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Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up: Motivate Yourself and Your Team - Softcover

Pacetta, Frank

 
9780684800509: Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up: Motivate Yourself and Your Team
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0684800500 ISBN 13: 9780684800509
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 1995

Inhaltsangabe

Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up is a real-world story of winning in business by motivating employees in the most positive way possible—nurturing them, showing that you value their accomplishments, and giving them the skills and the responsibility to become winners.

Frank Pacetta, the hard-working man who engineered the drastic performance turnarounds of Xerox's Cleveland and Columbos sales staffs, gives the reader the same techniques he uses to build a winning business team:

* How to develop trust and create loyalty
* How to generate enthusiasm and excitement
* How to establish feedback and accountability
* How to rebuild an organization, and then lead and energize it
* How to put the organization on top and keep it there year after year

This book is check-full of practical, proven tips on leadership and management, everything from motivation to communication to all the nuts and bolts of selling successfully. And Pacetta has included his Top Ten Tips (and created Ten More Top Tips), which were featured in The Wall Street Journal and which have been copied and posted on office bulletin boards across the country.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Frank Pacetta was district sales manager for Xerox in Cleveland and now in Columbus, where he lives with his wife and two children. This is his first book.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Making a Statement: The Last Shall Be First

Cleveland gets a bad rap. As a city, it's the butt of snide jokes and gibes. But having spent four years in Dayton, Ohio, as an undergraduate at the University of Dayton and another ten working for Xerox in the Columbus area, I knew there was more to Cleveland than a river that used to catch fire and a baseball team that wouldn't.

Unlike some of my colleagues, who refused to consider a promotion and a transfer to Cleveland to run the district sales office, I jumped at the chance. Their reluctance stemmed in part from a misperception that they'd have to undergo a sacrifice of lifestyle to move to the "rust belt"; and they were wary of taking on a job that was widely regarded around Xerox as Mission Impossible. It wasn't that I was bolder or more visionary. The fact was, I would have gone anywhere for a chance to run my own show. I was prepared, confident, and determined to succeed.

Having said that, let me add that I had no idea what I was getting into. First, I agreed to leave my position as a district sales manager in Minneapolis (the number two position at that time) and only then did I thoroughly investigate the situation in Cleveland. Talk about leaping before you look.

Even so, had I done hours of research in advance, I still would have eagerly accepted the assignment. Theoretically, the Cleveland office should have been able to run neck-and-neck with any other Xerox operation in a comparable metropolitan area. It was doing about $56 million in revenue. With a central city population on the order of 500,000 people, and responsibility for much of northeastern Ohio as well, we should have been at least keeping abreast of places like Columbus and Cincinnati. Theoretically.

At that moment, though, of the eleven sales districts in Ohio, and sixty-five nationwide, Cleveland was dragging along near the bottom. I later learned that its reputation had sunk so low that in the mid-1980s when Xerox began pushing "Leadership Through Quality," the formula that brought the corporation back from the brink of death, major customers in Cleveland thought it was a big joke. Looking back, one of them acidly commented that our marketing strategy was to "sell by confusion."

When I got a look at the data, all the indices that I checked showed that the district richly deserved its infamy as a basket case. Even so, I spent my last days in Minneapolis planning ways to create a game plan and a mind-set that would put Cleveland back on top in the midwestern region and into national competition with bigger districts like Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and Denver. Raising the bar -- my favorite expression -- had begun, and I hadn't even set foot in the office yet!

Make Changes Immediately

I believe in the power of personal example. You can rant and rave and threaten, but the most effective way to get results is to show someone what you want done. On my first day in Cleveland it was clear that I had to reestablish the work ethic. I had reps and managers camped out in the coffee shop on the ground floor of our building at ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. I immediately put the place off limits. Not by posting a "Keep Out!" sign, but by making it perfectly clear that a long, leisurely breakfast was a thing of the past.

I was at my desk the first day -- and every day -- by 7:00 A.M. The management staff didn't have to be charter members of Mensa, the society of geniuses, to know that it made sense for them to roll in at about the same time. The reps who reported to them quickly got the picture, too. The office was up and running by 7:30 A.M. Anyone lingering in the coffee shop had to be afflicted with suicidal tendencies.

And that's an important point that must be made right here. The new manager doesn't need to arrive on the scene with a sharp ax and a chopping block. No matter how shaky the operation, the first order of business is to start doing business again. A reign of terror, an immediate housecleaning, is only going to get in the way of that objective. Set a blistering pace at the outset and there will be no confusion as to what each person needs to do to keep his or her job. When there is no ambiguity-and no alternative -- people usually either get with the program or select themselves out. The house cleans itself.

Here's tip number one, so get out your highlighter pen: Come in and make a statement. Put a stake in the ground with a can-do attitude that has no gray area whatsoever. The cavalry used to arrive with flags flying and bugles blowing. You are the cavalry.

It's a matter of leadership. My working assumption is that everyone wants to succeed. It makes sense, doesn't it? But why don't they succeed? There are three reasons: deficiency of skills, lack of desire, or poor leadership. Many times -- probably most of the time -- it's poor leadership. That's why on a sports team, when there's a losing streak, the coach gets fired, not the players. The players have the skills and the desire, otherwise they wouldn't have made the cut; what's missing is the direction, the coordination, the motivation that can only be provided by a leader. Making a statement early -- and I'm talking about an actions-speak-louder-than-words statement -- puts everyone on notice that the leadership vacuum has been filled. In itself, that's powerful and reassuring news. Even more important, though, is the central message of this truism -- if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. Troubled organizations don't have the faintest idea where they're going, and the uncertainty is corrosive.

Whether you see yourself as a coach or the cavalry, tell 'em where they're headed! That's job one.

A Choice and a Chance

By getting off to a fast start in Cleveland, I was providing leadership and a basic level of motivation, which amounted to "The train is leaving the station. Get on board or get left behind; the choice is up to you."

This can't be a bluff or flashy and meaningless rhetoric because the skeptics will opt to wait and see whether you're serious. The train can't leave tomorrow or next week; it's got to begin pulling out the moment you set foot on board.

Those who have climbed aboard will immediately be demonstrating whether or not their skills are up to the task. The longer the startup is delayed, the longer it will be before you as a manager and leader really have a complete understanding of the resources at your disposal.

If I've inherited the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the first thing I'm going to do is hold a little target practice. I want to know what I have to work with, and I want to know immediately! Training, guidance, extra supervision can all be applied -- that's what a leader is there for -- but not if I'm just guessing about who can hack it and who can't.

I can't stress it enough. Get a fast start.

Back to the Future

On day one in Cleveland, I scheduled a meeting of the entire sales operation. We had a small auditorium set up like an amphitheater in the lower level of our building that suited the purpose exactly. I wanted everyone to get the same message at the same time.

It was great to be back in Ohio again. I was so pumped up I couldn't sleep the night before. If nothing else, I wanted the group to leave the room feeling the same way. And I wanted them focused on these key points:

* Change was already happening.

* Expectations were set.

* Nonsense was out.

* The work ethic and the customer were in.

* People were going to enjoy working in Cleveland.

* We would be tough but fair.

There were forty-four people on hand, the entire sales and sales support operation; all the seats were full. The sales management team stood together against one wall,...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
1995
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0684800500
ISBN 13 
9780684800509
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
287
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande