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!

Read More

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

Read More

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.

Read More

ALSO BY JOHN BALDONI

Copyright © 2005 by John Baldoni. All rights

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States of America. Except as permitted unde

r the United States Copyright Act of 1976,

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or stored in a database or retrieval syst

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Read More

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

Read More

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

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