Sometimes I think about how the details are what makes a leader a good leader, or a successful person a success. Their ability to pay attention to those details can make all the difference in the world. Not only the details of how they look or the work they perform, but also in being sure they are always giving their best to the people they serve.

As an example, a man you can trust is a man who never lies. A woman you can trust is woman who always tells the truth. If the person in question is honest 99 percent of the time, but every once in awhile he or she tells a lie that one lie out of a hundred is the flaw in the program that causes the person harm in the long run. One little lie can make the difference between someone who is trustworthy and someone who is not.

The same thing can be said for many characteristics. A person who is caring should always be caring. That one rude comment may not mean much compared to all the nice things they do, but to the person who has been dealt with in an uncaring manner could be the person who would have been the next big client.

I’m not saying a person who is not perfect one hundred percent of the time is doomed to failure, but when it comes to success and happiness just as it does to a computer program, the little things can make a big difference.

Not only did Shaun manage to complete his famous Double McTwist with very little speed going into the launch, but during his final run Shaun in fact bettered his score, the score that had already won him the Gold. In my opinion, this is the mark of a true champion. The next time you accomplish something amazing don’t sit back and rest on your laurels; do something to better it.

To see what a Double McTwist looks like, watch Shaun White as he demonstrates it in the video below.

In sales there are really four sales motivators customers must have in order to make a purchase.

One: The customer must like you.
Two: The customer must like the product
Three: The customer must like the company.
Four: The customer must agree with the cost to benefit ratio.

If any of these four are not achieved, making the sale is much more difficult if not impossible. Think about it. If the customer likes the product but doesn’t like you the sale will be hard to close. If the customer likes you, but not the product, again, no deal. If the customer likes you, likes the product, but doesn’t like the company again, hard to close. And last but not least if the customer likes you, the company, the product, but doesn’t see the value then sorry, no sale.

In a down economy like this one I have some simple advice.  One, much more diligent about getting out there and meeting new people and meeting potential clients; NUMBERS MATTER. Two, do everything you can to meet the four sales motivators.  You will want to pay a lot of attention to the last sales motivator, “Cost Vs. Benefit” .  If you’re not making the sale, then most likely you need to either raise the perception of the benefits, or reduce the cost so the benefits out way the cost.

If you can’t reduce costs, then make darn sure the benefits are being addressed properly. Addressing the benefits properly means the benefits must be important to the customer you have in front of you, not important to the client you just spoke to yesterday.  If you know know how the customer in front of you can benefit from your product or service then you better start asking a lot of good probing questions.

Imagine you are new to a basketball team and you have never played basketball. Your coach tells you that the game involves shooting the basketball into the hoop. The coach shows you where the hoop is, tells you to practice, then leaves. Now let’s imagine 3 days later you are in a game, and you haven’t seen the coach during that time, but you show up excited and ready to play.

The game begins, and you can’t wait to get going. You’re excited, motivated, ready for action and the coach puts you in. You take the ball is passed to you, so you throw it at the basket as hard as you can from center court, and miss. Your coach then yells at you and says to get closer to the hoop. The next time the ball is passed, you start running and the whistle blows because you didn’t dribble. The coach then yells at you again for the foul.

The next time you decide you will stand ready under the basket, so you wait patiently by the basket while your team plays on the other end of the court with your four team mates playing against the five team members on the other end. Now the team runs back down and tells you to run up and help them next time and that you better start playing right or you’ll be kicked off the team.

A few minutes later the ball is passed to you and with the ball in your hands you try to throw it to the basket with both hands but it’s blocked because you were to close to the opposing team. The coach then yells at you because you’ve been playing now for 5 minutes and haven’t made a basket yet. Now imagine for the next 20 minutes your team mates are yelling at you your coach is yelling at you, and you realize you HATE this game. Why?

Pretty obvious, no one took the time to teach you the skills you need to play and win.

The same thing happens to often at work. There are certain numbers you are required to obtain, goals the company has etc. If you don’t take the time to teach your team members how to do the job better, don’t expect consequences, positive or negative, to do much.

My number one rule in managing is: Never tell anyone they need to do a better job or that they are doing a good job without telling them exactly what it is they need to improve on or what they are doing well.

This can be challenging. How often do you tell an employee, “you’re doing a great job”. If you are trying to be a good manager, you are probably doing it quite a bit. However, if you tell them each time you complement them why exactly you think they are doing a great job, the complement means so much more. Conversely, if you tell an employee they need to do better and don’t tell them exactly what they need to work on the comment usually has little affect other than to demoralize.

When you are trying to motivate employees, be exact in your complements and in your coaching and focus on the skills they need and the numbers will take care of themselves.

Team Leadership Empowering Employees from Robert Ratliff on Vimeo.

When I was around 15 years old, I had an experience that changed my life, but this story starts a little earlier. You see when I was in the ninth grade I was very fit. At this point in my life gymnastics was one of my hobbies. When we started our gymnastics exercise regiment our team would start with around 50 pull ups, 100 push ups, and 100 sit ups. Then we would begin our practice.

One day in gym class I was told by our gym coach, a different coach than my gymnastics coach, that we would be marking off pull ups for our presidential awards. When it was my turn, I asked the coach how many I needed to do to mark it off, and he told me I needed at least 3 pull ups. Laughing inside, I jumped up onto the bar, did my three and hopped down in about 30 seconds. The coach looked at me in amazement and asked me if I was going to do any more. My response was “I thought you said I only had to do three.” My coach acknowledge that I was correct, but he said I just thought you may want to do more since I’ve never seen anyone your age do pull ups so easily. I told him I didn’t want to and asked him if I could go play. My coach just looked at me in kind of a sad manner, and said “sure”.

A year later, after I left Jr. High and now attended High School, a friend of mine, a boy a year younger than me was on his way home. He was still in Jr. High, the same school I went to a year earlier.

“Guess what”, my friend said.

“What, I replied”. ”

“I broke the school record for pull ups today”, he said.

All I could think to myself was wow, I didn’t even know they kept records like that.

“How many did you do”, I asked.

I will never forget his response. It still amazes me.

“Eleven”, he said.

I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t even thought about going after the record, had I done that I could have easily done 50, 75, maybe even 100 pull ups and I may still hold the record today, 20 years later. But I didn’t even ask.

From that point on I decided I would never again ask what the minimum expectations were, I would always go for the record.

I think the article, “Don’t Do This” was great because it’s simply a reality.  Not everyone is supervisory or management material, that is a fact.  More importantly, as a leader, rather than trying to motivate or “inspire” an employee with promise of a promotion, take the time to get to know them.  What do I mean by this?  I’ve spent many years in the roles of both supervisor and manager.  In my years, I have found, as many others have too, that the true “key” to inspiring someone to greatness is to find out what drives them.  What are their goals?  What do they aspire to?  What motivates them? What do they want out of life and more importantly, what do they want out of their job?

There are many employees who do not have the desire to become a supervisor or manager.  They have their own lives and don’t want the responsibility. Who can blame them?  It’s a lot of work, hours and dedication to be a strong, successful supervisor.
So, then what difference does it make if you, as a supervisor, know these details about each and every one of your employees?  Well, the methods that you would use to inspire someone that is driven by money, big bonuses, commissions, etc….would surely not have the same successful effect on someone that is driven by perhaps,…recognition.
There are many employees these days, that thrive on appreciation.  They are not in it for the big bucks.  Others may be at their job for the benefits.  With such a sluggish economy, employment that still provides good benefits is very important to many.  The point is, find out what THEY want.  Let them realize their own motivation.  Then all you need to do, is inspire them.  It’s simple.

Robert Stuberg said, “The trouble with so many of us is that we underestimate the power of simplicity. We have a tendency it seems to over complicate our lives and forget what’s important and what’s not. We tend to mistake movement for achievement. We tend to focus on activities instead of results. And as the pace of life continues to race along in the outside world, we forget that we have the power to control our lives regardless of what’s going on outside.”

Find out what is important and don’t let them forget it.

Below are some examples of items that can be fun to have even if you have very little?

Your imagination is fun to have.

• Kids play all the time in their rooms with not much than a little aciton soldier, or tea party set.  Why, because they use their imaginations.  You should try it.  Grab anything next to you, someting within 2 feet of you.  Now imagine what you have is a car and drive it all around your desk, or couch, or whatever you have around you.  Like it or not, when you do this, you are having fun, in fact if you do try this, try to do it without smiling.  I bet you can’t  now you are having fun.  Your imagination is fun to have.

A piece of string is fun to have.

• Take the piece of string and wrap it around your finger, watch the end of your finger turn red.  When it starts to turn purple, you better unwrap it fairly quickly.
• Use the string to create a circle and tie the two ends together.  Now you can use the string to make patterns using your hands and fingers like you did when you were a kid.
• Take the piece of string and hold it above your head just above your mouth.  Now blow on the string and see how high you can get the string to sore through the air.  Now that’s fun because, a piece of string is fun to have.

A piece of paper is fun to have.

• Use the piece of paper to make a paper airplane and fly it all around your home or if your at work, you can use several pieces of paper to make several airplanes and try to fly them into your bosses office.  It’s good target practice and it is a way to have fun.
• Or, you can take the piece of paper and a pencil and draw a picture on the paper of your ex, then you can draw a mustach or a bugar hanging from their nose, or scrunch the paper up and throw it away, stomp on and smash it.  You can also unscrunch the paper and see what your ex will look like when they get old and wrinkly.  As you can see, a piece of paper is fun to have.

A magic marker is fun to have.

• You can use the magic marker to draw two eyes, a little nose, and little mount on the tip of your finger, and before you know it, you have a friend to talk to who wont run away.
• You can use the magic marker to draw a mustach on your sister while she is sleeping.  When she wakes up you can have fun running away from her while she tries to get you back or hit you.
• Use the magic marker to paint your room with, it may take a while, but with dedication, and a supply of makers the same color, you can completely cover your walls in just a few weeks.  That’s the kind of fun that will last a long time.  In fact if you use different colors, your wall could look amazing.  See, a magic marker is fun to have.

As a seminar speaker I learned that when I give a presentation there area at least four different presentations given. 1) The presentation I thought I gave. 2) The presentation I actually gave. 3) The presentation the audience heard. 4) The presentation the audience will relay to others.

When you are trying to communicate with others certain important aspects you want them to understand, it is always a good idea, to present your ideas, and then ask them to paraphrase in their own words what they heard. This may seem like a silly thing to do, but in fact this really helps to prevent misunderstandings and your employees will appreciate that.

Furthermore, it’s always good practice to ensure your employees are communicated with frequently so they feel they are needed in the company. There’s nothing worse than feeling like your a mushroom, and if you don’t know what that means it means you are kept in the dark, and fed “BS” all day.

In summery the motivation theory behind communication is, motivating employees isn’t always about awards, cheer leading sessions, and the like. More often than not by keeping your employees informed you not only are you enabling your employees to make better decisions based on the needs of the company, but you are also allowing the employees to work as a team all interconnected and understanding their roles and how the relate to the company. This allows for employees to feel better about themselves, and feel better about the company for which they work.

Motivation Theory.net