The most successful motivation strategies can cost nothing. Nada. Not a penny out of the budget, not a line item in any spreadsheet. Just ask Tony Robbins. While he is one of the most popular public speakers and authors
today, he also runs a large organization, Anthony Robbins Companies. One method of motivation that he’s found to be particularly effective costs his company absolutely nothing.
He meets with his top managers once every two weeks. During these meetings, he asks his direct reports to suggest one person on their staffs who has done something particularly noteworthy for the organization recently. He’ll then call that person to the meeting to commend them in front of the top management. The first time this happened, it wasn’t planned, and, well, the recipient of the praise didn’t exactly see praise coming his way. He was expecting something on the other end of the human resource spectrum.
“About five years ago, when everybody seemed to be talking about the same person, I said, ‘Bring him up here right now,’” Robbins told Counselor in an exclusive interview. “Now, nobody ever came to those meetings except executives. So somebody gets called in, and he’s kind of freaking out. And I said, ‘Listen, we need to talk to you.’ The guy is like, ‘Yes?’”
Robbins went on to tell his employee that he’s been hearing great things about his work and how privileged the organization is to have him working there. And then there was this from Robbins: We just wanted to thank you and give you an acknowledgment for the great job you’re doing. Wow. A simple thank you can go so far and mean so much to employees.
“You should have seen his eyes,” Robbins now says. “We all gave him a hand. Then I gave him a little bonus. It was just $100. But that guy created such a stir downstairs [with the other employees]. Now it’s no longer a surprise anymore because we do it so much. But we created a new conditioning. [Employees now say to themselves], ‘If I do a great job, something great could happen at any moment.’”
Overcoming Difficult Times
This is a glimpse into the motivational, positive-thinking, laser-like focused world of Tony Robbins. This 6-foot-7-inch giant of the leadership and motivational world has been advising world and corporate leaders for more than 20 years about how to overcome obstacles and get the most out of themselves and their staffs. He’s a best-selling author of five books in 14 languages, including one that put him on the business-school map: Awaken The Giant Within. He’s also produced and authored a variety of audiotape series, including Personal Power, which has sold more than 35 million copies.
Robbins is also one of the most renowned speakers in the world. He has been honored by ToastMasters International with its coveted Golden Gavel Award, as one of the world’s greatest speakers, and he was named by Accenture as one of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World.” And in January, Robbins, 48, will be the keynote speaker at The ASI Show in Orlando.
These days, Robbins is mostly speaking about how companies and individuals can overcome a global economic slump and still perform at peak levels. In an interview in July on the Today Show, Robbins likened today’s economic situation to the environment surrounding America following 9/11. That day, he was giving a seminar to 2,500 people in Hawaii, and was awakened by a phone call with the news in New York at 3 a.m. local Hawaiian time. “You saw people’s emotional fitness that day,” he said. “People who get angry, got angry. People who are emotional, got emotional. You have to know your emotional pattern in times of trouble. You have to condition the emotion you need to overcome a crisis. Right now, you need some creativity and determination. Those are the emotions to take you over the hump.”
Of course, a hard dose of acceptance also goes a long way toward overcoming any problems in your business. Robbins believes people have two choices when they’re in a crisis: duck for cover and hope for the best or face the challenges head on. Um, you can probably imagine which option this preacher of positive thinking espouses. “Choosing the latter gives you a chance to not only survive these hard times, but also turn what seems like a futile situation into opportunities for growth and success,” he says.
“So I say, don’t just survive – thrive.”
“Education is the key,” he says. “Show your team how to take advantage of periods where everyone else is scurrying for cover. Don’t kid yourself with ‘thinking positive.’ We all need to face the facts of these challenging times, but we have a choice to not see our current situation as worse than it actually is. Every season has challenges, but every season also has opportunities. By recognizing the season, you’ll be able to take advantage while other people are fearful.”
As far as planning for 2009 and making sure that companies start off on the right foot – especially during a time of financial crisis – Robbins shares a strategy that he says has always worked for his company. At the end of every year, he sits down with his top managers and together they detail and debrief the previous 12 months. They ask themselves some difficult, yet important questions: What were some of the most significant results we achieved as an organization? What worked? What was great? What were the most important decisions we made as a team? What decisions did we fail to make? What were our biggest successes as a team? What are some of the best assets to the company going forward? What are some of the liabilities? What are the opportunities? What is your vision specifically for the next 12 months?
“Then from that place, you can define the most important decisions you need to make for the following year,” he says. “This way, you set yourself and your team up to win by getting a clear plan in place. And that’s important because the person who has the most power is the person who is able to anticipate. Pattern recognition is power. That’s how you anticipate.”
Traits of Great Leaders
Robbins would like to dispel two myths that bother him: the ideas that good leaders are either born or made. He says that both of those approaches leave out the reality that leadership can be learned and implemented by anyone. “While it is certainly true that some people have personality traits that lend toward a more natural inclination to lead, a parent leads just as much as a manager leads,” he says. “So leadership really boils down to the ability to significantly influence the thoughts, feelings and actions of those you lead.”
A great leader according to Robbins is somebody who doesn’t just create change, but creates what he calls “progress.” They make things happen. They move things from an undesired state to a desired state. They create new possibilities and results. To do this, though, good leaders have a clear vision that shows exactly where they want to take an organization.
“First, you’ve got to start with a vision that inspires both you and the members of your company,” he says. “The first step in developing a plan and vision is to be clear about where you are today – not a month ago – and where you want to go in the future. You need to resolve what you’re committed to becoming as an enterprise.”
Robbins suggests that all good corporate leaders can clearly evaluate their standing in their marketplace. They can answer these questions: What’s your brand? Who are you in the eyes of your customers? What do you really deliver in their eyes? And they can clearly communicate the answers to those questions to their staffs on a regular basis. That’s how you create a vision for your company, and give people goals that they can easily understand.
“Success is no accident in any environment,” Robbins says. “Those who consistently succeed aren’t lucky. So it’s a leader’s role to understand what steps his team needs to take to execute the company’s mission successfully and outline those steps clearly for them. Create a roadmap. The great football coach Vince Lombardi once said, ‘They call it coaching, but it’s teaching. You do not just tell them…you show them the reasons.’ I think that’s true for managers as well.”
Motivation Matters
For good leaders, though, there is no success without the proper level of employee motivation. Robbins points to three different types of motivational strategies that companies can employ: fear, economic incentive, and using a sense of personal development.
For those that use fear as their motivational tactic of choice, Robbins has a warning. “The problem with fear is that it’s always a short-term motivator,” he says. “It’s like pain. It gets people’s attention for the moment, but it never lasts because they eventually just adjust to the pain and go into learned helplessness, which is completely undesirable.”
Yes, helplessness as a result of a motivational program is never a good thing. But Robbins believes that economic motivators can be just as harmful to a company’s employee motivation strategies. “The problem with using money, trips, cash, earn-outs, or options is that when they get earned, the carrot is gone,” he says. “So you might say, ‘Well then, I’ll put out another carrot.’ Ultimately, that’s bribery, not motivation. And the problem is that you can’t keep raising the stakes. There are limits to what an organization can offer. Also, some people are much more motivated by other forces, so you can’t assume that everybody is driven by money. You may have to appeal to something that they value more.”
That’s where instilling a sense of personal development can help to develop the proper level of motivation for any company. Robbins suggests that good managers help to create an environment that employees can thrive in, where they know what’s expected of them and they can contribute to the overall goals of the organization.
“That may be one of the biggest challenges in your business,” he says. “A lot of your people may not think that there’s huge growth for them in the company—emotionally or psychologically, or whatever the case may be. If you can bring that to the table, people show up. They need to feel like it’s their mission. If they feel emotionally associated to the vision, they feel like they are personally making a difference. That’s when the level of effort they put out is so far beyond whatever you could get from just bonuses.”
For employees to actually feel attached to the company, though, they need to have clear goals. They need a roadmap, as Robbins says, that shows them exactly what they need to succeed and how they can achieve their goals. Robbins cites a salesperson as an example. If you decide you’re going to sell a hundred units per week, then you have to determine exactly how many calls you need to make and how many meetings you need to have to achieve that goal. It’s a numbers game, he says, but managers and salespeople can’t know how to win the game if they don’t know what it takes to win the game.
“Once you’ve focused on a vision, you’ve got to have a game plan to break it down,” Robbins says. “Focus is power. As a manager, you need to empower your team with the focus, training and accountability required to perform at their best.”
Andy Cohen is editor of Counselor.
| Tony Robbins Live |
Want to feel the power of being motivated by Tony Robbins? The man who has made a habit of using firewalking as part of his live presentations is coming to The ASI Show in Orlando. He’ll be delivering a memorable keynote speech to ASI Orlando attendees on Monday, January 5, from 7:30am to 9:30am. Reserve your space now – seating is limited – by going to www.asishow.com.
|
No Ducks Allowed
By Andy Cohen
Leadership secrets according to Ken Blanchard, the author of The One Minute Manager.
If there is one animal that Ken Blanchard can’t stand, it’s the duck. He doesn’t really have anything against ducks themselves, but it’s the way they get in line with each other that bothers him. It’s how they simply quack along and follow the leader no matter what obstacle is thrown their way. It’s their absolute inability to think outside of themselves.
Okay, really, this isn’t meant to destroy the simplicity of the duck. But what annoys Blanchard is the duck mentality he sees in so many workplaces. “Too many workers just quack along with what goes on around them,” Blanchard told Counselor in an exclusive interview. “They can’t adapt to any changes because they’re constantly worried about sticking to the way things have always been done. Good leaders need to get their employees out of this mentality at all costs.”
Blanchard is a business management expert and consultant who has imparted his wisdom on millions of people in Corporate America. He published his first book, Management and Organizational Behavior, nearly 40 years ago. And his 1981 best-seller, The One Minute Manager, has sold more than 12 million copies, including more than 300,000 copies per year even today. His latest book, Leading at a Higher Level, was published last year.
The message of this newest book: Profits shouldn’t be the be-all end-all to determine management success. “Leading at a higher level means that managers are leading their companies with a different emphasis from day to day,” Blanchard says. “We’re in desperate need today of a different leadership model, one that doesn’t focus solely on profits. If you do other things right, profits will follow. But when whole organizations are focused just on profit success, then nobody is motivated every day to do the right thing.”
Leadership Secrets
When Blanchard isn’t authoring best-sellers and speaking to large corporate audiences, he’s running The Ken Blanchard Cos., an international management, training and consulting firm based in San Diego that employs more than 300 people and posted revenues of more than $55 million last year. Blanchard holds the title of Chief Spiritual Officer, but his leadership fingerprints – and name, of course – are all over the place.
This is a man who truly believes in listening to his employees. Following 9/11, Blanchard’s company fell on some hard times. In fact, he says, the company’s profits were hit hard – the company lost more than a million dollars in the ensuing month alone. However, Blanchard didn’t lay off a single staffer. Instead, he laid out the financial situation to his employees, and then he did what so many managers are loath to do. He asked for input. He wanted employees to propose ideas on places in the company budget that could fall victim to the scalpel. “We had to cut more than $300,000 per month to get back to the black,” Blanchard says. “I didn’t want to let anybody go, so we looked for other alternatives.”
The company ended up cutting some salaries, putting a temporary halt to matching 401(k) investments, and putting a freeze on replacing employees who voluntarily left. The company quickly came back to its normal profitable operations, and today is expanding each quarter. “No good leader should be making important decisions without listening to the input of his people,” Blanchard says. “Those people are the ones impacted the most by difficult decisions, so why wouldn’t you listen intently to their perspectives?”
While Blanchard says the ability to listen is commonplace in all effective leaders, he also points to the importance of setting clear goals and a vision for the organization. Every manager should ask themselves this question on a regular basis: What are we trying to accomplish here?
It’s a simple concept, Blanchard says, but so many executives he speaks to can’t answer it in a simple way. “This is something that you should be able to have a quick and easy answer to,” he says. “And you should be communicating it to your employees on a regular basis. They have to know where they fit in with the vision of the company.”
Blanchard believes many leaders go wrong in not setting clear goals that fit into the vision they’ve created. Employee goals have to connect with the overall company’s goals, or there will be a vast disconnect between what employees need to do and what the company needs them to do. “If employees don’t feel that their work is connected to the overall goals and success of the company, then they won’t be properly motivated to reach their goals,” Blanchard says. “These have to be connected, and those connections have to be regularly communicated.”
Entrepreneur’s Roadmap
In one of his newest books, The One Minute Entrepreneur, Blanchard provides a clear roadmap for people looking to start up their own business. To him, it’s a four-step process. “It’s all about the four Ps,” he says. “Passion, profit, people and priorities.”
First, every good entrepreneur needs to have a passion for what they’re doing. Who are the people that confound Blanchard? The ones who start a business with a subject matter that doesn’t truly interest them. “You have to love what you’re doing,” he says. “Entrepreneurs simply have to be fully vested in what they’re trying to sell. It’s hard to start a business. You can’t also be spending time teaching yourself to love what you’re selling. If you don’t love it, then how can you possibly convince customers to pay you for it?”
And that leads precisely into his second P – profits. “You have to find somebody to pay you for that passion,” Blanchard says. “Otherwise, all you have is a hobby.”
Following the ability to get people to pay for your passion, Blanchard cites people as the next most important area for successful entrepreneurs. Once an organization grows past the point of a one-person show, the leader needs to identify new hires who properly fit into the corporate culture. It’s not good enough to hire people and give them tasks to do. The key for entrepreneurs is finding people to hire who are entrepreneurial in their own ways. “You need self-starters, people who will tackle tasks without being asked to do them,” he says. “I see so many entrepreneurs fail because they’ve grown their company to the point of hiring employees and then they delegate responsibilities to people who don’t really want to be responsible. Your first hires have to be people who can create new ways for the company to grow. You can’t have all of the growth ideas.”
Lastly, Blanchard is a firm believer in work-life balance. Good entrepreneurs have to know the boundaries between their personal and professional lives – in other words, have a passion for what you do, but don’t let it overtake the other parts of your life.
“You can’t win the world and lose your life at the same time. What kind of reward would that be?” Blanchard says. “Work hard to make your company a success, but never forget about priorities and balance.”
Andy Cohen is editor of Counselor.
| Ken Blanchard On Video |
Want to hear some more management advice from Ken Blanchard? Check out this video. Counselor Editor Andy Cohen sat down with him to ask him for leadership
and entrepreneurial secrets. Go to
www.asicentral.com/videos to watch the interview. |