The first thing that tests the real genius of any management is their ability to motivate the organization. Somebody gave me a definition of an executive long ago that I like very much. "An executive is not a man who can do the work better than his men; he is a man who can get his men to do the work better than he can." Isn't that good?
Let's talk about the way of motivating an organization. I think that the most important thing is the attitude of an executive. For example, if a man feels that his organization serves him, he can only motivate with fear and money. If he feels that he serves his organization, then he can motivate without any trouble reaching the desired heights. If a man satisfies his own ego from his organization, then he is going to have problems. If he feels that his organization is simply the Tiffany mounting upon which he, the genuine diamond, sits, he will have great difficulty motivating his people because nobody is truly interested in simply feeding another's ego.
If he insists upon having a luxury car a block long and parks it across the parking lot so that the employees have to walk around it; if he insists on wearing his coat while everyone goes around in shirtsleeves; if he insists on having all memos come from his desk ---- there are ego problems. Some executives accept the symbolism of management and not the reality of it. Your employees don't mind if you drive a luxury car unless you blow the horn at them to get out of the way!
Are we interested in symbolism, or are we interested in reality? If it is symbolism, you will have to motivate through fear or money. If you choose fear, you will wind up with a bunch of "yes men" with hinges in their backs. If you solely motivate through money, you have an organization of prostitutes. Isn't that true?
A great factor in motivation is vicarious accomplishment. I was talking recently to a man who has built a tremendous manufacturing business. He said, "It isn't the twenty-six or so plants I have built that make me happy. It's the young men I have developed."
May I suggest this: Write the name of each person who reports to you, and across from the name write what motivates them. My experience has taught me that if you know what is genuinely important to a person, you have a personal motivation. If you can't write down a motivator, you don't fully know the person yet.
For group motivation, give your organization a reputation. Look at the Marines! Think back to the $64,000 Question show. The guy who went for it all couldn't have stopped at $32,000 because he was a Marine. I have two brothers who are Marines (there are never former or ex Marines…) who thought they could lick any fifteen Army men or ten Navy men. There is tremendous value in giving an organization a reputation to live up to that motivates the group.
The second thing I would like to suggest: the most overlooked quality in an executive is emotional stability. Mason Roberts, former head of Frigidaire, considered this the key in executive development. Think of the thousands of hours that are lost because the boss blows his top in a staff meeting. After that, what happens? Everybody has to check and see what the boss meant. Then somebody writes a protective memo, which takes up more time. Just one loss of temper costs lots of productive hours.
I don't mean lack of steam. An executive can't live unless he has a full head of steam. Emotional stability isn't the loss of steam; it is the controlling of it. A lot of people are like a steam pipe with a bunch of holes in it. They pop off like a calliope. We are not trying to decrease the steam, simply direct it.
May I suggest three facets to emotional stability? 1) Keep the criticism positive. Recently, I tried to analyze the reasons I criticize. Three of them were negative and one was positive. If before ten o'clock I have been critical of everybody, I stop and say: Fred, what's wrong with you? What are you mad at yourself about? And, generally, I have to go make a call home to apologize. But the organization won't straighten out until I quit being mad at myself. If I criticize too many, I'm just buck-passing a self-grudge.
The need to feel superior often results in negative criticism. A final reason is that frustrated performers become critics. Many times they start out as performers but just don't make it.
Positive criticism is simply a genuine desire to bring about improvement. That can be done quietly. It doesn't need a public arena --- unlike negative criticism that yearns for an audience.
2) Controlled worry. Many problems could be solved if the top management could control their worrying. In 1941 I was a confirmed worrier. I was beginning to have stomach trouble. But from then to this day I can truthfully say that I have never worried one day. Let me quickly summarize how this happened. I was a professional. If you are just an amateur go right ahead and worry. It won't bother you. I didn't take my worries and go to bed with them. No sir. I was afraid of going to sleep. I got up and sat in a chair and worried. Then I found that I could "wait to worry."
Most of our worrying comes between the time we hear about something and the time we get the facts on it. We just can't wait to worry.
In order to have emotional stability we have to have a sense of humor. I never apologize for a sense of humor in business. I have never seen a man without a sense of humor who was not an egotist. He doesn't have the basic humility to learn that there are times when there is nothing to do but laugh or have high blood pressure.
I think we as management must believe that all of our organization is a channel and not a converter. We can't put venom in at the top and come out perfume. However, it's like an electrical charge. The good becomes weaker as it travels. So we have to put it in strong at the top.
We, as executives, have a responsibility to start the good with a genuine belief that it will come out, because "as ye sow, so shall ye reap." And knowing that we are convinced that indeed, "the best is yet to be!"
