Top Performance Page 4

  MAKE SURE YOUR LEADERS ARE THE RIGHT PEOPLE

  WITH THE RIGHT VISION AT THE RIGHT TIME.

  Strong-willed. Successful leaders are fair but firm. They understand that other people are also right at times and are entitled to have their opinions and ideas heard. Strong-willed leaders learn how to pass all the concerns of an organization through the foundational filter of vision and mission. They know how to determine if an idea, opinion, or strategy lines up against the goals and dreams of an organization.

  Why Should Anyone Want to Follow You?

  I hope that once you get past the “attention-grabbing” value of the question, you can turn your interest and attention to the point: Have you taken a personal inventory of your strengths as a manager? Come on, now, there must be some reason why you have your position. This is not the time for false modesty. Try to recall those positive statements you have heard from others. The fact that we have trouble remembering positive reinforcement is a terrible indictment of our society and should emphasize to each of us the importance of sincerely pointing out the good we see in others. However, now is the time to honestly face some facts about yourself and your future as a manager of people. Look at areas such as planning, organization, communication, listening, decision making, delegation, and motivation. Before we can go any further, right here and now list at least ten strengths you have as a manager of people.

  Significant Reasons Others Should Want to Follow Me

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  Regardless of the length or strength of the list you made, you can become even more effective as a manager of people. John D. Rockefeller stated, “I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.” To cause others to want our leadership and management, we must become experts in the kind of people skills to which Mr. Rockefeller was referring. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. Dan Rather, CBS News anchor, took Emerson’s idea a step further when he said, “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’” As a manager, you must embody all that these men are speaking of and more. If this sounds like an overwhelming task, it is not. Actually, becoming an expert in the people business can be very simple. I did not say “easy” … nothing in life is easy, but managing people should not—must not—be made complex.

  Krish Dhanam, our director of international operations, knows better than most what it takes to find the right leader. Here are his insights on the topic.

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  When I joined the Zig Ziglar organization in 1991, Bryan Flanagan was my sales manager. I was recruited away from a job in the telecommunications industry and came with a lot of excitement. Up until that time in my career, I had been conditioned to do what was expected of me and no more. I did not fully understand the concept of going above and beyond the call of duty. My probation period was ninety days, and my compensation was tiered to reflect the satisfactory completion of preset goals along the way. When the ninety-day deadline came upon me, I was still shy of the performance expectations set for me by what amounted to about six hundred dollars. I approached Bryan for assistance, not knowing what direction the meeting would take. Bryan encouraged me to go back and give it my all, as the day was still young. I did accordingly, but by early afternoon I had only sold about seventy additional dollars, leaving me a good deal shy of my goal.

  Bryan Flanagan is a leader people like to follow because of his random acts of kindness. That day Bryan gave me a lead to follow up on. The decision maker of a North Dakota automobile dealership had wanted Bryan’s services but was apprehensive about the financials involved. Because Bryan agreed to accept the engagement for a lot less than his standard fee, I procured the contract, reached my goal, and continued my career with the company. That day Bryan’s Top Performance led to the salvaging of my career. Bryan and I continue to be good friends, as is evident from our work on this project and the numerous training sessions we conduct together.

  When you do something out of the ordinary, you never know what the impact of those actions will be. You might even become the kind of leader others want to follow. Top Performers see something in others that others might not see in themselves. In my eyes Bryan Flanagan is one such Top Performer.

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  Do You “Rush” to Judgment?

  A family counselor once said that what most wives want is a man they can look up to but one who will not look down on them. A manager’s or leader’s team members want exactly the same thing. Someone they can truly look up to—but someone who does not look down on them. This is the goal every manager should strive for in dealing with his people. This next story out of my own book of life makes the point quite well.

  Several years ago, while on my way to a small town in Ohio for a speaking engagement, I had to stop in Pittsburgh to make a connection. I had a little over an hour on my hands, so as I walked toward the connecting gate, I was in no particular hurry. Two young men had a booth and were shining shoes.

  One of the guys was “Mr. Personality”—outgoing, jovial, pleasant—the kind of guy who could brighten up any party. The other was the exact opposite—somber, quiet, absolutely nonexpressive. He was “just there.” I wanted “Mr. Personality” to shine my shoes, but he was still working on his customer when I arrived, and the quiet young man was available, so I had no option.

  As I stepped up into the chair, I cheerfully greeted the young man with, “How ya doin’?” He simply looked at me as if I did not exist and said absolutely nothing. I could not help but think that his behavior was certainly strange for somebody who was working with the public and who, to a large degree, depended on tips for his income. However, since I am an incurable optimist, I started rationalizing that in all probability I had gotten the one who was the best at what I wanted done—namely, shining shoes.

  As the young man applied the saddle soap to clean the shoes, I immediately noticed he was very meticulous—extremely careful not to get any of the soap on my socks or my pant leg—and I was pleased with that. As he dried the shoes, I again noticed how extraordinarily careful he was and how efficiently he worked. By the time he finished applying the polish, I was convinced I had come out ahead by getting him. He was very thorough and careful. As a matter of fact, he’s the only guy I’ve ever seen who looked around at the back of my shoes to make certain he was applying polish everywhere.

  When he started brushing the shoes, it was obvious that he was using the artist’s touch. He was very good, and I was getting more enthusiastic all the time. When he applied the cloth to the leather, he had to use a little pressure to get the high gloss he wanted. It was at this point that, for the first time, I really looked at the young man. Since the enthusiastic kid in the next stand had finished, there was no one in the other chair, so things were extremely quiet for the first time, and I heard an almost inaudible “uh-uh-uh.” At this point I realized the young man was seriously handicapped.

  As you can well imagine, I felt like about two cents. Here I, in my high-and-mighty judgmental way, had decided I was going to “honor” this young man by “letting” him shine my shoes! In my own mind, I was even going to be bighearted and give him a nice tip—if he was pleasant, courteous, gracious, outgoing, and also gave me a magnificent shine!

  Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience, and this young man got the biggest tip I’ve ever given to anybody for shining my shoes. I’ve often thought about the young man’s parents and what a m
agnificent job they had done in teaching him to use such a high percentage of his abilities. They had to be good people and outstanding managers as well.

  As managers, our job is to further the abilities our people have and then lead them to use those abilities productively. As my friend Fred Smith says, a manager “is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.” In many cases our employees have much more talent than we realize they have. It’s also true that some people are a little slower than others at developing and manifesting their abilities. I think of people like Grandma Moses, who got such a late start in life; Albert Einstein, who was four years old before he could walk or talk; Thomas Edison, who was considered slow and dumb; George Westinghouse, who was labeled “impractical” and “dull,” and was asked to leave college because his teachers didn’t think he could make it—and yet he was awarded a patent for the rotary steam engine before he was twenty!

  The point I’m making with this is—or should be—obvious. Most people have considerable ability, often undeveloped, that is not always immediately noticeable. Many others, like the young shoeshine boy, are more than willing to use what they’ve got to do a marvelous job. As managers, we need to be ever alert to find and develop whatever talent is available in our company or department.

  A Formula for Success

  I think you will agree that the responsibility for your unit—whether it is you and one other person or you and one hundred other people—is to function together for a common cause or purpose. Unquestionably, the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles were a great triumph. One of the primary reasons was Peter Ueberroth, the man in charge, the manager. Mr. Ueberroth was successful, according to many of those who worked closely with him, because he made everyone believe they were involved in a cause that was bigger than the individual. The way he involved everyone in his (and their) cause was by using excellent people skills. He developed a team spirit and had everyone working together for the same end result. You can do the same thing with smaller or larger units by understanding a simple formula for success.

  Much has been written and said about team effort. It’s important for the family, for the athletic team, and for the workplace. Recently a friend of mine was discussing a basketball team for which his son plays. The team was functioning quite well early in the season. There were no “superstars” on board, but they had learned considerable discipline and a series of plays that were enabling them to beat teams that actually had greater individual talent. They had a good record. Then two guys who had been ineligible regained their eligibility and joined the team at the change of semesters. As individuals, these two guys were bigger, stronger, and faster, and they were better shooters. Unfortunately, they did not have the discipline, nor did they know the plays. The net result was that though they had the talent, they actually were liabilities instead of assets to the team. Important point: They were liabilities because the coach did not have the courage to keep them on the bench until they learned the plays and developed the discipline to function as team members instead of individual talents. That coach (manager) let himself, his team, his supporters, and the two individuals down. The opposite behavior was witnessed in the performance of the Seattle Mariners baseball team in the 2001–2002 season. After losing superstars Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez, the Mariners played as a team and won a record 116 games in the regular season.

  As managers, we frequently have similar situations arise in which individuals might have great talent and ability, but because of certain personality traits, annoying habits, or refusal to function as part of the team, they become liabilities instead of assets. The most important function a manager has is to bring the individuals together as a team—in other words, to make them “gel.”

  In athletics we often hear coaches talk about team spirit. They sell athletes on the importance of playing together for a common cause: winning! One of the catchwords that coaches use to describe unity is gel. They will say that the offense is just beginning to gel, or to be successful the defense must gel. Of course, they are talking about playing together and not as individuals, putting the objectives of the team ahead of personal gain so that when the team wins, there will be great gain for each member of the team.

  Some reporters have spelled gel with a J because of the television commercials about Jell-O, but actually gel means “to congeal or come together.” For our purposes, let’s take these three letters and use them as an acrostic to remind us how to be experts in the business of managing people.

  The next three chapters will take each of these letters individually and give specific instructions on how we can use this formula to become Top Performers.

  PERFORMANCE PRINCIPLES

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  A sense of humor is vital to good leadership.

  Common goals plus a common cause equal greater success.

  Cooperation must be earned, not demanded.

  Face up to your strengths as well as your weaknesses.

  All resources are not obvious; great managers find and develop available talent.

  Playing as a team increases the odds of winning.

  Look for the Good

  How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.

  George Washington Carver

  Goodfinders

  Expect the Best

  Loyalty

  The G in our GEL formula stands for Goodfinders—those who are experts in Top Performance learn to look for the good in each person they manage.

  Andrew Carnegie said, “No man can become rich without himself enriching others.” He went on to live this philosophy, as evidenced by the forty-three millionaires he had working for him. A reporter interviewing Mr. Carnegie asked how he was able to hire that many millionaires. Mr. Carnegie patiently explained that the men were not millionaires when they came to work for him but had become millionaires by working for him. When the reporter pursued the line of questioning as to how he was able to develop these men to the point they were worth that much money, Mr. Carnegie said, “When you work with people, it is a lot like mining for gold … when you mine for gold, you must literally move tons of dirt to find a single ounce of gold. However, you do not look for the dirt—you look for the gold!”

  It works the same way when you want to develop people to their full potential. You must look for the gold (the good), and when you find it, you nurture it and bring it to fruition. Another wise man expressed it this way: The greatest good we can do for others is not to share our riches with them but to reveal theirs to them.

  Bill Hewlett, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard, said, “Our policy flows from the belief that men and women want to do a good job, a creative job, and that if they are provided with the proper environment they will do so.” Since people want to do a good job, why shouldn’t we point out their success as it occurs?

  The next illustration from my childhood tells about an effective method of dealing with your people when they don’t do their jobs as effectively or professionally as they can and should. As you read this, I encourage you to remember some wise words from Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: “The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

  Criticize the Performance—Not the Performer

  Some of you will recognize the following story from my book Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World, but it so vividly makes the point that I want to repeat it here. When I was a small boy down in Yazoo City, Mississippi, things were pretty tight during those Depression years, and everybody had to work smarter and harder. As a leader, and as a manager, I honestly believe my mother, despite her fifth-grade education, would rate close to the top.

  Dad died when I was five years old and left six of us too young to work. Remember now, this was in the hea
rt of the Depression, and things were tough for everyone. We survived because we had a very large garden and three milk cows. I was milking and working in the garden by the time I was eight years old and, for what it’s worth, let me interject the fact that cows don’t “give” milk—you have to fight for every drop!

  Two things we always knew when Mother gave us an assignment. Number one, we knew what she expected (our very best). Number two, we knew she was going to inspect to make certain she got what she expected.

  I’ll never forget my first solo assignment in the garden. On this particular day, because my mother was also a good teacher, she showed me exactly what I needed to do to hoe those beans properly. When she finished her lesson, she pointed to three rows of beans—which were about three and a half miles long (well, would you believe three?). But to an eight-year-old boy they looked more like ten! Anyhow, Mama instructed me that when I finished I was to call her so she could inspect what I had done. When I finally finished, I called her for the inspection. As she looked the job over, she did what she always did when she was not pleased with something. She folded her hands behind her back, ducked her head, cocked it slightly to the right, and started that little left-to-right head-shaking motion that I knew all too well. As she was doing this, I asked her what was the matter. She smiled and said, “Well, son, it looks like you’re going to have to lick this calf over.”

  Now in the corporate world that might seem like a strange term, but in those days in rural Mississippi it simply meant that what I had done was unsatisfactory and I was going to have to do it over again. Obviously, I knew what she was saying, but—hopeful for an escape—I smiled and said, “Mama, I wasn’t botherin’ the calf—I was hoeing those beans!” With this my mother chuckled and said, “Well, son, what I mean is this: For most boys this would be perfectly all right. But you’re not most boys. You’re my son, and my son can do better than this.”