100 Ways to Motivate Others : How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy

just focusing on that
puts
them in a bad mood. People grimly, glumly, confront with
a kind of morbid honesty, what’s wrong. And the voice
tones go down, because the enthusiasm goes down, and
the dreariness sets in. And pretty soon, they’re putting off
activities. They’re procrastinating. They’re saying, “This
makes me uncomfortable. I don’t even like thinking about
this right now. For some reason (I don’t know why, I was
in a good mood before I started...), I’m not in the mood to
work on this. I can tell that I can’t work on this problem
until I feel a little more energy. I mean, you can’t work on
something when there’s no energy to work.”
We went into a computer company and listened as the
manager, Matt, talked about his team.
“I wish my salespeople would do more research be-
fore their sales calls,” Matt said.
And then when we sat down with one of Matt’s sales-
people, Byron, he said, “Yeah, that’s something I’m not
very good at.”
“Okay, you’re not very good at that. So let’s move on.”
“No, no, I need to fix that,” said Byron. “That’s some-
thing that needs to be fixed. I need to get better. Why
don’t you coach me? How do I get better at that?”
And we could hear his low voice tone. We knew Byron
would never get better at that because of the negative
mindset the very subject put him in.
To really take something on and to grow and strengthen
it, people need to be in an upbeat, positive mood. People
need to have energy. That’s when they’re at their best.
Know Your People’s Strengths

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/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
“So, when will my people have energy?” manager Matt
asked us after we explained the concept of moods to him.
“They get energy when they think about the things
they’re really good at in sales. Have them ask themselves,
‘What am I really good at? What are my strengths?’ The
minute they start focusing on those things, their energy
will pick up. Their self-esteem will pick up. Their enthusi-
asm will pick up.”
That’s where the fastest infusion of productivity al-
ways comes from. First, you find what this person is good
at, and then you move good to great.
When we worked with Matt’s salesperson Byron, we
said, “Okay, Byron, forget about your weaknesses, forget
about what you’re not good at. That’s probably all you’ve
been thinking about for a few months, right?”
“Right,” said Byron. “You know, my manager coun-
sels me on it. I’ve had things written up about it. I’ve been
given activities to do to correct it. But the problem is, I
just go deeper, and I don’t produce.”
“Listen, Byron, set those activities aside. Forget about
all the problems that need to be fixed. We’re not going to
fix anything for now. We want an infusion, we want a stimu-
lus. We want a burst of sales to take you out of the cellar
and put you up there where you belong in the upper
rankings of the salespeople. Later, when we have the luxury,
and we’re bored, and we can’t figure out what to do in
coaching sessions, we may take a weakness and play around
with it, for the pure fun of it. But for now, we’re not going
to do it. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to
acknowledge one thing: You’re 
not going to be great at any-
thing until you enjoy it.
We want to find out what you’re
already good at, and we want to build on that.”

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“Well, one of my strengths is in-person,” said Byron.
“I love to be in-person. I’m bad on the phone, I’m bad
with faxes, I’m bad with e-mail. But in-person, I can just
close deals, I can talk, I can expand, I can upsell, I can
cross-sell....”
“Okay, great. So rather than fix the phone thing and
fix the e-mail thing, let’s leave those aside for the moment.
Only use them if you must to get an appointment. Don’t
use them to sell anything. We want to increase what you’re
good at. Get out there, sit with people. Keep increasing
that and get even better at it. Don’t say ‘I’m already good
at it, and that’s that.’ Of course you’re good at it. But the
way you’re going to be really tremendous in this field is to
turn good into great, to get 
great
at that thing, because
you’re more than two-thirds of the way there. Because
you’re already good at it.”
What we wanted to steer Byron away from is this
thought: “Well, I’m already good at it, that’s sort of natu-
ral, that comes easy to me. That’s sort of cheating when I
do a lot of that. What I really need to do is work at what
I’m bad at.”
To be great motivators, we need to look at human be-
havior differently. We’ve been taught the wrong way since
we were young! If we got an A in science, but we flunked
English, our parents said, “Hey, I don’t care about your
other grades, what you really need to do is work hard on
your English, because you flunked it. So you’re going to
focus your life on English for a while.”
All of our lives, we’ve been taught that the way to suc-
ceed is to take something that you’re not good at and
change it. Take your weaknesses and spend time with them
so that you can bring your weaknesses up to “normal.”