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

As you enter positions of trust and power,
dream a little before you think.
—Toni Morrison, Author
Don’t you wish you could just 
ask
your superiors to
help your team do certain things? It would make leader-
ship much simpler if it could become a matter of requests
and promises and follow-through action. It can.
It will help you to know, before you ask, that everyone
(your superiors, your customers, your employees) really
wants to say yes.
We once took a seminar on communication, and one
of the exercises they gave us was designed to dramatize
the fact that most people really want to say yes.
So they gave us an assignment over a long dinner break
to go out and make three unreasonable requests to see if
we could get people to say no. That was the assignment:
you
had to 
get three “no” responses before you came back.

---

/
187
And we thought it would be simple. After Scott fin-
ished dinner, he went over to a lady at the next table and
said, “You know, ma’am, I’m completely out of money,
would you mind paying for my meal?”
He figured that was a pretty unreasonable request and
he was sure she’d say, “Get lost.”
And he was stunned when she didn’t say that.
“Well, I’m not sure I have enough money to cover
that right now,” she said, so Scott began coaching her to
say no.
“Oh that’s okay, just asking. You can say no.”
And she wouldn’t say no! She said, “Well, I’m not
sure....”
“In other words, ‘no’?”
“Well, I guess not. No.”
“Thanks!”
Scott had to work very hard just to get her to say no.
Then when Scott walked over to the cashier to pay for the
meal, there was a man who was waiting there and Scott
thought,
No problem. I’ll get a quick “No” from him.
“You know, I’m a little short on cash,” Scott said.
“Would you just have the restaurant cover my bill?”
“Well, I’m not sure. What’s this about?”
“Well, you can say no.”
It took him quite awhile (soon Scott was begging him
for a no), but he finally got him to say no.
Two down, one to go. So Scott turned to the lady right
next to him and said, “How about you? Would you pick
up my bill?”
She had just heard what went on, so it didn’t look like
it would be too hard! But it was. And after a very long
Don’t Be Afraid to Make Requests

---

188
/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
negotiation, after she was quite willing to pay for his meal,
she said no.
That one exercise taught us a lot. People all want to
say yes.
So now, whenever we have a project that we want to
create, we feel free inside to go out there and start asking
people for a “yes.” We don’t have any fear or hesitancy in
making what most people would call “unreasonable re-
quests.” Because we know from experience (after having
it verified many times over) that people’s natural tendency
is to want to say yes.
So ask for what you want, both up and down the peck-
ing order. If your team needs something from the higher-
ups, go ask for it. When you get their yes answers, bring in
good news for your team about what the top people are
agreeing to do to move things forward. You’ll be teaching
them the power of requests.
87. Don’t Change Yourself
It takes a tremendous act of courage to admit to yourself that you
are not defective in any way whatsoever.
—Cheri Huber, Author/Zen Philosopher
You don’t need to change!
A lot of people who hear our talks or read our books
contact us for coaching, saying, “I really need to make a
change. I need to totally change my life. I have been an
unconscious, bossy, paranoid manager and I’m ready to
learn to be a leader.”

---

/
189
We tell them what we tell everyone: You don’t need to
totally “change.”
All you need is a gentle shift.
To get your sports car to send itself into a smoother,
faster gear, do you need to take out the gearbox and put in
a new one? Or do you simply need to shift gears? When
you do shift gears, is it hard to do? Hard, like changing a
tire? Or do you just slide into it?
For your mind to take you to the next level of leader-
ship performance, all you need to do is shift gears. You
don’t need to replace your gearbox.
Just shift. And then zoom. Zoom. Just like that.
Do you need to change your attitude? How? Why?
What is an attitude anyway? How do you change it?