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

part of your history. You can’t make it go away. However,
over time, if you choose to, you can simply defuse and
dismiss it and go another way. You can follow another
path so that the memory loses all its power over you.
When leaders are bold and decisive throughout the
day, they often make mistakes and bad calls. It’s part of
being in action. It’s a big part of courage. George Patton
used to say that an average plan executed 
right now
is far
more effective than a great plan that takes a long time to
decide to put into action.
A hands-off leader can just release a mistake and let
go of it. And while it doesn’t disappear, it simply becomes
old news. It’s this letting go of the need to “overcome”

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Sample Chapter 1: “Taking Your Power Back”
things that happened in the past that leads to becoming
truly powerful.
The Greek word 
metanoeo
is translated as 
repent
in the
English New Testaments, and W.E. Vine’s Dictionary says
metanoeo
literally means “to perceive afterwards.” There-
fore, it means to take another look, and to change one’s mind
or purpose, and it always involves a change for the better.
So
repent
then means nothing more than “turn and go
another way.” Although some traditions have been trying
to teach us that if you’ve done something wrong you should
punish yourself, feel remorse, and burden yourself with
your shameful behavior, what the literal translation really
wanted you to do was just turn away from it and take a
newer, better direction in your thinking.
When I reflect on my recovery from addiction years
ago I realize I didn’t really “overcome” my addiction. I
simply took another path. I repented, in the truer, deeper
meaning of the word. I realize too that if I were to get
back on the path of alcohol and drugs I’d have the same
problems all over again. The code is there in my brain for
addictive drinking. So if I started drinking again, it would
be addictive. And it doesn’t matter whether the code came
from repetitive use or genetics, it’s there. So I just don’t
go there. The process is to not go there. To replace the
false spirit of drugs with true spirit.
I know from my personal experience that “overcoming”
truly doesn’t work. It doesn’t have any track record of work-
ing in the workplace either. And when you hear people who
are newly happy with their jobs now, they say, “I’ve moved
on. I’ve just moved on.” They don’t say, “Well, I was able to
come to grips with it, wrestle with it, overcome it, conquer it,
defeat it.” No one who is now truly free of a problem such as

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Steve Chandler and Duane Black’s 
The Hands-Off Manager
addiction says, “I was able to overcome, defeat my alcohol-
ism, and it lies in a heap and I am victorious over it.” They
just say, “I’ve moved on. I’ve accepted my powerlessness and
taken another path. It’s not a part of my life. I’ve chosen a
different way, a different form of spirit than alcohol was.”
Carl Jung said, “People do not solve their psychologi-
cal problems, in my experience. They outgrow them. They
grow in a different direction and just leave them in their
history.” This is what the process of 
allowing success 
is all
about. It’s the heart and soul of hands-off management. It’s
considered a revolutionary form of management because
it breaks all the old codes of manipulation and mistrust.
Some therapists often say, “In order to move on, you
must reenact a conversation you had with your antagonist
all over again and resolve that memory that’s inside you.”
But that’s just giving more strength to the story. And we
are looking to free you from your stories. Micromanagers
in the workplace do the same dysfunctional thing those
therapists do. They relive breakdowns and mistakes and
go over and over them, making people wrong all day long.
Why not just leave it there and move on? Release its
power over you. See it in a different light, so that you can
focus on your natural talents, your God-given gifts, and
bring the best of who you are to the surface.
The hands-off manager uses this principle to not carry
grudges; he meets with every person in the workplace with
equal trust and understanding. The past is nonexistent.
Most micromanagers in old-school organizations to-
day immediately think that when things feel wrong, they
have to