Top Performance Read online

  © 1986, 2003 by Zig Ziglar

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-58558-014-9

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Excerpt from Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World copyright © 1985 by Zig Ziglar. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson Publishers.

  Excerpt reprinted by permission from Bringing Out the Best in People by Alan Loy McGinnis, copyright © 1985 Augsburg Publishing House.

  Quotation by Jack Falvey reprinted by permission, The Wall Street Journal, copyright © Dow Jones and Company, Inc., 1982. All rights reserved.

  Material from Psychology Today reprinted with permission from Psychology Today magazine. Copyright © 1982 [APA].

  The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

  Dedicated to P. C. Merrell,

  a Top Performer

  whose inspiration and leadership by example

  had a lifetime impact on my performance

  You can have everything in life you want

  if you will just help enough other people

  get what they want!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  Introduction

  Part 1 The Art of Top Performance

  1. Building a Foundation

  2. Choosing to Be a Top Performer

  3. Causing Others to Want Your Leadership

  4. Look for the Good

  5. Expect the Best

  6. “Wait for Me, I’m Your Leader!”

  7. “People Just Don’t Care …”

  Part 2 The Science of Top Performance

  8. “But I Thought You Said …”

  9. Recognizing, Rewarding, and Role Modeling for Top Performance

  10. Getting to Know You … and Me, Too!

  11. Management Gems

  Part 3 Motivating the Top Performer

  12. A Formula for Motivation

  13. Why You Manage … Why They Follow

  14. Managing Productivity

  15. Education to Overcome Management Paralysis

  16. The Secret to Management Motivation

  17. It Takes Time

  Epilogue: A Unique Opportunity

  Notes

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  In many ways this is the most unusual and exciting book I have written. Unusual because for the first time I worked with a coauthor and, in this update, with two men whom I love and respect. Without the contribution and assistance of Jim Savage, this book would not have been written. And now, with the unique talent of Bryan Flanagan and Krish Dhanam, the content is greatly enriched. My gratitude for each of them is significant.

  As always, Laurie Magers, my ever-faithful, always dependable administrative assistant, did a magnificent job. When called upon, Kay Lynn Westervelt, who worked closely with Laurie, also did a beautiful job, as did Julie Norman, my editor and daughter. I owe a particularly heavy debt of gratitude to my friend and mentor Fred Smith, whom I hold in high regard, for his willingness to contribute thoughts and ideas throughout the book. A very special thank-you to Leo Presley, president of the consulting firm Presley & Associates, who encouraged us and gave important direction on getting involved on a larger scale in corporate America. Leo is one of the brightest men I know.

  I am also grateful to Ron Ezinga, the past president of the Zig Ziglar Corporation, whose steady hand at the helm and encouraging guidance while we wrote this book kept us at least partially on course in meeting our guidelines. Then, of course, there’s my wife, Jean, “the Redhead,” whose willingness to tolerate some intolerable demands on our time together, combined with her loving support, made the book not only possible but an exciting experience. To the other members of our staff and to the numerous authors who contributed through your articles, thank you.

  Preface

  Fifteen percent of the reason you get a job, keep that job, and move ahead in that job is determined by your technical skills and knowledge—regardless of your profession! That’s what my late friend, human engineer Cavett Robert, said. What about the other 85 percent? Cavett quoted Stanford Research Institute, Harvard University, and the Carnegie Foundation (which spent one million dollars and five years on the research) as having proved that 85 percent of the reason you get a job, keep that job, and move ahead in that job has to do with your people skills and people knowledge!

  I’m completely convinced he was right. As I travel around the country sharing ideas on personal growth, sales training, and the corporate concepts we teach at Ziglar Training Systems, I become more and more aware of the critical need for specialized instruction on how we can manage ourselves and lead others for maximum effectiveness. As I visit with professionals from all walks of life, I see common problems in many—if not all—of the different situations men and women are facing, and the common denominator in these problems is always the same: people.

  So obviously, “managing people” (starting with yourself) becomes a high priority if we are to be successful. In this book, we have several primary goals relating to understanding people management skills:

  We will identify the key factors in people management, including helping managers to identify potential sources of conflict.

  We will offer solutions to help overcome these potential sources of conflict.

  We will share how you can apply the principles and ideas other managers have used successfully, thereby taking this book out of the realm of theory and making it applicable in the real world.

  We will showcase practical Top Performance through real life illustrations gathered from successful executives.

  We will bridge the gap between training and development so as to create Top Performers who are truly performance champions.

  John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends, says that retraining managers, not retraining workers, is the biggest challenge for the information-age corporation. With this in mind, the ultimate goal of Top Performance is to develop excellence in managers and to provide management with teaching procedures and inspiration to effectively develop and utilize team members.

  The foundation for developing yourself and others is wrapped up in this principle:

  You can have everything in life you want

  if you will just help enough other people

  get what they want!

  I have used this statement for nearly fifty years as a foundational truth, and never is the concept more accurate than when managing yourself and others. Important! I’m talking about a principle and not a tactic. As a tactic the words would be crass and ineffective. As a principle the concept works because it makes others want your leadership.

  I read an interesting article in Fortune magazine about multibillionaire Li Ka-Shing from Hong Kong. He raised his two sons, Victor and Richard, in his business, requiring them to attend board meetings and conferences where they learned his philosophy.

  Richard observed that his entrepreneurial genius father was involved in man
y joint ventures, most of which had great ideas and products but little capital. Richard’s father taught him that if 10 percent is a fair percentage of the business you receive as a result of your investment but you know you can get 11 percent, it is wise to take only 9 percent. Li Ka-Shing taught his boys that if they took less than they could get, many undercapitalized people would bring their good ideas and products to them first. That’s exactly what happened, because when individuals in the business world saw that these people were genuinely interested in them, they brought good deals to them, proving the philosophy completely. It’s true! The great managers from all fields know that when they put people first, their effectiveness and efficiency improve.

  One basic definition of management is “getting things done through people.” Successful managers recognize, develop, and use all their strength by recognizing, developing, and utilizing the talents of their subordinates. They learn what makes people tick and transfer their own feelings of excitement and enthusiasm to those who follow their leadership.

  Chances are good that if you are not already doing well in your chosen career, you are on the verge of a breakthrough to becoming more successful. Regardless of your chosen profession in life, Top Performance: How to Develop Excellence in Yourself and Others is written specifically for you!

  Introduction

  If you carefully read the title of the book, you will notice the subtitle is How to Develop Excellence in Yourself and Others. Obviously, it starts with you. If you expect to move up in the business world, you must start with personal efficiency and recognize that you will become a role model for others.

  If you participated in organized team sports at one time in your life, you can well recall the day or night before the “big game” and how the coach laid out the game plan. You went home with considerable excitement, exclaiming to your parents that the coach had really come up with something good and that your team was going to “kill them tomorrow!” Your faith in the plan enabled you to play the game with a great deal of excitement, enthusiasm, and confidence that you would win.

  The game of life is considerably longer and a great deal more important; therefore, a plan is necessary for your expectations to be met. Your first concept or objective in the business world should be to attract favorable attention. Efficiency will accomplish that objective. However, the day will come when you need to realize that if you are going to be effective at management, there are certain things you should not be doing at all, much less doing well. Your objective is to replace yourself with somebody who might not have the experience and ability you have, but with training and inspiration you can bring them into productivity at a more than acceptable rate. Your objective should be to produce other managers and leaders who can be more productive than you are. Some managers and leaders produce followers. You want to produce other managers and leaders.

  Unfortunately, for too long there have been too many people who have believed that if they bring someone up to their level, all they do is lose a very valuable coworker who was making their department more effective. One classic example of the fallacy of this policy is that of Lou Holtz, the remarkable and outstanding football coach who built winners at North Carolina State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame, and now South Carolina. During his eleven years at Notre Dame, Lou produced ten head coaches. Obviously, his assistant coaches who became head coaches were his best coaches. So the question is where did that leave Lou?

  The answer is quite simple. When word got out that he was developing leaders—that is, head coaches—assistant coaches around the country started applying to Notre Dame for jobs as assistant coaches, because they knew Lou would teach them how to be head coaches. Consequently, he replaced his good coaches with equally good coaches. He got a bonus when he acquired the new assistant coaches’ high school contacts, but he was able to maintain the high school contacts his former assistants had developed while they were with him. In short, not only did he replace his assistant coaches with equally effective coaches, but he got a bonus in recruits as well.

  You will quickly discover there is no sense of satisfaction or joy that equals that of bringing others along and developing them to the degree that they are as capable as you, so that they, too, can move into management. You can never be but one you, but when you reproduce your abilities in others, your effectiveness multiplies and corporate America looks at you as someone to watch and promote to higher levels.

  Bryan Flanagan and Krish Dhanam are men I’m proud to have coming alongside me, and their part in the revision of this book is proof of the joy I get from being associated with them. Let me share with you why I’m so excited to have their fresh and dynamic insights included in this revision.

  Bryan and Krish come from different backgrounds, but their qualities and skills carry many similarities. Both have huge senses of humor, are strong in their faith, and are committed to their families and to being the best they can be in their chosen profession. Each is the personification of loyalty and gratitude for the privilege of teaching and inspiring others. Their messages of hope and direction are distinctly different, powerfully effective, and skillfully delivered.

  Bryan Flanagan is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a 1971 graduate of Louisiana State University with a bachelor of science degree. He began his fourteen-year career with IBM as a delivery boy while he was in college. While there he served as a salesman, a “people manager,” and a sales instructor at IBM’s national training center.

  Bryan has worked with me for fifteen years and serves as director of corporate training, where he designs and delivers customized training programs to increase individual and team productivity for companies such as UBS PaineWebber, Snap-on Tools, U.S. Army Recruiting, American Heart Association, Salomon Smith Barney, Sterling Commerce, and many others.

  Bryan and his wife, Cyndi, have two children and reside in Plano, Texas.

  Krish Dhanam was born in the small coastal town of Vizag in southeastern India. As a child of eight he set his sights on America. After marrying his college sweetheart, he came to America with nine dollars in his pocket.

  His educational background includes a master’s in business administration and a diploma in international relations. He finished his postgraduate work at the Institute of Management Technology in Ghaziabad, India, and worked for a year in outside sales in India before migrating to the U.S.

  He first worked in America as a commodities broker and then as a sales rep for two long-distance resellers in Dallas. He received a ticket to a Zig Ziglar seminar as the award for winning a sales contest. This initial exposure to the Ziglar philosophy led him to join the Ziglar organization in October of 1991, less than a month after he was sworn in as a citizen of the U.S.A.

  As the director of international operations for Ziglar Training Systems, he has conducted training in over thirty-five international venues and throughout the continental United States. His specialties are goal setting, change readiness, and service, but he also delivers programs on sales and communication.

  An active participant in the Indian community of Dallas, Krish sits on the board of directors for the Greater Dallas Indo-American Chamber of Commerce and is also an advisory director to Ipelion, an e-Business consulting and IT services firm.

  Krish, his wife, Anila, and their son, Nicolas, make their home in Flower Mound, Texas.

  I’m excited to share the pages of this book with Bryan and Krish because for many years they have applied the practical tools and motivational principles I have written about in this book. They truly exemplify the principles Top Performance teaches.

  Now let’s get into the body of this book and see what’s important in building and developing a permanent career.

  PART 1

  The Art of Top Performance

  The object of art is to crystallize emotion into thoughts and then fix it in form.

  Delsarte

  Building a Foundation

  No legitimate business man ever got started on the road to perman
ent success by any other means than that of hard, intelligent work, coupled with an earned credit, plus character.

  Timothy Dwight

  A good architect/engineer, knowing the purpose for a specific building, can tell you how high it will be based on the depth of the hole in the ground. In short, the foundation is what he or she will build on. In life, our foundation stones are the things that will determine to a very large degree how high we will climb and, more importantly, how long we will maintain those lofty positions. Integrity, which means “basic wholeness,” is essential to that foundation.

  It’s true that a pleasing personality helps win friends and influence people. However, when we add character and integrity to that formula, we are able to keep those friends and maintain the influence.

  In a study in Psychological Reports, 2002, entitled “Goal-Directedness and Personal Identity as Correlates of Life Outcomes,” Dr. Barry M. Goldman, Dr. Edwin A. Locke, and David G. Jensen found that your values, motives, confidence, and philosophy of life have a direct bearing on your self-image, and in 1985 Dr. S. Kahn and colleagues found that self-image is associated with life happiness and satisfaction, personal well-being, and marital satisfaction. It’s true. Our values impact every aspect of our lives. It would be difficult to imagine that a person who was a liar and a thief could have a healthy self-image. Needless to say, he or she would not expect to have a long-term, happy business or personal life.

  Laurel Cutter, vice chairman of FCB Leber Katz Partners, says, “Values determine behavior, behavior determines reputation, reputation determines advantages.” From a personal perspective, a number of years ago I was in the market for a new Cadillac. I shopped at two dealerships, decided exactly which color and model I wanted, and was talking about it with a friend. He suggested I not do anything until I talked to Chuck Bellows at Rodger Meier Cadillac. He assured me that what Chuck told me I could absolutely depend on—his integrity was complete.