Wednesday, May 25, 2016

an entrepreneur who opened the door to financial freedom for thousands of women

Mary Kay Ash,
an entrepreneur who opened the door to
financial freedom for thousands of women
Sam Walton,
the legendary businessman who built the
largest retail chain in the world from scratch
Pat Summitt,
head coach of the University of Tennessee
Lady Volunteers, the winningest women’s basketball team
in the nation and an example of how to model and develop
self-directed teams
Thich Nhat Hanh,
a Vietnamese Buddhist author and spiri-
tual leader who has dedicated his life to peace
Zingerman’s,
a community of food-related businesses
founded and operated by Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig
that has flourished by empowering people and recognizing
their needs for growth and development
Crazy Horse,
the Sioux warrior who sacrificed his way of
life and his life for the good of his people and thereby
serves an example of heroism
Ernest Shackleton,
the legendary polar explorer, whose
leadership legacy is that he did not lose a man, even
though he lost his ship
These leaders are an eclectic mix. They come from different
walks of life, and a few come from different periods in history.
There is a unifying theme, however: Each of them knew, or
knows, how to create conditions in which people can motivate
themselves. Some, like Ernest Shackleton and Earvin “Magic”
Johnson, are gregarious and outgoing; others, like Crazy Horse,
are more soft-spoken, letting their example do the talking. Thich
Nhat Hanh, Frances Hesselbein, and David Hackworth are elo-
quent communicators as well as outstanding manager-leaders.
Pat Summitt and Colleen Barrett are coaches, one of young
women, the other of an entire organization. Mary Kay Ash and
Sam Walton were entrepreneurs, as are Paul Saginaw and Ari
Weinzweig. Each has or had a unique style that drew people in;
INTRODUCTION
xv
people wanted to participate in whatever the leader was doing,
whether it was playing a sport, running a business, or defending
his or her people.
There is a perception that leaders who motivate are cheer-
leading, rah-rah types. Again, some are and some are not, but
all
of them lead more by example than by oratory. All of them are
incredibly hardworking and committed. Leading an enterprise,
whether it be a community or a business, requires tremendous
effort; and that effort is particularly demanding when you have
pledged to create a culture in which people matter as contributors
and individuals. That effort is mentally, emotionally, and even
physically taxing. It requires discipline and will.
There is no one model for how a leader must behave as a
motivator, and for that reason I have included many different
individuals in the hope that readers can learn from their unique
approaches and find something that they can apply to their own
lives or their own leadership opportunities.
In truth, there are many thousands, even millions, of effective
motivators. These are the men and women who make our organi-
zations go; their refusal to accept the status quo, coupled with a
genuine affinity for people, prods them and their organizations
forward. Their example, as well as their interaction with others,
creates a state of raised expectations. They make people around
them better. All of the leaders profiled in this book do or have
done this. But I fully realize that motivation occurs every
moment of every day throughout the world. It occurs when the
light goes on in someone’s heart or mind or spirit, and she says,
“Yes, I can do that.” The reason for the yes comes from within,
but more often than not, it was someone close to her, either per-
sonally or through the media, who nudged her forward. That is
motivation in its fullest form.
Additionally, each of these leaders has an inspirational story
to tell. All of them have faced moments of truth that might have
humbled a lesser individual. Each rose nobly to the occasion, and
in the process became a stronger, more effective leader. And
while the lessons that these leaders learned from these occasions
xvi
INTRODUCTION
have helped them to create the conditions in which motivation
can flourish, you can apply many of these same lessons to your-
self as a means of stimulating your own internal motivators.
PRACTICAL AND PROVEN
Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders
concludes with a
handbook that distills key messages and leadership lessons that
leaders can apply to foster a culture in which motivation can
flourish for their people, their organizations, and themselves. The
combination of leadership principles and stories gives this book
a framework upon which managers can build as they learn how to
link their individual actions to organizational results. It is my sin-
cere hope that readers will find within these pages practical and
proven techniques for bringing people together, getting them
excited about the endeavor, and releasing their energies toward
mutual goals.
2
Good luck, and enjoy the process!

INTRODUCTION

If . . . worst comes to worst,
I want each one of you to do his utmost to destroy our enemies.
If there is only one plane left to make a final run-in,
I want that man to go in and get a hit.
May God be with us all.
Good luck, and give ’em hell.
R
EADING THOSE WORDS SENDS
a chill down the spine, particu-
larly when you realize that the man who wrote them died
the next morning doing exactly what he had urged his men
to do. He was Lt. Comdr. Jack Waldron of Torpedo Squadron 8 of
the USS
Hornet
. Leading his squadron of Devastator torpedo
bombers, an underpowered and dangerously slow plane, right
into the heart of the Japanese carrier force, Waldron and his men
we
re mercilessly shot down by the faster and more maneuverable
Zeroes and the ships’ antiaircraft power. An hour and a half later,
a subsequent wave of Dauntless dive bombers, led by Lt. Comdr.
Wade McCluskey, struck the carrier force when it was at its most
vulnerable—with some Zeroes returning from an attack low on
fuel, others on the carrier deck awaiting refueling, and fuel lines
looping across the deck. Within six minutes, three of the carriers
we
re on fire and would ultimately sink. A fourth was hit later that
afternoon and would also sink, but not before launching an
attack on the USS
Yorktown
. This was the Battle of Midway, and
it was won in part by what historian Victor Davis Hanson calls
“pilot initiative.” Inherent in this initiative was courage and brav-
ery in the cause of something greater than themselves.
1
Six decades later, a young competitive bicyclist was given the
wo
rst news of his young life: He had cancer, and it had spread
xi
Copyright © 2005 by John Baldoni
. Click here for ter
m
s of use.
from his testicles to his lungs and into his brain. He was in his
mid-twenties, with an ego as big as the world and a competitive
urge that was perhaps as big. His name was Lance Armstrong,
and he refused to give up. He ultimately beat back the cancer into
remission and relaunched his bicycling career. In 1999, he won
his first Tour de France title. The Tour de France is to bicycling
what the Super Bowl is to pee-wee football—infinitely more com-
petitive, grueling, and daunting. It has been called the most
demanding event in all of sports. It lasts for three weeks in the
middle of the French summer and covers 2,100 miles, up and
down mountains, through lowlands, and along the coast. In
2004, Armstrong became the first cyclist to win six Tours; he also
won them consecutively. Only four other men have ever won five
Tours, and only one, Miguel Indurain, had won five consecu-
tively. It is a testament to Armstrong’s relentless training, iron
will, and commitment to succeed.
These two scenarios, while dramatically different in key respects,
illustrate one compelling factor: that motivation, the will to go,
comes from within. No one forced Waldron and McCluskey and
their fellow pilots into the guns of the Japanese ships; no one
forced Armstrong to race, especially after a near-death experi-
ence. It was their inner drive, their will to persevere. The pilots
were fighting against a foe that had sneak-attacked them six
months previously and that until that moment had seemed almost
invincible. Armstrong was fighting the legacy of a disease as well
as competing against scores of other cyclists. Certainly the men
of Midway were heroes, and you can consider Armstrong one as
well. But it is equally certain that all of them would disclaim such
a title. They did what they did because it was the right thing for
them to do. And that is what motivation is all about: leading one-
self from within and creating those same conditions so that others
can follow suit. Motivation is a genuine leadership behavior. It is
essential to the leadership process because it is through the
xii
INTRODUCTION
efforts of others that leaders accomplish their goals. And leaders
can achieve their goals only when those goals have the support of
others, when those who will be involved in achieving them want
to do so.
Writing about motivation is challenging, even daunting. For
one thing, a great deal has been written about it already. But the
greater challenge is that some of what has been written about
motivation is wrongheaded. It is rooted in a type of thinking that
says that motivation can be imposed on someone. This is not cor-
rect. You can compel someone to do something, even against her
will, if you use enough force or threaten her with punishment or
deprivation or injuries to her loved ones. Tyrants and dictators are
prime executors of coercion. But this is short-lived; it will not
yield lasting or fulfilling results. Things will get done, but only
halfheartedly. Motivation, by contrast, must be internalized by
the individual.
It is therefore the leader’s responsibility to create conditions
that will enable individuals and teams to get things done in ways
that they find enriching and fulfilling. If the leader does this,
motivation can occur. This does not mean that leaders become
namby-pamby and softhearted; it demands that they strike a bal-
ance between individuals’ need for self-enrichment, literally and
figuratively, and the organization’s need for results. When moti-
vation occurs, individuals become transformed; they want to
achieve, they want to do well. Why? Because their work mat-
ters—to their boss, to their teams, and to themselves. The pur-
pose of this book, then, is to demonstrate ways in which leaders
can create an environment that allows people to succeed and
organizations to thrive.
The leader’s most powerful tool in the motivation process is
communication. Communication drives the action forward,
keeping leader and follower and leader and organization aligned
and focused on joint goals that are meaningful and worth achiev-
ing. Communication, by nature, is a two-way process; it ensures
that leader and follower understand each other, and understand-
ing is essential to building trust. Motivation can occur only in sit-
INTRODUCTION
xiii
uations in which followers trust their leaders and leaders trust
their followers.
STORY AND PRACTICE
Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders
blends management
principles and leadership stories. In the principles section, we
will explore how managers can communicate, exemplify, coach,
recognize, and sacrifice in order to create optimal conditions for
motivation to occur. Each chapter will also feature a profile or
two of a leader-motivator who articulates these principles
through his or her personal example. While not all of the people
profiled are motivators in a conventional sense, all of them moti-
vate through their leadership actions. As a result, their stories
radiate value and truth.
Among the leaders profiled in this book are the following:
Colleen Barrett,
a former legal secretary turned president
of Southwest Airlines, the most people-friendly carrier in
the air and on the ground because of its culture, which she
helped create and foster
Colonel David Hackworth,
a highly decorated colonel
whose tough actions in Vietnam transformed a group of
perceived losers into a hard-core fighting team
Frances Hesselbein,
former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the
USA and president of the Leader to Leader Institute, who
has been recognized by academics and government lead-
ers, including the president of the United States, as an
accomplished leader
Earvin “Magic” Johnson,
a collegiate and NBA Hall of
Fame basketball player who has built a very successful
business by reaching out to people in the urban commu-
nity, and has also established an educational foundation for
disadvantaged youth

Acknowledgments

he start of this book came with an e-mail from my
former editor at McGraw-Hill, Barry Neville, who
suggested that for my next book I consider the
topic of motivation. But the origins of this book
really stretch back much further, as I was reminded
when I received an e-mail from another friend and author,
David Cichelli. It was Dave who many years ago had intro-
duced me to the work of Abraham Maslow for a talk I was to
give. While I cannot remember anything about the talk, the
connection with the ideas of Dr. Maslow stuck.
As I am a consultant focusing on leadership communica-
tion, specifically on helping men and women use their com-
munications to achieve their goals, motivation is a natural
topic for me to explore. Communication is the operative driver
of the entire motivational process; it is the means by which
leaders create conditions, and reinforce them, in which people
can feel motivated to achieve.
My explorations have been helped by many colleagues. It
was Kathy Macdonald who provided key suggestions in the
development and writing stages that gave the ideas their shape
and proper weight. Kevin Small of Injoy and his able colleague
Colleen Johnston deserve special mention for opening doors
for me. I also want to extend a special thank-you to Frances
Hesselbein, who generously gave her time, and to David Hack-
ix
Copyright © 2005 by John Baldoni. Click here for terms of use.
wo
rth, who did likewise. I also appreciate the kind introduc-
tion to Colonel Hackworth by Don Vandergriff, army officer,
fellow author, and military affairs expert. Ari Weinzweig and
Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s put up with my barrage of ques-
tions, and their colleague, Maggie Bayless of Zing Train, was
very helpful in providing access and insight. I also want to
thank Eric Harvey, with whom I cowrote an earlier book on
motivation; its lessons have influenced me in this endeavor.
I also owe a big thanks to my current editor at
McGraw-Hill, Donya Dickerson, for her enthusiasm in getting
this project completed. The editing supervisor, Janice Race,
and copy editor, Alice Manning, deserve credit for helping the
manuscript read as well as it was intended to. And, of course,
no book of mine would be complete without a thank-you to my
wife, friend, and life partner, Gail Campanella, who helped
make the entire book creation process possible and bearable.

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PRAISE FOR GREAT MOTIVATION SECRETS OF GREAT LEADERS

The essence of effective leadership is persuading others to follow
your lead. We call it motivation.
Great Motivation Secrets
gets to the
heart of how leaders create conditions for motivation to occur by
energizing their minds, encouraging their hearts, and exhorting their
spirits.”
—John Maxwell, America’s preeminent author
on leadership and founder of Maximum Impact
“When John Baldoni writes on leadership, I pay close attention.
Great Motivation Secrets
is his best book yet. After you read it, I
know you’ll agree with me.”
—Pat Williams, Senior Vice President, Orlando Magic
“Rousing others for common cause is essential but elusive. For fresh
insight into what makes the difference, John Baldoni offers compelling
portraits of leading figures who have done it, ranging from Colleen Barrett
of Southwest Airlines to Magic Johnson and Ernest Shackleton.
Great
Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders
reveals what we all must do if we are
to be great at inspiring others to a cause.”
—Michael Useem, Professor and Director of the
Wharton School’s Leadership Center and author of
Leading Up
and
The Leadership Moment
“Leaders accomplish very little by themselves. In fact the job of lead-
ership is to bring others along with you. That requires motivation. You can
learn a great deal about how leaders motivate through example, communi-
cation, and coaching in
Great Motivation Secrets
. Baldoni reveals insights
you can put into practice to achieve the right results, the right way, right
now!”
—James G. O’Connor, Group Vice President,
North America Marketing Sales and Service,
Ford Motor Company
“John Baldoni has written a very readable and useful book on
motivation. He mixes sound advice on motivational techniques with
entertaining and relevant examples from leaders past and present to
bring the subject alive. A great read.”
—Personal comments of Dr. A. Peter Green,
Vice President, Pfizer Global Research & Development
“This book is a timely reminder that our success as leaders
depends on our ability to successfully motivate and inspire peo-
ple! John Baldoni provides us with insight into the successful
motivational techniques and abilities of some of our great leaders.
Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders
will be required read-
ing for everyone in our leadership development program.”
—Michael L. Bivens, V.P. Kellogg’s Morning Foods
Learning & Development

Make conversation with your customer

DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?
102
Figure 34
An ad with a riddle in its headline that provokes my curiosity. Repro-
duced by kind permission of RNIB.
Writer’s fog
Most copywriters develop their own
structural
style through a mixture of trial
and error, observation, imitation, and coaching. A simple method is to limit
yourself to one thought per paragraph, broken into three short sentences. Use
brackets for interjections, Saxon wording, and edit out disruptive “thats.”
It seems to work.
And don’t be afraid of really short paragraphs to make points of strong
emphasis or contrast.
(The word
that
, by the way, can often be excised from copy without any-
body noticing. For example, “It was news to me we’d won the contract” has
a
that
removed, with the positive effect of jamming the two clauses more
actively together.)
One thing’s for sure: Long sentences and long words make text more
difficult to understand. And that means fewer sales.
There’s a well-established way of measuring the clarity of writing, called
the Fog Index.
33
The higher you score, the cloudier your message.
Here’s how to work it out:
1T
ake a section of your text and count 100 words (exclude proper
names, and treat hyphenated words as one word).
2
Count the number of sentences in this 100-word block.
3
Divide 100 by the number of sentences. Call the answer X.
4
Count the number of words with three or more syllables. Call the
answer Y. (Exclude words that reach three or more syllables by a part
of speech, e.g. plurals: message
messages = two not three; or verb
tenses: listen
listening = two not three).
5F
og Index = (X + Y)
×
0.4.
Clear writing has a Fog Index of between 9 and 12. For some tabloids it can
be as low as 5. Certainly, for most advertising copy you should aim for less
than 10.
The excerpts from ads shown in Figure 35 overleaf have respective Fog
Indices of 9 and 16. These were real ads, placed in the same publication.
See if you can tell which is which.
STEP 3: WORDING
103
This book, on a random 10-section sample, just scored 9.3 — which I hope
is not bad, as it’s saddled with phrases like “marketing communications.”
Certainly, if you can, keep your sentences short. One Australian study
concluded that learning declines as the number of words in a sentence
increases beyond seven.
34
(And this correlates to George A Miller’s famous
paper entitled “The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some lim-
its on our capacity for processing information.”
35
)
Designeritis
As Oscar Wilde said, “No great artist ever sees things as they really are; if
he did, he would cease to be an artist.”
Many small firms use design agencies to produce their ads, brochures,
and mailings. Designers are very skilled at making things look nice — awe-
some, even — but sometimes less skilled at
selling
. And boy can they man-
gle text!
If you treat text as a graphic device of course it can appear more pleas-
ing when set, for instance, in fully justified blocks of reversed-out sans-serif
upper-case type. But wait until your customer tries to decipher it.
DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?
104
Figure 35
Excerpts from two ads
placed in the same busy magazine.
One has a Fog Index of 9, the other 16.
Read the copy and it should be easy to
tell which is which.
If you’ve ever read bedtime stories to a small child, you’ll know there’s
a moment when they start identifying words. “Look!” they exclaim,
pointing excitedly, ahead of where you’re up to. When you do look, you
find it’s the word “look” — one of the first they learn to recognize by its
shape.
That’s how we read. We learn the shapes of words. But not words set in
upper case (i.e. CAPITALS).
I’m not sure anyone knows which is the chicken and which the egg
here. Do our brains prefer words set primarily in lower case and so we have
surrounded ourselves with them? Or do we grow up to prefer words set in
lower case
because
we
are surrounded by them?
Intuitively, and I think logically, the former seems to make more
sense. A word has a more distinct visual identity set in lower case. Typo-
graphers (a rare breed nowadays) believe that serif typefaces enhance
this effect.
INTUITIVELY, AND I THINK LOGICALLY, THE FORMER SEEMS TO
MAKE MORE SENSE.A WORD HAS A MORE DISTINCT VISUAL IDENTITY
SET IN LOWER CASE. TYPOGRAPHERS (A RARE BREED NOWADAYS)
BELIEVE THAT SERIF TYPEFACES ENHANCE THIS EFFECT.
As you can see, I just repeated the last paragraph using capitals and a
sans-serif typeface. (Serifs are the little curly bits that help letters glide into
one another. Sans serif means without serifs.) I could go one step further
and reverse out the text, i.e. use white lettering on a black background. But
in the easy-to-read stakes, it’s already no contest.
So don’t let your precious words be press-ganged into service as reluc-
tant graphics. If we were meant to communicate with pictures we’d all
carry sketch pads. Deaf people use sign languages that are every bit as rich,
complex, and structured as spoken languages.
36
Twelve typographical tips
Much has been learned about the presentation of words to make them sell
better. Here are some of my favorite soundbytes of received wisdom.
STEP 3: WORDING
105
1
DO put your headline below the main image, and the body copy
beneath this. It mirrors the natural eye flow and gets 10 percent more
readership than a headline set above the image.
37
(In a series of direct
marketing tests, response increased by between 27 and 105 percent.
38
)
2
DON’T set text over pictures. (It can reduce attention value by about
20 percent.
39
) You wouldn’t write a report to your boss and then doo-
dle all over it to make it harder to read.
3
DO use a large initial drop capital to start the text. (This means a big
first letter — look in your newspaper.) It telegraphs to your customer
where to begin and increases readership by 13 percent.
40
4
DON’T juxtapose red and blue text — these colors are at opposite
ends of the spectrum and the eye finds them a strain to deal with.
41
(Avoid colored text in general.)
5
DO set body copy in a serif face, minimum 11 point, in narrow
columns of about 40–50 characters.
6
DON’T set body copy in reversed-out type (i.e. white text on a black
background). It’s much harder to read. Short headlines, reversed
out, are OK.
7
DO put a caption underneath the main image — it will be read by
twice as many people as read the body copy.
42
8
DON’T put your logo in the headline or body copy. Your customer
wo
n’t read it as part of the sentence. Use normal type for your brand
name.
And some DOs specifically for direct mail:
9
DO pull out your main headline at the top of your letter (e.g. into a
“Johnson box”).
43
10
DO tell a synopsis of your message via the subheads above each
paragraph — make it easy for the scan reader.
11
DO use a large typeface, narrow columns (average 10 words per
line), and plenty of line spacing.
PS 12 DO use a PS to repeat an important fact — it gets high readership
because your customer looks to see who’s writing to them.
DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?
106
STEP 3: WORDING
107
Figure 36
Designeritis: no headline; text used as a graphic device; type reversed
out and set over the image. And there really was an ad that looked
like this.
A few words about negatives
I’ve occasionally read that you shouldn’t use negative expressions in ads,
especially double negatives like this sign I spotted at a well-known
fairground:
“If you are not as tall as me you cannot ride on the mini dodgem.”
The argument goes that your customer will be confused by a statement
containing double negatives. I can certainly buy this. If you’re not careful,
your headline won’t make sense.
David Ogilvy cautioned against straight negatives, such as this one:
“Our salt contains no arsenic.”
He said the danger was that the reader misses the negative and comes away
with the opposite opinion (i.e. that the salt does contain arsenic).
44
This I
find harder to agree with, although it’s
wo
rth being alert to
the possibility.
Steven Pinker is far less prescriptive when it comes to negatives and
confusion. For instance, he argues that the well-known line “I can’t get no
satisfaction” is both perfectly grammatical and unequivocal in its
meaning.
45
John Caples recommends you avoid headlines that paint the gloomy
side of the picture.
46
For instance:
“Is worry robbing you of the good things in life?”
His advice is to take the cheerful, positive angle. Intuitively this feels right,
and is supported by a generally known phenomenon within the sales pro-
motion industry: that positive rewards get a better response than negative
ones. For example, a free box of chocolates should pull more responses
than a free first-aid kit of the same perceived value. Claude Hopkins found
that positive ads outpulled their negative counterparts by four to one.
47
James F Engel states that people are less likely to enjoy buying and
using what he calls “negative-reinforcement” products, are less recep-
DOES YOUR MARKETING SELL?
108
tive to advertising for them, and spend less time and effort in buying
them.
48
However, in the battle for share of the quitting smoker’s newly found
disposable income, “It needn’t be hell with Nicotinell” has been used to
good effect for some years. It contains both a negative and the dark side of
the story. The brand is the UK’s longest-established nicotine patch.
And then there’s “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” Double negative, yet
immensely successful as a new product. It must be one of the few brands
with a name that’s actually a headline. And I don’t imagine it would have
done as well had it been called “I can’t believe it’s margarine.” Perhaps this
bears out Ogilvy’s view: The word
butter
acts as an embedded command,
so the customer subconsciously takes on board the notion that it is butter
— or at least that it has buttery qualities.
My advice would be to take note of these authorities, and then to use
your common sense. Avoid negatives as a general rule, but don’t worry
about going with a strong line just because it ain’t positive