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

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
—Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize–Scientist
When you listen to another person during a meeting
or in a one-on-one, one of the best things you can do is to
stop disagreeing.
In other words, listen for the value in what someone
has to say; don’t listen for whether you agree with them,
because every time you disagree with one of your employ-
ees, you throw them off balance and put them in a worse
mood than they were before.

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If I disagree with you, what will you do? You will defend
yourself. Won’t you? All humans do. And you are human. So
you go on the defensive. You don’t just say, “Oh, okay,
yeah, I see your point of view. Yes sir, you’re right, and I
was wrong, and so that’s good. I’m in a better mood now.
What else do you disagree with?” That won’t happen.
If you’re going to disagree with someone, accept the
consequences.
The main consequence: you’ve lowered that person’s
mood. And the consequence of putting someone in a low
mood? That person’s not going to do a very motivated
job. People do not do well when they’re in a low mood.
Their energy goes away.
However, if you were to start listening for the value in
what people had to say, instead of whether you disagreed
with them, their moods would still be good as you talked.
In fact, by listening for the value in everyone in the team
meeting instead of listening for whether you agree, the mood
of the whole room will rise. You can influence an entire
team meeting by having it be your personal policy as a leader
to always listen for the value in what someone has to say.
Most managers don’t do that. Most managers let some-
one talk, and then say, “No, that’s not right. I don’t agree
with that.”
Then they wonder why their employees now feel un-
dervalued. But it was the manager’s obsession with dis-
agreement that made the employee feel undervalued.
How does making someone feel stupid make someone
ready to be more motivated? Does anyone ever think,
“Okay, you’ve made me feel stupid, I’m really ready to
work hard now. I’m feelin’ stupid, let’s go!”
Phase Out Disagreement

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/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Most managers tell us, “Well, if I disagree, I disagree.
All I’m doing is disagreeing.”
Okay, but every time you disagree, you’re going to
challenge somebody and make them feel stupid, and that’s
the consequence. Sometimes you 
have
to disagree. But
the less you do, the better the team will be for you. The
more motivated your people will be.
63. Keep Learning
Leaders grow; they are not made.
—Peter F. Drucker
Stay on your learning curve. And let your people see
you learning. Don’t show them a “know-it-all” attitude all
the time.
Let them know that you are a work in progress. That
will make it easier for them to approach you with good ideas.
Most managers are so insecure in their role that they
continuously try to look like they know more than every-
one else. They never go to seminars. They scorn the latest
book on management theory. But this attitude is actually
demoralizing to their followers.
We all can learn something new about our profession
every day. Little by little, we can add to our knowledge
base, and that increases our professional strength and ca-
pacity to help others.

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64. Learn What Leadership Is Not
The great leaders are like the best conductors—they reach beyond