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

motivation of recreation
and bring
it to the workplace,” Chuck says. “The motivation of rec-
reation includes feedback, scorekeeping, goal-setting, con-
sistent coaching, and personal choice.”
22. Know Your Purpose
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should
not be done at all.
—Peter F. Drucker

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It is hard to motivate others if you don’t have time to
talk to them. There are fewer discouraging sights than a
human chicken running around with his head cut off—
and not enough time to find it.
Managers whose teams are not performing up to ex-
pectations are simply doing ineffective things all day.
Rather than stopping and deciding what would be the right
thing to do, they do the wrong things faster and faster.
Then they stress out over the “workload.” (There is no
“workload” to worry about if you are doing the right thing.
There is only that thing.)
And as corporate time-management specialist David
Allen says of today’s busy leaders: “You have more to do
than you can possibly do. You just need to feel good about
your choices.”
Multitasking is the greatest myth in modern-day busi-
ness. The thinking part of the brain itself does not multitask,
and so people do not really multitask. The human system
is not set up that way. The brain experiences and holds
only one thought at a time.
Managers often 
think
they are multitasking, but they
are really just doing one thing badly and then quickly mov-
ing to another thing, doing 
it
badly and quickly. Soon
they’re preoccupied with all the tasks they’ve touched but
left incomplete.
Business efficiency expert Kerry Gleeson said, “The
constant, unproductive preoccupation with all the things
we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and
energy.” Not the things we do, the things we think we still
have to do.
People who find the joy in leadership find ways to re-
lax into an extremely purposeful day, goal-oriented and
Know Your Purpose

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focused on the highest-priority activity. They relax into
every given moment. Sure they get distracted, and sure,
people call them and “problems” come up. But they know
what to return to. Because they know their purpose. Be-
cause they chose it.
That’s the kind of leader that is admired and followed.
23. See What’s Possible
Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem
of their personnel. If people believe in themselves,
it’s amazing what they can accomplish.
—Sam Walton
One of the best ways to motivate others is to learn
from those who have motivated 
you
. Learn from the great
leaders you have had. Channel them, clone them, and in-
corporate them into who you are all day.
Scott Richardson recalls: “The most effective, inspi-
rational motivator that I ever had was a violin prodigy who
was my violin teacher.”
That teacher was an associate professor of music at
the University of Arizona named Rodney Mercado. I met
him when I was 16 and ready to quit the violin. My mother,
who desperately wanted me to be a violin player said, “Hang
on, I’ll find you the best teacher out there.”
I was skeptical. But one day, she came in and said to
me, “I found him; he’s the teacher of your teacher.”
The first time I met him, I had to audition for him. I’d
never had to audition for a teacher before. Usually you’d

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just pay the money, and they took you. But Professor
Mercado chose his students carefully, just as a great leader
chooses his team.
And I did the absolutely worst audition I’d ever done
in my life! I thought, “Well, that sealed it. I don’t have to
worry about having him for my teacher.”
Soon after, he called me on the phone and said, “I’ve
accepted you.”
And I thought, “There must be some mistake, this can’t
be true. I mean, my playing was so horrible, I couldn’t
imagine anyone accepting me based on that audition.”
But he had the ability to see what was possible in other
people. If anyone else had heard my audition, he would
have said that it was hopeless. But he heard more than the
playing. He heard the possibility behind the playing.
And in that, he was a profoundly great coach and leader,
because one of the most vital aspects of motivating others
is the ability to see what’s possible instead of just seeing
what’s happening now.
Ever since that time, I’ve learned not to give up on
people too quickly. I’ve learned to look deeply and listen
deeply. Soon, skills and strengths I never saw before in
people would show up.
I learned that people perform in response to 
who they
think they are for us
at the moment. In other words, 
how
they think we see them
is how they perform for us; there-
fore, if we can create a new possibility for them, and com-
municate that to them, their performance instantly takes
off.
Professor Mercado showed me another example of the
power of communicating possibility when he was teaching
See What’s Possible

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a boy named Michael, who later became a good friend of
mine.
Michael was unusual. When he was in junior high, as
far as I could guess, he had never ever cut his long black
hair because it was longer than his sister’s, which was down
below her belt. And Michael always kept his hair in front
of his face, so you actually couldn’t see what he looked
like. And he never spoke a word in public.
His parents asked Professor Mercado if he would be
willing to teach Michael the violin. Mercado agreed and
they had lessons, but as far as any outsider could tell, it
was strictly a one-way communication. Michael never re-
sponded outwardly. He never even picked up the violin!
Yet Mercado continued to teach him, week after week.
And then one day, when he was in 8th grade, Michael
picked up the violin and started playing. And in less than
a month, he was asked to solo in front of the Tucson
Symphony!
I could see for myself that this happened because Pro-
fessor Mercado communicated to Michael (without any
outward acknowledgment that communication was being
received) that who Michael was (for Professor Mercado)
was a virtuoso violinist. He communicated possibility.
So I have always remembered from this experience
that people’s performance is a response to who they per-
ceive themselves to be for us at the moment. Once we
create a new possibility for those around us, and commu-
nicate to them that this new possibility is who they are for
us, their performance instantly takes off.
There’s no better way to motivate another human being.

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24. Enjoy the A.R.T. of
Confrontation
To command is to serve, nothing more, and nothing less.
—André Malraux, French Philosopher
One of the tricks we teach to inspire increased moti-
vation in others is what we call “The A.R.T. of Confronta-
tion.” It shows leaders how to enjoy holding people
accountable.
Most managers think it’s impossible to 
enjoy
holding
people accountable. They think it’s the hard part of being
a manager. They think it’s one of the downsides—a neces-
sary evil associated with the burden of command.
Therefore you can see why they don’t do a very good
job of holding people accountable.
Fortunately, there
 is
an enjoyable way to do it.
When you need to speak to an employee about a be-
havior or a performance level that is not working for you,
experiment with using this A.R.T: