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

do so much 
by constantly giving their internal
and external clients beneficial things—helpful information,
offers of service, respect for their time, support for their
success, cheerful friendly encounters, sincere acknowledg-
ments, the inside scoop—giving, giving, giving all day long,
always putting the client’s wants and needs first. They al-
ways ask the best questions and always listen better than
Tell the Truth Quickly

---

44
/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
anyone else listens. As that commitment grows and ex-
pands, and those gifts of attention are lavished on each
client in creative and ongoing communications, that sales-
person becomes a world-level expert in client psychology
and buying behavior. And that salesperson also realizes
that such a dizzying level of expertise can only be acquired
through massive benefit-based interaction!
A new week begins, and this thought occurs: “There’s
so
much good I can do, I just can’t wait.”
14. Don’t Confuse Stressing Out
With Caring
Stress, in addition to being itself and the result of itself,
is also the cause of itself.
—Hans Selye, Psychologist
Most managers try double negatives as a way to moti-
vate others. First, they intentionally upset themselves over
the prospect of 
not
reaching their goals, and then they use
the upset as negative energy to fire up the team.
It doesn’t work.
Stressing out
over our team’s goals is not the same as
caring about them. Stressing out is not a useful form of
motivation.
No performer, when tense, or stressed, performs well.
No leader does. No salesperson. No athlete. No fund-raiser.
No field-goal kicker. No free-throw shooter. No parent.
A stressed-out, tense performer only has access to a
small percent of his brain. If your favorite team is playing,

---

/
45
do you want a tense, stressed-out person shooting a free
throw, or kicking a long field goal in the last moments of
the game? Or would you rather see a confident, calm player
step up to the challenge?
Most people stress themselves out as a form (or a show)
of “really caring” about hitting some goal. But it’s not car-
ing, it’s stressing out. Stressing out makes one perform
worse. True caring makes one perform better. That’s why
it’s vital for a leader to know the difference. The two
couldn’t be more different.
Caring is relaxing, focusing, and calling on 
all
of your
resources, all of that relaxed magic, all of that lazy dyna-
mite you bring to bear when you pay full attention with
peace of mind. No one performs better than when he or
she is relaxed and focused.
“Stress is basically a disconnection from the Earth,”
says the great creativity teacher Natalie Goldberg. “It’s a
forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It be-
lieves that everything is an emergency.”
It is not necessary to stress that way. Leadership suc-
cess comes from knowing to focus and remain focused.
Anything you pay attention to will expand.
So don’t spend your attention any old place. Spend it
where you want the greatest results: in clients, customers,
money, whatever. In a relaxed and happy way, you can be
undivided and peaceful and powerful. You can succeed.
15. Manage Your Own Superiors
There is no such thing as constructive criticism.
—Dale Carnegie
Manage Your Own Superiors

---

46
/ 100 Ways to Motivate Others
Jean was an administrator in a large hospital system
with which we were working. She welcomed the coaching
work we were doing but had a pressing question about her
own leadership.
“We have had a lot of different bosses to report to,”
Jean said. “It seems that just when we’re used to working
for a certain CEO, the hospital brings in someone new.”
“What exactly is the problem with that?” we asked.
“Well, with so many changes in leadership over the years,”
Jean asked, “how do we develop trust in the process?”
“By trusting the process. Trust is not the same as veri-
fication. Trust risks something. And it is not necessarily
bad or good that leadership changes. The question is, can
you teach yourself to live and work peacefully with the
change? It’s not whether it has changed so much, but
rather this: What are you going to do to capitalize on the
change?”
“What if we don’t like the leadership now?” she pressed
on.
“What don’t you like?”
“We get mixed messages from them!” Jean said. “And
how can you keep asking us to take ownership when we
get mixed messages from senior management?”
“Every large organization we have ever worked with
has had to confront, in varying degrees, this issue of ‘mixed
messages.’ Mixed messages happen because people are only
human and it’s hard to coordinate a lot of energetic, cre-
ative people to present themselves as one narrow message.”
“I agree,” said Jean. “But it’s a challenge.”
“It’s a challenge that must be dealt with. But it is not
necessary to use it as a source of defeat or depression. It’s

---

/
47
a challenge. We have often seen the ‘message from the top’
become more coherent and unified when the request for
unity ‘from below’ becomes more benevolent and creative.”
“You’re saying I should manage 
them
a little better,”
Jean said.
“Exactly.”
“With the key words being ‘benevolent’ and ‘creative’?”
“Those would be the key words.”
16. Put Your Hose Away