Pushing up People

by Art Williams

I’ve found, from my experience, that the thing people dislike most about their jobs is working for someone else.

only possible if your people are totally convinced that you are 100 percent for them, all the time, and will take a stand to prove it.

Being right isn’t good enough; your people must feel and believe that you’re right.

It would have been better to give up the two or three dollars in question than to lose the respect of his people.

It is possible to be both.

people respond better to praise than to punishment.

Positive motivation is the key to pushing up people.

If you want someone to succeed, you start by praising him when he begins to do things right. In our business, for example, if you want to encourage new sales reps to make sales appointments, you start talking about making appointments. When one of the new reps makes a passable number of appointments, you treat him like a hero. You take him out to lunch, tell everyone in the group about it, just generally put him on a pedestal. You may have made hundreds of appointments yourself, but you’ve got to remember that, to the new guy, that one contact may be the hardest thing he’s ever done. He deserves to be rewarded for his achievement.

That’s what often happens when people see success and the recognition that goes along with it. When our team became the talk of the camp, all the other teams wanted to copy what we were doing, hoping to get the same kind of edge, and the pride that went along with it.

One of the primary mistakes managers make is trying to change people. They focus all their energy on a person’s weakest area and try desperately to turn that weakness into a strength. I am here to tell you that you can’t do it.

You’ve got to focus on a person’s strengths, and build on them.

You can’t just “pick out positives” occasionally. You must do it consistently, every day, all the time, until it becomes a way of life. It can’t be a part-time commitment.

The real key to praise is that it’s got to be spontaneous.

Don’t worry about overdoing it. You can’t praise your people, or love your people, too much.

Always be the person who’s saying something good about somebody.

It’s got to be sincere and come from the heart.

Be slow to criticize.

When you work with people one-on-one, you can say 99 positive things and one negative thing, and the only thing they’ll remember is the negative.

I believe the most acceptable form of punishment is lack of praise.

When you want to criticize, don’t.

I believe the best time to discuss a “negative” is in a group setting. When several people are present, you can address problems without singling out any individual for criticism.

Don’t hide your praise under a basket. Praise in public as well as in private.

it’s not the cost or size of the award that counts. It’s the recognition.

A great leader understands that it’s much more important for his people to receive recognition than for him to receive it.

A great head coach always gives his assistant coaches and players credit when the team wins. Don’t ever miss an opportunity when you’re talking to the press to give them recognition for the victory. But, also remember that the head coach always takes all the blame when you lose.” That’s good advice to apply to your business, too.

Never hand out a plaque with only a handshake, even if the meeting lasts until 2 a.m.

Always recognize 20-25 percent of the crowd.

You can never give too much recognition,

I believe that leaders who exclude their own spouse, and the spouses of their people, are ignoring an area that offers tremendous opportunities for pushing up people.

“you always talk about ‘paying the price, paying the price.’ I’m willing to do anything. I’m willing to pay any price. But what is my price? Just tell me what it is and I’ll pay it.”

the spouses’ problems were not the same as the managers’. They had a totally unique set of concerns.

Two people who are united in life, working toward the same goals and dreams, can achieve more than one person.

An excited, enthusiastic partner can motivate a person to excel far more than any supervisor. On the other hand, a negative, unsupportive spouse can be a disaster to a promising business career.

If you are the kind of leader who is interested in people as individuals, you just can’t overlook this type of emotional conflict.

Reward the contributions that the spouses make to the success of their partner and the company.

But you don’t want your company to have great success “in spite of” its effect on the personal lives of your people.

People need to know that individual initiative will be recognized and rewarded.

People need constant feedback about their work in order to improve and grow, and you should be the one to provide that feedback, person-to-person.

When you hire people, you should have enough confidence in them to give them responsibility and increase that responsibility as their performance warrants it. People will go out there and really “bust it” if you give them the authority and freedom to do the job on their own.

People need to feel a sense of ownership toward the job they do.

Freedom is only possible when if goes hand-in-hand with responsibility.

As a leader, you have the same freedoms and responsibilities as your people.

There I was, so young and fresh out of school. After we split up, I went to the head coach and said, “Coach, what do you want me to do with my group?” His answer surprised me. He said, “Art, I hired you to coach backs. Now, those backs are yours. I want them ready to play on Friday night. I didn’t hire you to tell you what to do. You just get the job done, OK?”

When you give people a job to do, let them do their job.

if we are good enough to build a company, we are good enough to run it.

doing what’s right is just as important in business as it is in your personal life.

But there’s no substitute, in my book, for providing a real service to people that’s based on sound principles and backed by a committed group of people.

In business, reputation is everything.

You can’t fool people for very long.

You’ve got to strive to be right — ethically and in practice — 100 percent of the time.