Attracting proactive people isn’t easy, but it’s well worth the effort.
Every entrepreneur wants a talented, ambitious team. But finding, hiring and managing standout employees can be quite a challenge.
When Kevin Schaff started Thought Equity Motion six years ago, the idea was to sell pre-produced commercials made from stock video.
As the business evolved, however, it became clear that the emerging market opportunity was actually in licensing online video. Schaff, 35, decided to refocus the company on becoming the world’s largest repository of real time search, preview and online delivery for motion-based content. The industry “was fragmented,” says Schaff, who is also the company’s CEO. “We wanted to pull it all together.”
Today, Denver-based Thought Equity Motion works with content partners and clients including Paramount, National Geographic, the NCAA, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and Mad Men. “You can’t watch T.V. for 30 minutes and not see our product,” Schaff says. The company’s sales exceed $15 million a year.
Does he ever wish he could hit the fast forward button during job interviews to see which applicants would be the best employees? “Oh yeah,” he says. “People are by far the most expensive mistake we make.”
Entrepreneurs Still Struggle With Hiring
Small businesses need ambitious employees who can take initiative to get the job done. And small employers now have an opportunity to upgrade their workforce since the number of available job candidates has grown.
There’s evidence that small employers are putting more emphasis on soft skills: 50 percent of small business owners in an October Intuit Payroll survey say they would rather hire a flexible “people person” or a “jack of all trades” instead of a highly-specialized “creative genius” or “math whiz.”
The recession also has employees rethinking what they want in a job. An August CareerBuilder report found nearly 60 percent of workers surveyed were interested to work for a small business, and 20 percent of workers laid off from fulltime jobs over the last year had found jobs at small businesses.
These numbers are compelling for two reasons, says Jason Ferrara, CareerBuilder’s vice president of corporate marketing. First, they show the relevance of small businesses in a poor economy. Second, they say something about job seekers. “Not everyone wants to work for a large, multi-national company,” Ferrara says.
The good news? Small employers have a very large, interested applicant pool at their fingertips. The bad news? Small business hiring is up only 1.9 percent so far this year while salaries are down 6.5 percent, according to data from online small business payroll company SurePayroll. Many small businesses have trimmed workweeks to avoid layoffs–something that’s not always a great selling point with the most sought-after applicants. “What we’re seeing right now is a very strong level of underemployment,” says SurePayroll President Michael Alter.
Ferrara still sees small employers struggling to define their “employment brand,” or the company’s purpose and the type of workers it needs, while grappling with a resume deluge. When small companies do pinpoint the very best applicants, they can fall short in selling them on future opportunities for advancement. “Large companies do a better job at this,” Ferrara says. “As an entrepreneur, you’re more concerned about communicating the financial [aspects] of the company.”
Attracting the Best and Brightest
Kara Goldin, founder and CEO of Hint, a San Francisco company that produces a line of naturally sweetened water products, says finding referrals is the ticket to attracting the best people in the recession. “If there’s a reference from somebody in the beverage industry who has worked with this person–or even a grocery chain that has worked with this person–it definitely helps,” says Goldin, whose company generates more than $1 million in sales annually.
Applicants have approached Hint with a great resume in hand, but Goldin, 42, still wants to know they’ve done their research. She remembers being impressed when Hint current head of sales contacted the company to say it was on his short list of desirable employers, and went on to explain why. “He’s terrific, and he could have gone to a lot of [companies],” she says. “He was really selling us on why he loved the product, and what he said made a ton of sense to us.”
Thought Equity has pulled its employees into the recruitment process by paying them a bonus for referring talented applicants who get hired. Encouraging employees to recruit their new coworkers has been very effective, says Schaff, who estimates 90 percent of the company’s new hires are coming to the company via referral.
The company still receives about 100 resumes every day–mainly from younger applicants. Jobs in technology and development can still be very tough to fill. The company must also constantly re-recruit its best employees as competitors try to upgrade their workforces. “Good people are always being recruited, and you always have to focus on making sure that you can retain them,” Schaff says.
Ultimately, attracting talented, self-directed employees requires great positioning, great messaging and a great understanding of what they want in a job. Financial incentives don’t hurt, either: Hint offers its 25 employees equity in the company, something Goldin sees as a big motivator for the most talented, ambitious employees.
Alter predicts Main Street’s recovery will be slow as small business owners get their existing employees back up to full employment plus overtime before they start hiring new people. Still, he’s encouraged that small business wages have been declining at a shallower pace in recent months. “This tells me that we’re hitting bottom, and as we start to hit bottom we will recover,” he says. “I just don’t see a big, robust recovery.”
Strong recovery or not, Goldin plans to increase Hint’s headcount in 2010. “As we open with stores across the country, we’ll definitely need salespeople to manage those accounts,” she says.
Exceptional talent is out there, provided entrepreneurs can sell them on the opportunity and turn them loose on the job. Says Ferrara: “You should be hiring people who are smarter than you.”
Chris Penttila is a freelance journalist whose work has also appeared in The Costco Connection, Oregon Business magazine, QSR Magazine, TheStreet.com and other publications. She lives in the Chapel Hill, NC, area and covers workplace issues on her blog, Workplacediva.blogspot.com.
Throughout history, most of the great achievements and incredible comebacks have been the result of an individual whose motivation to persevere was influenced by a coach or mentor. In science, art, politics, sports and business, there is a common thread of having been coached among those who achieve greatness. A coach doesn’t need to be a professional consultant or counselor. He or she could be someone within your organization or industry, or it could be someone from your personal life whom you respect or admire.
A study was undertaken on the Hawaiian island of Kauai by two researchers named Emily Werner and Ruth Smith. This study, which followed more than 450 people from childhood through their adult lives, was an attempt to learn why some people are motivated to overcome severe disadvantages while others from the same background seem to have been overwhelmed by their problems. This research continued for an incredible length of time: 40 years, to be exact.
According to the research, one of the most interesting qualities of these motivated individuals is their ability to recognize potential sources of support in other people, to look beyond the walls of their homes to find relatives, friends, teachers or other role models who can provide help. This very important finding illustrates the benefits of forming mentor relationships to encourage achievement.
Choosing a coach or mentor is like having an additional correctional device to keep you on target. An analogy of this premise comes from aerospace technology. Years ago, the military used inertial guidance systems on missiles. Unfortunately, once the course of an inertially guided missile is set, it proceeds along that path with no capability for adjustments. It’s like a bullet fired from a rifle. Even when the aim is good at the outset, if the target moves unexpectedly once the projectile is in flight, the shot is going to miss. And if there’s one thing you can count on in life, it’s that the target is going to be moving! In the Gulf War of 1992, the Patriot missile that defended Israel and Saudi Arabia was introduced. Unlike previous defenses, this system had an advanced self-adjusting navigation system that continuously monitored the missile’s trajectory as well as the path of its swiftly moving target. The Patriot was able to make whatever corrections were necessary, regardless of changes in the position or speed of its objective.
A highly motivated person uses a coach or mentor in the same way when he or she has targeted a worthwhile goal. A coach or mentor can assist you in making adjustments and navigating through difficult times.
Finding coaches and mentors is an important mission, and you will no doubt have several over the course of your life. It is critical that you choose them wisely. Your mentor is someone to whom you’ll be committing a great deal of time and attention, and who ideally will take a very focused interest in you as well.
A lot of people think leaders are born and not made. I disagree. I think you can become a better leader. I’m not a cook, but I’ve held many leadership positions. I thought this recipe for a leader sounded pretty good:
Have all ingredients at body temperature. Sift intelligence, ambition, and understanding together. Mix cooperation, initiative, and open-mindedness until dissolved. Add gradually ability, tactfulness and responsibility. Stir in positive attitude and judgment. Beat in patience until smooth. Blend all ingredients well. Sprinkle liberally with cheerfulness and bake in oven of determination. When absorbed thoroughly, cool and spread with kindness and common sense.
If that seems like a long list of ingredients, well, it is. But good leadership won’t happen if any of those items are missing.
I love to study leaders and the different ways they lead. If there ever was a need for great leadership in a company, that time is now. Taking an organization through a good economy is tough enough; when the going gets rough, the real leaders shine. Consider the challenges that faced these leaders.
The military presents many opportunities to observe leaders in action. For example, President and General Dwight Eisenhower used a simple device to illustrate the art of leadership. Laying an ordinary piece of string on a table, he’d illustrate how you could easily pull it in any direction. “However, try and push it,” he cautioned, “and it won’t go anywhere. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people.”
The Duke of Wellington, the British military leader who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was a great commander but a difficult man to serve under. He was a perfectionist and very demanding, who complimented his subordinates only on rare occasions. In retirement, Wellington was asked by a visitor what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. The old Duke thought for a moment and then said, “I’d give people I worked with more praise.”
The famous general and Macedonian king Alexander the Great led by example. As he led an army across the desert, a soldier came up to him, knelt down, and offered him a helmet filled with precious water. “Is there enough there for 10,000 men?” asked Alexander. When the soldier shook his head, Alexander poured the water out on the desert sands, refusing to take even a sip.
My friend Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman of Carlson, wrote in her book How We Lead Matters, “The fact is that being a leader in any field requires discipline, effort, and yes, sacrifice. It can be all-consuming. And during that time, life may not have much balance. It’s been said, ‘If you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you should get out of the circus.’ A circus is not at all a bad analogy for the swirl of demands placed on leaders at the top.”
Leaders are not always popular. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in his book, My American Journey, “I learned … you cannot let the mission suffer, or make the majority pay to spare the feelings of an individual. I kept a saying under the glass of my desk at the Pentagon that made the point succinctly if inelegantly: ‘Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.’”
Ken Blanchard once told me, “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”
“A business leader has to keep their organization focused on the mission,” says Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay. “That sounds easy, but it can be tremendously challenging in today’s competitive and ever-changing business environment. A leader also has to motivate potential partners to join.”
Leadership guru Warren Bennis spent several years researching leaders for his book “Why Leaders Can’t Lead.” He traveled around the country spending time with 90 of the most effective and successful leaders in the nation—60 from corporations and 30 from the public sector. His goal was to find these leaders’ common traits. At first, he had trouble pinpointing any common traits, for the leaders were more diverse than he had expected.
But he later wrote: “I was finally able to come to conclusions, of which perhaps the most important is the distinction between leaders and managers. Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right. Both roles are crucial, but they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong thing well.”
Mackay’s Moral: Good leaders inspire others with confidence in them. Great leaders inspire them with confidence in themsel
Everyone loves to eat but not everyone loves to cook or should. Cooking is a fine art of heart and soul. We can learn quiet a bit about a cook who painstaking prepares the table, the meal, creates a welcoming warm ambience for their quests. What main course is selected, is there a variety of vegetables colorfully displayed on the table, is the dessert fresh fruit or a wonderful airy pastry.
Good cooks evolve from lots of practice but a chef is an expert who uses their passion to create an amazing experience. Chefs use developed skills and instincts to use the right ingredients, knives and pans to help them deliver a masterpiece. The right knives to smooth, serrated and cut, a good chef knows exactly when to use the right tools, whether they are for slicing, cutting or spreading frosting on a cake.
Good managers develop skills much like a great chef. They learn to lead, inspire, motivate employees and create positive results. They know when and why to use each style. Managers gain an understanding about which skills they should use for various types of employees and situations. They learn that it is crucial to keep all their plates spinning in the air representing different responsibilities and challenges.
Great leaders must consistently find a new ways to motivate employees. Finding new and exciting motivation really is a trail and error experiment. What works for some may not work for others and what worked last year may no longer be that interesting. Managers look to the Internet for ideas and success stories to help them put together new incentive contests. Customer Service Week is just around the corner so, managers scramble for contests and prizes that will not break the bank. This year the trend is to provide the participant’s choice of incentive. No hassle of trying to make one incentive fit all. Managers and business owners also look to the Motivation Show in Chicago for the latest trends and ideas for the coming year. One thing to keep in mind is the use of an Incentives Broker who will scan the market for new incentives and do all the comparison shopping for you. Usually their is no upfront costs because their commission is built into their incentives.
Before it used to be that an admired leader was like a great painting: no one could define it, but everyone knew it was special when they saw it. Empathy, self-awareness and the ability to lead by continuing development of their staff is what separated a good leader from the rest.
How do you know when to use one style of management over another? Use what we know from Emotional Intelligence:
Ask your employees using open ended questions for broader responses
Observe your employees reaction to yours and your peer’s management styles
Challenge yourself over and over again looking for the right type of management styles. Keeping a diary of successes and failures
Ask a mentor and pay attention to what works for you and other departments
Experiment and take the plunge with new ideas. Test ideas on small groups before you launch your new project
Management up what are others in upper management doing in your division and others, is their a common theme?
As a manager, your top objective is to instill confidence in your company, your department and in your department’s services.
Recognition–not money–is the real motivator in a down economy.
Business owners need to ensure that their employees are productive and eager to do the best job possible–this is especially true during today’s challenging economic times. Yet every industry and every organization has people who simply do not produce work in the quality that they are capable of providing. That can create costly problems for a manager.
Leaders often miss the mark when trying to ramp up employee productivity. Let’s debunk some motivational myths.
1.Money motivates. Of course, if you pay some enough money, they will do almost any job. And when you give bonuses to reward past behavior, the recipients are usually very happy (unless they were expecting a larger bonus). The staff does a better job following the glow that accompanies added money.
However, studies find this happiness is short-lived. Within six months, individuals have difficulty recalling that bonus and it does not seem to have the same impact it did within the first few weeks or months of receiving it. That’s because money, in and of itself, will not continuously motivate individuals.
It’s the recognition and status that are the true motivators for the increased output. Take for example, the high tech salesperson who sold more product than anyone else in the department. The boss rewards that employee with a bonus. Everyone knows who the bonus recipient is, and she is proud of her accomplishments–the high earner gains recognition from colleagues and clients. Recognition and status are two key sources of motivation. So while money can serve to motivate, its effects are often short term at best.
What should you do? Set up situations that allow the employee to feel a sense of accomplishment. Employees respond most to opportunities for achievement, recognition, growth, job enrichment and job enlargement.
2. Just keep them happy. Employers often go to great lengths to keep their employees happy–some offer game rooms; others have phones with free long-distance access. The theory here is that if we can keep the employees happy during their break time, it will translate into increased motivation and productivity. Unfortunately, this is not very effective.
Employees actually enjoy their break times, look forward to them, and may even linger during them. But the satisfaction found during the break times does not necessarily translate into better or higher quality job performance.
3. Ignore Conflict. Few people, especially in the professional world, enjoy conflict. Most bosses and employees alike would rather “let something go” or “sweep it under the rug” than make an issue out of it. Too many managers are concerned about being liked that they don’t fulfill their responsibilities to catch problems quickly. Not addressing an employee’s problematic behavior doesn’t help any one.
4. Some people just aren’t motivated. This is a very common misconception. Everyone is motivated–but for different reasons. Walking through the offices, the manager may see someone playing computer games or sending personal email, this could be seen as the individual is not motivated because he’s not attending to the job tasks. But that may not be entirely correct. At that moment, the “aimless” employee is motivated, perhaps even highly motivated. But that motivation is not work directed, nor is it productive for the company.
The challenge here is for the leader to discover what actually motivates that employee and match up those elements with the worker’s job description. (This point also assumes that the employee is worth keeping.)
5. Smart employees don’t need to be motivated. Being “smart” carries an important cachet in American society. Everyone wants to have smart people working for them because these people are quick to learn, adapt and produce. Employers may erroneously believe that they don’t need to spend much time or attention on these staffers.
Unfortunately, intelligence and self-motivation do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. There are plenty of smart employees who haven’t been able to find out just what motivates them personally; they tend to get bored or frustrated easily. The result is a lack of interest and a lack of productivity.
So what does an employer do? A smart employer creates the atmosphere that allows and encourages the employee to be motivated. That employer also gets to know what his staff is interested in doing to advance company goals and what parts of the job description are interesting or exciting verses boring.
10 Quick Ways to Motivate
Praise the employee for a job well done–or even partially well done.
If an employee is bored, involve that individual in a discussion about ways to create a more satisfying career path, including promotions based on concrete outcomes.
State your clear expectations for task accomplishment.
Ensure that the job description involves a variety of tasks.
Ensure that the employee sees that what she’s doing impacts the whole process or task that others will also be part of.
Make sure that the employee feels that what he/she is doing is meaningful.
Provide feedback along the way, pointing out both positive and negative aspects.
Allow for an appropriate amount of autonomy for the employee based on previous and anticipated accomplishment.
Increase the depth and breadth of what the employee is currently doing.
Provide the employee with adequate opportunity to succeed.
David G. Javitch, Ph.D., is Entrepreneur.com’s “Employee Management” columnist and an organizational psychologist and president of Javitch Associates, an organizational consulting firm in Newton, Mass. With more than 20 years of experience working with executives in various industries, he’s an internationally recognized author, keynote speaker and consultant on key management and leadership issues.
Okay, things are slow but we can mine today for tomorrow’s gold. Socially, psychologically, and economically, we need each other. We need to challenge ourselves by continually pressing on seeking assistance and insight at every opportunity to retain business because retention is the new success. If you are experiencing an increase in sales you are much ahead of this recession game!
If you look at your Gen Y staff you find those successful at academic challenge, they question management direction and want to sincerely not the “why’s? and “why not’s”. They are a generation dedicated to friends, family and their drive. What Generation Y is not is experience with economic challenges, sure they may have heard stories about recessions past but this experience is a bit of a shock.
Let’s face it, this economic storm is not what most students were hoping for in high school and on graduation day from college. How easy it might be to become frustrated with some employees that are not motivated to keep working. We may think these employees are passive and uninvolved. The fact is — many have had to learn the hard way — our departments don’t have to be lack luster, and employees who seem unmotivated don’t have to remain in the unmotivated stage for very long. Making a change requires great deal of soul-searching and rethinking about the entire department and your own motivations. And, in some cases we accept some of the blame of the dull unmotivating atmosphere ourselves. Would we want to work at their desks in our own departments today?
Employees need to feel that they have the real ability to share and ask for solutions. For the most part, they are the products of years of experience in schools where they were essentially told to sit down, shut up, listen, and learn – an experience that taught them that their boss is the source of knowledge and direction.
Students are in college spending their time and money because they want to learn and because they want a better life for themselves. They are a valuable resource of new ideas and concepts. They should be your first source of inspiration. Their passion is still burning underneath just waiting for the opportunity to make things happen in their world.
These employees want to have their individual needs met. They want to feel like they are more than part of a company, that their individual talents and abilities are respected and deemed worthy. They look for incentives and rewards for their hard work.
They want bosses who are real and inspiring people, who recognize them as potential leaders – bosses who geniunely care about them — not just their daily performance.
They want to be challenged, not decimated.
They want caring leaders who check in regularly, who support their individual learning and development, who inform them individually of their progress, and who assign a variety of tasks that give them the opportunity to learn in modes that fit their individual styles and that are designed to meet their level of learning.
They like bosses who walk the talk.
Bosses who can be themselves and can smile and joke around once in a while. ,
They like clear, complete explanations and examples with cross training opportunities.
Remember to talk to your employees about their motivations because what motivates you does not always motivate them.
When we think I think about the type of employee we are looking for, we look for those with a spark in their eyes and a fast step. We hire those people to begin with it is our responsibility as leaders to keep the fire burning. We need to create and recreate environments that will be enjoyable and motivating. We need to keep things fresh by providing opportunity of change, cross training and shadowing for our future leaders.
Gen Y employees are willing to learn; they simply need an ocassional stimulation, an incentive to take it up a gear.
All enduring motivation must ultimately come from within the individual. That is why the words empower and envision are so vital to team performance. It must be your inner power and your own personal vision that propels you, not that of your leader.
The success of your efforts depends not so much on the efforts themselves, but rather on your motive for doing them. The greatest companies and the greatest men and women in all walks of life have achieved their greatness out of a desire to express something within themselves that had to be expressed, a desire to solve a problem using their skills as best they could. This is not to say that many of these individuals did not earn a great deal of money and prestige for what they produced. Many did. But the key to their successes was that they were motivated more by an inner magnificent obsession, a passion, than by any thought of profit or identity.
You may recall from history that the exquisitely beautiful armless statue of Venus de Milo was carved by an unknown sculptor. When a farmer dug up the soon-to-be world-famous work of art while plowing his field, a renowned museum curator sadly reflected what a great pity it was that the sculptor would never be recognized by thousands of admirers, nor would he or she ever know how valuable the statue became hundreds of years later.
The farmer retorted that it must have been a labor of love for someone to be able to have envisioned such perfection and brought it forth with just a chisel and a shapeless piece of stone. “Just creating something of such quality,” said the farmer, “would have been payment in full for me.”
You can’t commission a masterpiece. Human greatness can’t be externally motivated. It must be compelled from within. A magnificent obsession is the way you want to live, not just the things you want to own. A magnificent obsession is the person you want to be, not the title on your office door or business card. A magnificent obsession is the mind-set that you have, not the diplomas or awards you earn. It is the worldview you claim as your own, not the collection of stamps on your passport. It is uniquely yours, like your fingerprint or handwriting.
Ask yourself this question: “If it weren’t for money, time and personal responsibilities, what would I really love to do with my life?” You and I need to answer it from our own individual perspectives, not simply answer “to help my company, family or country.” In addition to these shared visions, autograph your career and life with your own signature.
By personalizing your passion, you will experience the unlimited power from within!
Sales teams all over the United States are working from home or on the run on planes and cars. To maximize their efforts many are using the power of a web-based solution that provides all corporate marketing brochures, letters and flyers for editing with a built business rules and legal compliance monitors. All marketing material can be provided quickly to be printed on site or for more sophisticated printing sent automatically to a printer for fulfillment.
Features that result increase sales:
Step by step easy to use instructions to create personalized lead follow up.
Control of brand marketing and corporate messaging to your customers. Adherence to corporate and industry compliance rules built in with sales-driven marketing templates.
Create customer profiles and create mailing lists.
Upload listings from trade magazines, search engines such as GlobalSpec, ThomasNet along with ACT! or Goldmine.
24/7/365 access to the administration tool from anywhere at any time.
No minium or maximum mailing size.
Secure login with user names and password protected access.
Personalized website that is customized with your company branding and unique URL as well a your company’s link.
PDF Proofs are available generating real-time PDF proofs for review and approval.
Archived and searchable data fields that can be added or edited to collect unique information to your specific sales process.
Reporting measuring effectiveness by medium, cost per lead generated, cost per customer and dollar sales per medium based on your parameters. Use reports for training, strategizing and planning for future campaigns.
Create a motivational incentive for your sales team with a tool that will make their presentation easy to provide.
If your organization wants to enhance your field source’s ability and respond quickly to customer interest, this solution is the way to go.
“It’s nothing personal; it’s just business,” is a commonly heard phrase in the workplace. However, I tend to disagree with anyone who tries to impersonalize business. At its heart, commerce is a human enterprise, founded upon relationships between people.
Most of us spend a majority of our waking hours in our business or at work, and our vocations endow our lives with meaning or purpose. When we devote ourselves to profession, we’re giving a piece of who we are to our work. In that sense, business is deeply personal.
In the workplace, as in the rest of life, relationships get messy. Sooner or later, we will be mistreated. A boss will unjustly fault our performance, a partner will fail to honor an agreement, or a co-worker will cut us down in a meeting. Since business is personal, those instances hurt us, and unless dealt with correctly, they can derail us. As a leader, we have to commit to taking the high road when others, intentionally or unintentionally, wrong us.
Four Tips For Travelling the High Road
1) It’s Not What Happens to You, but in You That Really Matters
During the Civil War, Confederate General W.H.C. Whiting envied rival general Robert E. Lee. Consequently, Whiting spread vicious rumors about Lee in an attempt to smear his character. Lee had the opportunity to get even, though. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, was considering Whiting for a promotion, and he consulted Lee’s opinion of the general. Without hesitation, Lee endorsed and commended Whiting. The officers who witnessed the exchange were astonished. Afterward, one of them asked Lee if he had forgotten all of the slander Whiting had spread about him.
“I understand that the President wanted to know my opinion of Whiting, responded Lee, not his opinion of me.” Lee did what high road travelers do. He refused to be dragged into a game of bickering and petty jealousies by treating another person with respect, even when that respect seemed unwarranted.
2) High Roaders See Their Own Need for Grace, Therefore They Extend It to Others
Let’s face it; we all screw up from time to time. Each of us has quirks that we know can be annoying, and bad moments when we’re not so pleasant to be around.
People who take the high road recognize their humanness, know that they need to be extended grace, and accordingly are more likely to extend it to others.
3) High Roaders Are Not Victims; They Choose to Serve Others
People who take the high road don’t do so because it’s the only available option. They don’t do it by accident either: the high road goes uphill and takes more effort to travel. Instead, high roaders choose their path as a conscious act of service to others. By taking the high road, they drain animosity and bitterness out of relationships, serving to keep them open and productive.
Interestingly, in serving others, higher roaders benefit themselves, too. As the author of Proverbs wrote, “It is a man’s glory to overlook an offense.” When we maturely respond to a slight by showing forgiveness, we display admirable character that elevates us in the eyes of others.
4) High Roaders Set High Standards for Themselves Than Others Would
Abandoned as an infant, author James Michener never knew his biological parents. Fortunately, he was taken in and raised by a widow, and he adopted her surname. However, each time James published a book, he received nasty notes from one member of the Michener clan. The relative chastised James for taking on the Michener name, which this person felt the novelist had no right to use.
Despite being berated, Michener did agree with one statement his relative had made, “Who do you think you are, trying to be better than you are?” As James Michener professed, “I’ve spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration.”
When we conduct ourselves according to the highest standard, we are less likely to become defensive and take the low road when others attack us. Once you’ve done all that you can, then you can let the noise of detractors roll off your back like rain.
Summary
In leadership, as in life, others will behave unkindly toward you. When ill-treated, don’t retreat into a defensive mode or strike back in anger. Instead, take the high road and discover how rising above offenses frees you from petty arguments and adds to your reputation.
Positive self-expectancy is the first, most outwardly identifiable quality of a top-achieving, winning human being. Positive self-expectancy is pure and simple optimism: real enthusiasm for everything you do. And optimism is expecting the most favorable result from your own actions.
There never was a winner who didn’t expect to win in advance. Winners understand that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they know that you usually get what you expect in the long run. So winners accept the belief that hope and a deep, unbreakable faith — forged into a fundamental attitude of positive self-expectancy — is the eternal spring from which all creative, motivating energy flows.
The idea that faith conquers all has been verified from biblical times to current-day medical histories to daily stories of heroism and come-from-behind victories and rags-to-riches success we read about every day in the newspapers. They’re human biographies of greatness we read about, hear about, and watch on TV. And we marvel over these special people who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Let me ask you this: Did it ever occur to you that you, also, are one of these special people? Well, you are! You see, most of the real winners in life are so busy contributing, they don’t even think of seeking publicity for their acts. Most of them are discovered by the media, caught in the act of winning. Only a few famous people are winners, and only a few winners will become famous people. That’s because success is a very individual thing. Success is the way you spend your minutes doing your best for others. It is the way you take the talent you were born with, and the knowledge and skills you have since developed, and use them fully, toward a purpose that makes you feel worthwhile, according to your own individual, internal standards.
In your quest for excellence, there are two powerful sets of great expectations affecting your life. First, there are the expectations that others close to you have for you. And then there are the expectations that you have for yourself. While we all try to rise to the expectations others have for us, there is no question that our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.
As a behavioral scientist studying the lives of thousands of winners and losers, I find that “psycho,” the mind, is your own best fortuneteller to forecast the actions of “soma,” the body. And understanding this mind-and-body, psychosomatic relationship is the key to understanding the importance of the first, most outwardly identifiable quality of a winner: that of positive self-expectancy. Winners expect another good day, a promotion, a raise, to find a parking place, a productive meeting, and a harmonious family life — and they usually get them. Winners know that their actions will be controlled by their current obsessions. Losers generally expect more of the same frustration, more problems, the loss of a job, a dull evening, bad service, and failure. Most importantly, losers expect to feel bad and get sick — and they do.
Careful studies of the life histories of thousands of widely differing people have shown that the probability of health changes, such as sickness, accident, even pregnancy, can be predicted. We are learning that all disease is not necessarily caused by germs. All of us have germs, but only a few become ill as a result. Instead, the cause of disease is loosely linked with the way individuals react to life. The link between stressful life changes, expectant anxiety, and health changes seems to be associated with the body’s immune system, which makes antibodies to fight foreign material and germs. Situations that arouse fear and anxiety suppress antibody production as well.
Distrustful situations may also upset production of hormones, which have a role in emotional balance. An emotionally upset individual is much more prone to accidents.
But what does all this have to do with positive self-expectancy and winning attitudes? Simply this: Mental obsessions DO have physical manifestations. You do become that which you fear. You get what you suspect. You are that which you expect to be. This power of the self-fulfilling prophecy is one of the most amazing phenomena of human nature. What do you expect for yourself? You should expect the best. The winners in life, believing in the self-fulfilling prophecy, keep their momentum moving upward by expecting better jobs, more money, good health, better family relationships, financial security, warm friendships, and success.
All really successful individuals fervently desire and expect to win — no matter what curve life throws at them. Think about Helen Keller, who graduated magna cum laude and devoted her entire life to the service of others, although she had been deaf and blind since infancy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had polio. The modern artist Matisse created some of his best work when he was nearly blind, aged, and bedridden. A young woman named Patti Catalano overcame the self-destructive habits of overeating and chain-smoking to become one of the top 10 marathon runners in the world. I remember a little girl who took her optimism from the back streets of Harlem to the center court at Wimbledon — Althea Gibson. In spite of their handicaps, they expected to do their best. They wanted to achieve and expected to excel.
But there’s more to positive self-expectancy than meets the eye. Medical researchers have discovered that the body produces natural morphine-like substances that operate on certain receptor sites in the brain and spinal cord. These natural internal opiates are called endorphins. Secreted and used by the brain, endorphins reduce the experience and screen out unpleasant stimuli. In fact, the presence of endorphins actually causes the feeling of well-being.
In one related study, actors were wired to electrodes and connected to blood catheters. They were then asked to perform various scenes. When they portrayed characters who were angry or depressed, endorphin levels dropped. But when the scene called for emoting joy, confidence, and love, endorphin levels shot up dramatically. Science has shown that positive thoughts produce endorphins. Endorphins, in turn, encourage feelings of optimism and well-being. So it works both ways. You sing because you’re happy, and you’re happy because you’re singing. Sixty to 70 percent of the population who visit physicians are sick as a result of an emotional feeling of stress because of the pressure they feel from life. That’s why it’s critically important to remember that the key to winning positive self-expectancy is to understand that in the long run, every individual receives just about what he or she expects. And if you have faith that if you do things the right way, you’ll be rewarded accordingly — you’ll be a winner!
Optimism is a way of life. Some techniques for generating a greater attitude of positive self-expectancy include the following: First, look at problems as opportunities — search for the favorable aspects of every situation. Next, learn to stay relaxed and friendly, no matter how much pressure and tension you’re under. In the beginning, it’s likely that you’ll have to fake it. But the truth is that both calmness and courage are learned habits, and there’s no better way to learn a good habit than by actually getting in and doing it and living it. Next, and this is very important, in dealing with other people, instead of griping, try praising. In place of cynicism, try optimism. Instead of being unhelpfully critical, try being constructively helpful. You know these are learned habits, too. And everyone is dependent on others for at least part of their own positive self-expectancy.
And next, get excited and enthusiastic about your own dream. This excitement is like a forest fire. You can smell it, taste it, and see it a mile away. Everybody loves a winner. But nobody crowds around a loser’s locker room. Don’t run around with the doomsayers who look up and shout that the sky is always falling. Optimism and realism go together. They are the problem-solving twins. Pessimism and cynicism are the two worst companions. Surround yourself with the “no-problem, can-do’ type with big dreams like your own. It’s the excitement of the big dream that carries you through the setback that you encounter. The single most outwardly identifiable quality of a winner is positive self-expectancy — optimism. It’s the key to good health. It’s the key to happiness, and it puts the favorable inclination toward the achievement of every goal you set. Positive self-expectancy is the winner’s edge.
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