access
Thought-leadership publication opportunities

Book Library (Five included with Advanced academy membership and above.)

Enterprise Engagement for CEOs – Bruce Bolger
Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap – Bruce Bolger, Allan Schweyer, Richard Kern
The Power of And – Responsible Business Without Tradeoffs – Edward Freeman
Grow the Pie – How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit – Alex Edmans
Building Corporate Soul – Ralph Specht
Humanizing Human Capital – Dr. Solange Charas & Stela Lupushor
The New ROI – Going Behind the Numbers – Dave Bookbinder
5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace – Paul White and Gary Chapman

Other Member Benefits

15% off Appreciation at Work culture certification
Access to People Value Impact Tools and Training for $300 ($600 otherwise).
Free access to the Charity Choice charitable-giving platform
One-hour onboarding session to map your goals
One-year company license to the People Value Impact Calculator
Others to come

Why Programs Fail — and How TQM Fixes It

Common Pitfall	TQM Solution
No shared purpose or goals	Establish and align them across all stakeholders
Siloed engagement tactics	Integrate HR, sales, and marketing toward shared outcomes
Activity metrics only	Focus on ROI and SPC-based impact data
No feedback or accountability	Embed continuous improvement cycles

Join the EEA Academy

Here is how the EEA Impact Academy differs from other leading people-related learning programs.

Impact-Based Stakeholder Engagement Design, Implementation, and Measurement