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

Teach Self-Discipline

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/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Listen to how people get this so wrong:
“He would be my top salesperson if he had any self-
discipline at all,” a company leader recently said. “But he
has none.”
Not true. He has as much self-discipline as anyone else
does; he just hasn’t chosen to use it yet. Just as we all have
as many Spanish words to draw upon as anyone else.
It is true that the more often I choose to go to my little
dictionary and use the words, the easier it becomes to use
Spanish. If I go enough times to the book, and practice
enough words and phrases, it gets so easy to speak Spanish
that it seems as if it’s part of my nature, like it’s something
I “have” inside me. Just like golf looks as if it comes natu-
rally to Tiger Woods.
Self-discipline is the same.
If the person you lead truly understood that self-discipline
is something one 
uses
, not something one has, then that
person could use it to accomplish virtually any goal he or
she ever set. That person could use it whenever he wanted,
or leave it behind whenever he wanted.
Instead, people worry. They worry about whether
they’ve got what it takes. Whether it’s “in” them. Whether
their parents and guardians put it there. (Some think it’s
put there experientially; some think it’s put there geneti-
cally. It’s neither. It’s never put “in” there at all. It’s a 
tool
that anyone can use. Like a hammer. Like a dictionary.)
Enlightened leaders get more out of their people be-
cause they know that each of their people already has ev-
erything it takes to be successful. They don’t buy the
excuses, the apologies, and the sad fatalism that most non-
performers skillfully sell to their managers. They just don’t
buy in.

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3. Tune In Before
You Turn On
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let
them surprise you with their results.
—George S. Patton
You can’t motivate someone who can’t hear you.
If what you’re saying is bouncing off their psychologi-
cal armor, it makes little difference how good you are at
saying it. You are not being heard. Your people have to
hear you to be moved by you.
In order for someone to hear you, 
she must first be
heard.
It doesn’t work the other way around. It doesn’t
work when you always go first because your employee must
first appreciate that you are on her wavelength and under-
stand her thinking completely.
We were working with a financial services CEO named
Lance who had difficulties with his four-woman major ac-
count team. They didn’t care for him and didn’t trust him,
and they dreaded every meeting with him because he would
go over their shortcomings.
Lance was at his wit’s end and asked for coaching.
“Meet with each of them one at a time,” we advised.
“What do I say?”
“Say nothing. Just listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“The person across from you.”
“What’s my agenda?”
“No agenda.”
Tune In Before You Turn On

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/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
“What do I ask them?”
“
How is life? How is life for you in this company? What
would you change?
”
“Then what?”
“Then just listen.”
“I don’t know if I could do that.”
The source of his major account team’s low morale
had just been identified. The rest was up to Lance.
4. Be the Cause, Not the Effect