Photo by lululemon athletica

An important part of a leaders job is to provide and environment that helps to inspire and motivate the people around them. Inspired, motivated and passionate employees lead to improved results and higher levels of innovation.

This is why the June 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review article “How Customers Can Rally Your Troops” caught my attention. The article describes how…

”a growing body of research shows that end users—customers, clients, patients, and others who benefit from a company’s products and services—are surprisingly effective in motivating people to work harder, smarter, and more productively.”

It seems that when employees understand and experience the impact that the company products and services on customers it serves to inspire and motivate. It seems that the reason feedback from customers is so effective in motivating is because employees see customer feedback as more credible and instils a sense of meaning.

Customer Feedback is Seen as More Credible

Customer feedback is seen, by employees as more credible than feedback from company managers.

“Organizational psychologist David Hofmann and I have found that employees generally see end users as more credible than leaders as sources of inspiration. When leaders attempt to deliver inspiring messages, many employees react with skepticism, questioning whether leaders are just trying to get them to work harder.”

Customer Feedback Instils a Powerful Sense of Meaning

The most powerful source of motivation occurs when we are doing work that gives meaning and a sense of purpose. One powerful source of meaning comes from how we are contributing to improving the lives of others.

“In national surveys over the past three decades, the vast majority of Americans have identified meaningful work as the single most important feature that they seek in a job. And numerous researchers have found that people are concerned not only about themselves but also about doing work that benefits others and contributes to society.”

This insight also provides further support for the John Kay’s concept of obliquity and it’s importance when setting company vision and strategy.

How Companies Are Using Customer Feedback

The article provide the following interesting examples of how companies use customer feedback to motivate and and inspire their employees:

• “Facebook flies in users from around the country to meet with engineers and share how the site has reconnected them to family and friends”
• “At a Merrill Lynch branch, weekly team meetings begin with stories about how the team has made a difference in customers’ lives.”
• “At Wells Fargo, for instance, managers show bankers videos of people describing how low-interest loans rescued them from severe debt—a vivid reminder to the bankers that they are striving to serve their customers, not their managers.”
• “At Medtronic’s annual holiday party, for instance, patients are invited to share their stories about how the company’s medical technologies helped them. The stories humanize the work for the engineers and technicians behind the scenes.”

This insight also provides further support for the John Kay concept of obliquity and it’s importance when setting company vision and strategy.

• What are you doing to leverage customer feedback to motivate and inspire employees?
• What can you do to find and share inspiring customer satisfaction stories within your company?

Related posts:

1. Clarity the Key to Employee Engagement
2. The Ten C’s of Employee Engagement
3. How employee engagement affects your organisation…

This video by Dan Pink provides a really insightful overview as to what motivates people. As leaders motivation is a critical leadership consideration as motivation lead to committment or complacency. Unless we can inspire and motivate people to follow and engage with the vision – leadership fails!

As was so effectively illustrated in this video, we tend to over-rely on monetary reward as the primary means to motivate people. Which can be a very blunt instrument. This is especially true of how we reward and motivate our leaders. High levels of monetary reward does not produce leadership! The best leaders are primarily motivated by purpose and mastery, rather than money.

• What are your thoughts?
• Can leadership be bought?

No related posts.

Inspired by one of the most obscure acts recorded in Scripture….

“Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.” – II Samuel 23:20

 

The Lion Chaser’s Manifesto

Taken from The Community Fellowship’s series of Chase the Lion adapted from Mark Batterron’s book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day…

“Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!”

Your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn’t chase!

Related posts:

1. Bob Parsons Rules to Live By…

The book “Fire Them Up!” by Carmine Gallo is really a great read. It discusses the importance of inspiration for successful leadership. The book is divided into two parts “Part I: The 7 Simple Secrets” of success which provides the foundation principles for inspiring others and “PART II: Living the 7 Simple Secrets” discusses how people in different role apply the seven secrets. I am going to focus this book review on PART I: The Seven Simple Secrets.

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter 1: Ignite Your Enthusiasm – Light a Fire in Your Heart before Sparking One in Theirs

“Inspiration begins internally. What is it about your service, product, company, or cause that pumps you up? Only after you identify what you are truly passionate about will you be in a position to motivate others.”

Chapter 2: Navigate the Way – Deliver a Specific, Consistent and Memorable Vision

“Enthusiasm opens the door, but vision grabs hold of your listeners and pulls them to the other side… A fuzzy vision will fail to rally your listeners to a better future…. For a vision to have impact, it must be simple and profound. How do you attain both? By keeping your vision to ten words or less…. If you can articulate a compelling vision of the world that is specific, consistent, and memorable, you will not only have grabbed their attention, but you will have captured their hearts. And where their hearts lead, their minds are sure to follow.”

Chapter 3: Sell the Benefit – Put Your Listeners First

“Make no mistake: When you speak, your listeners are asking themselves on question: What’s in it for me? It’s the one question that should be answered not once, but throughout your communication.”… To inspire your listeners, constantly ask yourself, ‘What am I selling?’ Think about it this way: Apple does not sell computers. It sells tools to unleash human potential. Starbucks does not sell coffee. It sells an experience, a ‘third place’ between home and work…. What are you selling?…. They are buying benefits not products.”

Chapter 4: Paint a Picture – Tell Powerful, Memorable, and Actionable Stories

“Inspiring individuals sell themselves, their vision, and their values by turning their message into a story that piques your interest, keeps you entertained, makes it easy to remember key points, and, above all, leads you to take some sort of action. Your message is not your story… Persuading individuals to follow a desired course of action requires an emotional engagements with the listener… ‘Stories speak to both parts of the human mind – its reason and emotion,’ writes Howard Gardner.”

Chapter 5: Invite Participation

“Listening is not enough. Asking for feedback, and taking action based on what you hear, makes all the difference.”

Chapter 6: Reinforce and Optimistic Outlook

“Leaders, for some reason, see a bright future in the thickest fog… As Marcus Buckingham observes in The One Thing You Need to Know, ‘The opposite of a leader isn’t a follower. The opposite of a leader is a pessimist.’ The link between optimism and inspiration is direct and immediate: Thinking optimistically will make you feel better about yourself. Speaking optimistically will give others the confidence to follow your vision.”

Chapter 7: Encourage Their Potential

“People connect with people, not things. And the best compliment you can receive from another human being is this: ‘You make me want to be a better person.’… Motivation is about bringing out the best in people, but people will not listen to your message until they know you care.”

In Summary…

I found this book an easy and inspiring read. Each chapter is full of useful examples describing how the principles being described in the chapter has been applied in a real world context. With the importance of inspiration for successful leadership, we all will benefit from the ideas from this book. I recommend that this book to anyone who is looking form ways to inspire and motivate their team and organizations.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: The Creative Habit
2. Book Review: Success Built to Last
3. Book Review: The Leader’s Voice

Carmine Gallo writes in BusinessWeek, “The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders” discussing research by Maritz Research which found that only 10% of employees look forward to going to work. The main reason? A lack of leadership. Whilst Carmine was conducting research for the book “Fire Them Up” the following seven techniques were shown to result in inspirational communication:

1. Demonstrate enthusiasm—constantly. “Inspiring leaders have an abundance of passion for what they do. You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself. Period. Passion is something I can’t teach. You either have passion for your message or you don’t. Once you discover your passion, make sure it’s apparent to everyone within your professional circle.”
2. Articulate a compelling course of action. “Inspiring leaders craft and deliver a specific, consistent, and memorable vision. A goal such as “we intend to double our sales by this time next year,” is not inspiring. Neither is a long, convoluted mission statement destined to be tucked away and forgotten in a desk somewhere. A vision is a short (usually 10 words or less), vivid description of what the world will look like if your product or service succeeds.”
3. Sell the benefit. “Always remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. In my first class at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, I was taught to answer the question, “Why should my readers care?” That’s the same thing you need to ask yourself constantly throughout a presentation, meeting, pitch, or any situation where persuasion takes place. Your listeners are asking themselves, what’s in this for me? Answer it. Don’t make them guess.”
4. Tell more stories. “Inspiring leaders tell memorable stories. Few business leaders appreciate the power of stories to connect with their audiences… No amount of data can replace that story… Stories connect with people on an emotional level. Tell more of them.”
5. Invite participation. “Inspiring leaders bring employees, customers, and colleagues into the process of building the company or service. This is especially important when trying to motivate young people. The command and control way of managing is over. Instead, today’s managers solicit input, listen for feedback, and actively incorporate what they hear. Employees want more than a paycheck. They want to know that their work is adding up to something meaningful.”
6. Reinforce an optimistic outlook. “Inspiring leaders speak of a better future… Extraordinary leaders throughout history have been more optimistic than the average person. Winston Churchill exuded hope and confidence in the darkest days of World War II. Colin Powell said that optimism was the secret behind Ronald Reagan’s charisma. Powell also said that optimism is a force multiplier, meaning it has a ripple effect throughout an organization. Speak in positive, optimistic language. Be a beacon of hope.”
7. Encourage potential. “Inspiring leaders praise people and invest in them emotionally. Richard Branson has said that when you praise people they flourish; criticize them and they shrivel up. Praise is the easiest way to connect with people. When people receive genuine praise, their doubt diminishes and their spirits soar. Encourage people and they’ll walk through walls for you.”

No leader accomplishes a vision alone. Inspiration is critical to rally people to make the journey and to commit the time and energy required to bring a vision to pass. These seven techniques present some great ways to inspire and motivate people to greatness.

Related posts:

1. The Secrets of Inspiring Leaders
2. Leaders communicate with their actions and attitude
3. 10 Easy Ways to Know You’re Not a Leader