Challenge Your Employees To Give It
Their All and They’ll Give You Even More
HUNDRED PERCENTERS
(Mark Murphy/McGraw-Hill/October 2009/240pages/$27.95)
HUNDRED PERCENTERS
Challenge Your Employees To Give It
Their All and They’ll Give You Even More
MAIN IDEA
How do you motivate your employees to become “Hundred Percenters” – people who
give 100% to their work? The answer is simple – you have to become a “100% Leader”
first. 100% Leaders take average people and create connections which challenge and
inspire them to unleash their true potential and achieve extraordinary things. 100%
Leaders don‟t just accept people as they are but see their hidden potential and find
workable ways to fully tap into and harness that potential.
In particular, 100% Leaders do five things exceptionally well:
“Since I founded Leadership IQ, we have studied more than 125,000 leaders. We‟ve
analyzed their styles, decisions, and actions and the hard and soft outcomes that result.
We discovered that the two most important differentiating factors in separating
exceptional from average leaders are Challenge and Connection. Connection is the
strength of the emotional connection a leader builds with his or her people. Challenge is
the extent to which a leader pushes his or her folks. Two of the most important decisions
you have to make as a leader are how much you want to challenge your folks to push
their limits and how tight an emotional bond you want to build with them. The decisions
you make on these two issues will determine exactly what kind of leader you‟re going to
be. If you push people but you don‟t seem to care about them, you‟re not going to be
very successful. But if you care enough about your folks to push them beyond what
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even they think they‟re capable of (i.e. you‟re a 100% Leader), you will succeed.”
– Mark Murphy
About of Author
MARKMURPHY is founder andCEOof Leadership IQ, a leadership training services
provider. Leadership IQ has carried out some of the largest and most comprehensive
leadership studies ever conducted and the results have been used by companies like
Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, First Energy and others. Mr. Murphy‟s work has been
featured by Fortune, Forbes, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post and many other
publications. He is also an experienced turnaround advisor having taken more than 100
organizations from weak financial situations to record-setting levels of prosperity. Mr.
Murphy is an experienced public speaker and has lectured at Harvard Business School,
Yale University, the University of Rochester and the University of Florida.
The Web site for this book is at www.LeadershipIQ.com.
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“People who are 100% Leaders achieve greatness by pushing past the comfort zone
and inspiring their followers to do the same. We may be afraid of challenge, but
ironically, companies generally don‟t die because they tackled a challenge that was too
big or pushed themselves too hard. In virtually every major business failure, adhering to
the status quo was the motivation behind the undoing.”
– Mark Murphy
The conventional approach to goal setting in a business setting has generally been to
set SMART goals – goals which are
S – Specific and clearly articulated.
M – Measurable using well established metrics.
A – Achievable rather than wildly optimistic moon shots.
R – Realistic by comparison with the status quo.
T – Time-bound meaning having a deadline by which you hope to achieve your goal
The problem is SMART goals can be pretty dumb in practice. They don‟t inspire people
to make bold breakthroughs or to achieve quantum leaps in performance. Rather,
SMART goals encourage mediocre performance or marginal improvements at best. To
get your people to become Hundred Percenters, you‟ve got to inspire them. You have to
set HARD goals which will push everyone to go beyond their own self-imposed
restraints. So what exactly is a HARD goal?
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At first glance, the concept that you can get people to achieve more by setting them
HARD goals rather than SMART goals sounds counterintuitive. The undeniable fact,
however, is HARD goals build character and make us better, stronger and wiser. 100%
Leaders set HARD goals that will inspire and motivate people to push the edge of the
performance envelope outwards. Some of the most famous goals in history have been
HARD goals. The obvious examples of this phenomena in action were:
■ President John F. Kennedy, 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to
achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and
returning him safely to the earth.”
■ Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address asked the people to fight so that
“government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
Earth.”
■ Winston Churchill during World War II made clear to the United Kingdom “whatever
the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, weshall fight in the hills; we shall never
surrender.”
Admittedly, the challenges you face in a business setting probably won‟t affect the fate
of millions of people directly but if you want your people to become Hundred Percenters,
you‟ve got to set business goals that inspire them to push themselves. People love
being part of a team that is doing something great. That requires accomplishing HARD
goals.
Taking each component individually:
HARD goals are always heartfelt. This is more than making money. It‟s about serving
people better than they‟ve ever been served before and thus creating more value in
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their lives. A good example of this is found in Google‟s corporate philosophy: “From its
inception, Google has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While
many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation
to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. Google has steadfastly refused
to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site.”
To build a heartfelt element into your goals, keep in mind the acronym NOBLE:
Name a party
Other than ourselves who will
Benefit from this goal
Like customers, clients or
End users.
Make your goals NOBLE and you‟ll have the attention and best efforts of your Hundred
Percenters.
ANIMATED means your goals need to be inspirational. They have to force your
organization and its people to solve challenges which are vital and interesting.
Animation comes when you describe achieving your goal in terms which are so graphic
people can almost taste what you’re trying to do. They can visualize in their mind’s eye
what it will be like to achieve the goal and reap the benefits.
■ Well animated goals always describe the specific outcomes which will be achieved
using clear-cut and concise metrics.
■ Animated goals also describe the actions which need to be taken. “As of today,
we’re done with long boring staff meetings. In the future, all our meetings will be
conducted online and will use written agendas.”
■ Animated goals describe what it will feel like to do what you set out to do. They use
vivid imagery which makes the goal come to life and become even more desirable.
REQUIRED covers the fact HARD goals aren‟t just something that would be nice to do if
it‟s not too much trouble. They are absolute necessities – along the lines of “the fate of
the free world rests upon your shoulders”. HARD goals have to be done. They are
absolutely required in order for the collective success and survival of the organization.
There is some element in there which is compelling and imperative.
By integrating an explanation of why achieving the goal is important right into your
HARD goal, you provide a rational for why people should become Hundred Percenters.
Fail to include this and people will wonder: “Why should we care?”
DIFFICULT is quite literal. HARD goals force people to do their best work because they
are challenging and demanding. There is something in the human spirit which craves for
tough assignments which force a person to do their very best work as opposed to
coasting along and getting by. HARD goals always force people to use their existing
skills to the maximum degree and frequently to acquire new skills in order to do what‟s
required.
When you give someone a HARD goal, you‟re saying you believe they are capable of
achieving something substantial. In a way, it‟s a vote of confidence in their ability to do
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important and meaningful work. HARD goals also incorporate a sense that what you‟re
doing is vital to the future of the organization rather than an administrative task – like
generating a report that will only ever get read by one or two people.
So what does a HARD goal look like? Martin Luther King said: “I have a dream that one
day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave
owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that
my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
In a corporate setting, aHARDgoal might be couched in this kind of terminology: “We‟re
going to leapfrog past our competitors by using the current tough times to think
expansively. I envision a time when our products are known and recognized as genuine
market leaders. A year from today, we will have no customers calling us to gripe about
broken products arriving because wewill have designed new shipping containers which
completely eliminate breakage, no matter how the packages are treated. A year from
today, our company wi l l be popular with environmentalists because we will have gone
green from beginning to end. Every department will be required to generate a saving of
at least $100,000 in operating expenses by utilizing green technology in smarter ways,
eliminating $1 million in operating expenses for the company. A year from now, our
products will be so well known because of celebrity endorsements we will have retailers
calling us and pleading to carry our product lines. A year from now we will have in place
several marketing alliances or partnerships with heavy hitter companies which will make
our brand name very well known. I know these goals are challenging but we have taken
on tough assignments in the past and come out victorious and I‟m confidentwecan do it
again. Accepting the status quo is not good enough.Wehave to think expansivelyand
increase the creativity we apply to our work. I can‟t promise you the year ahead will be
easy but in 12 months time, we‟ll be able to look back on an intensive period where we
gave it everything we‟ve got. Let‟s get to work making good things happen.”
“HARD goals are hard. They present challenges that test our limits and build our
character, but the benefits are many. HARD goals make us better, stronger, wiser –
something more than we were before we embraced the challenge.”
– Mark Murphy
Keep in mind as soon as you set a HARD goal, attention will immediately turn to what
kind of resources you will have available to help with the accomplishment of that goal.
People might have the mind-set “OK, we‟ll work on that, but it‟ll cost you.” A lack of
resources can certainly constrain effectiveness and increase difficulty but there are two
sides to this particular argument.
Resources to accomplish HARD goals generally fall into four major categories:
1. Formal authority to allocate resources and make changes
2. The skills required to make the right things happen.
3. Budget for labor, equipment, production runs, etc.
4. Time – how long they have to complete the assignment.
“As crazy as it sounds, limiting peoples‟ resources can actually be an effective way to
grow their skills and elevate their performance. When we analyzed start-ups and
entrepreneurs, we found that virtually all the successful start-ups were slightly
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under-resourced. Specifically, they were short in one of the four resource buckets.
Interestingly, when start-ups were fully resourced (i.e. they had all the money, authority,
skills and time they needed), their results weren‟t as good. Of course, as anyone who‟s
ever worked on a creative project can attest, oftentimes the best work occurs under
constrained conditions (in other words, necessity is the mother of invention).”
– Mark Murphy
Just the right amount of resource deprivation can stimulate creativity. This is why new
companies that bootstrap themselves to bring new products to market frequently
outperform the internal units of large corporations which are highly resourced. Resource
constraints can be taken to extremes but as a general rule-of-thumb:
■ When people don’t have formal authority to get things done, they become more
skilled at negotiating and forming alliances to accomplish their goals.
■ Teams which are short of the requisite skills push themselves harder to acquire new
competencies.
■ People who are short of budget tend to become very clever at developing creative
financing mechanisms.
■ Teams which are deprived of time often find a way to work faster and manage things
better.
Therefore being short of resources is not necessarily the end of the story. The key is to
get the balance right. When people are short of one resource but okay in the other three
areas, they tend to find waysaround the constraint. If they are short in two or more
resources, that tends to mean the goal does not get accomplished. The trick is to get the
balance right.
“HARD goals are not SMART goals. HARD goals care more about the challenging
nature of the goal than about making sure it fits neatly onto a worksheet. HARD goals
don‟t sound formulaic, and that‟s exactly what makes them so real and so inspiring.
When you announce your HARD goals, you‟re going to see visible signs of perspiration
and palpitations as folks listen. That‟s what gets the Hundred Percenter adrenaline
flowing.”
– Mark Murphy
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HARD goals challenge your best performers to get outside their comfort zone and tackle
tough challenges. In challenging the status quo, it’s inevitable mistakes will be made.
The typical responses to these mistakes take five forms:
■ Denial – “There’s no real problems with my performance. If you have a problem
with the result, your judgement is faulty.”
■ Blame – “OK, maybe the results were less than optimal, but wedid the best with
whatwewere given. You should talk to the other departments about why they gave us
poor data.”
■ Excuses – “Yes, the results were poor. The server crashed just before we were to
make a presentation to a key client and we were forced to go in there empty handed.”
■ Anxiety – “Well clearly the end result was disappointing. We’ve tried to fix this
numerous times before and it just doesn’t work out in practice.”
■ Accountability – “We’ve failed to reach our goal here. Let’s move forward and do
better in the future by making these changes so we can get back on track.”
The 100% Leader obviously wants to reduce and ideally eliminate altogether denial,
blame, excuses and anxiety. The way to do this is by providing people with constructive
feedback which is based around the IDEALS script as follows:
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To provide constructive feedback which makes people feel accountable, you initiate a
conversation with them along these general lines:
By providing constructive feedback which is structured this way, you avoid the
defensiveness which often results from unchecked or random feedback. Constructive
feedback is intended to have a domino effect which knocks down the walls of
defensiveness and gets everyone focused on how to reach full Hundred Percenter
potential. Constructive feedback when used correctly motivates people to go forward in
the future rather than browbeating them into submission.
Constructive feedback is fundamentally different from providing your people with advice.
You‟re taking the time and effort required to explain why they‟re being asked to do
something and what the specific flow-on benefits will be. People are always happier to
make changes when they understand the logic behind the request. Furthermore, there
are five key reasons why simply giving people the advice they need won‟t work:
1. When you give people unsolicited advice, you‟re implying their judgement is faulty.
They will probably respond by listing your own faults in return.
2. Advice is in essence telling people what to do. You imply you have all the answers
and they don‟t know what they‟re doing, even though they are the ones with first-hand
experience.
3. When you offer advice, you‟re saying to them do what I suggest and ignore this piece
of advice at your own peril. That level of inflexibility is unproductive.
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4. It‟s all too easy to give advice just to try and demonstrate you‟re smarter than the
other person or to feel needed.
5. Unsolicited advice is ineffective because it is thrust on the other person rather than
requested. When a person has a closed mind, there‟s no chance they are open to
making substantial changes in what they do.
“Just remember employees need corrective feedback, they know they need it, and they
actually want it. The IDEALS script is a way to ensure employees don‟t spend their
emotional energy denying, blaming, excusing or being anxious about the performance
in need of correction. If you use the IDEALS script, you will lower people‟s walls of
defensiveness, they’ll absorb your feedback, and you’ll be looking at Hundred
Percenters.”
– Mark Murphy
Praise is warm and fuzzy. Positive reinforcement is a different proposition altogether.
When you give your people positive reinforcement, you‟re in effect saying: “What you
just did is great. Find ways to do more of it in the future.” By providing positive
reinforcement, you help your people learn how to deliver consistent Hundred Percent
behavior.
Effective positive reinforcement has four components:
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1. Positive reinforcement is always meaningful – it is only given when genuine 100%
effort is delivered. It‟s not empty praise. It doesn‟t involve acknowledging achievement
of non-challenging tasks or busy work. Rather, positive reinforcement is only given
when something substantial and important has been achieved.
2. Positive reinforcement is specific – it‟s not just a matter of saying “Great job.” It‟s
more a case of: “Fred, you did high quality work on the Acme Company presentation.
The format you suggested and used was highly impressive. I‟d like to schedule a time
to sit down with you and figure out a way you can train others in our company how to
use that presentation template. I hope you keep on developing new and better ways
we can be updating our client presentations.” In this way, people know what they
need to keep doing to be Hundred Percenters.
3. Positive reinforcement works best when it‟s timely – when you catch people in the act
of doing something good. In fact, the best positive reinforcement is delivered in real
time as great things happen. If you wait 12 months or so to praise people, precisely
what they did right will have become a little hazy. Far better to catch them in the act
and speak up.
4. Positive reinforcement is criticism-free – you‟re noting what‟s going right and that‟s all.
If you try and blend in a layer of corrective advice as well, all you end up doing is diluting
the impact of your positive reinforcement. Negative feedback clouds things and
obscures the key issues at hand. If you have to make corrections, save them for another
time or another setting. When people do impressive things, say so. Make them feel
good about what‟s happening. Positive reinforcement can work wonders in helping
people become Hundred Percenters.
Note giving positive reinforcement is different from conducting periodic performance
appraisals. To help Hundred Percenters grow into their role, you want to be giving
positive reinforcement frequently rather than waiting for annual or semi-annual meetings.
Immediacy enhances the impact of positive reinforcement because there will be a direct
link between what‟s done and what‟s said. If you are forced to work to periodic
performance appraisals, ask employees to provide you with a list of their proudest
moments before you meet with them. That will give you a framework of
accomplishments you hopefully may be able to build some positive reinforcement
around.
The other way you can generate positive reinforcement within your organization is by
creating and sharing some compelling Hundred Percenter stories. As you tell and retell
these stories, they may then become embedded within the culture of your organization.
By making Hundred Percenters the heroes who went “above and beyond the call of
duty”, you can provide a template others can follow. Stories can have a multiplier effect
as they go viral and get told and retold again and again. As you try and uncover some
engaging stories, keep in mind the basic rules of great storytelling:
■ Great stories use experiential language – they create an emotional connection by
going into what the participants are feeling and experiencing rather than stating cold,
hard facts and figures. Memorable stories are engaging.
■ Great stories are like good movies – that is they:
• Set the scene so as to put listeners in the moment.
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•
•
•
•
•
Have a main protagonist who is realistic and interesting.
Send that character on a heroic quest of some sort.
Has a struggle as the protagonist overcomes obstacles.
Includes a happy ending.
Tags on some “What if?” questions at the end.
■ Great stories are amplified by some effective follow-up – you tell and retell them a
few times or you get people to pass them on in their own words. This may be as simple
and direct as asking at the end: “What can each of us do to create a similar story?”
“If you‟re wondering where on earth you are supposed to find your Hundred Percenter
stories, the answer is, right in front of you. Take some time to observe what is going on
in your workplace. Go out to your front lines and talk to your people. Poke around for
details that can be ‘sexed up‟ and made into engaging stories. Solicit your team, your
managers, your customers by asking, „Tell me about a time when you, or another
employee, or someone in this organization really knocked it out of the park.‟ Then
determine if anything you hear reinforces the specific, controllable, Hundred Percenter
behavior you want to see replicated.”
– Mark Murphy
“When positive reinforcement provides a visualization of the specific skills and abilities
that constitute desirable high performance, it gives people something to grab on to and
run with. It keeps current Hundred Percenters firmly on track of what makes the best,
and it gives those who have the potential to become Hundred Percenters clear
guidelines about what constitutes a Hundred Percent measurement of success. As an
added benefit, anyone who witnesses the positive reinforcement is going to be inspired
to give a little more to try and get the same. Positive reinforcement is infectious.”
– Mark Murphy
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In a general workplace setting, there are seven predominant personality types. Each
personality type has a different set of corresponding Shoves and Tugs as follows:
1. Achievers
2. Power seekers
3. Affiliators Shoves
4. Security-minded
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5. Reward seekers
6. Adventure seekers
7. Actualizers
To move your people towards becoming Hundred Percenters, figure out what type of
personality they are and then get to work providing the Tugs they need and eliminating
the Shoves they come across each day. In all your conversations, frame your solutions
and suggestions in ways which will appeal to their innate personality types. Do whatever
it takes (within reason) to eliminate Shoves and amplify Tugs.
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Just the mere fact you understand workplace motivation is not one-size-fits-all will be
helpful. It will prime you to find issues you can tackle which will generate a positive
return-on-investment for your organization. If you take the time to make out a Shoves
and Tugs chart for every employee you want to become a Hundred Percenter, you can
come up with some individual action plans which can be highly beneficial.
“In sum, maximizing the Tugs and minimizing the Shoves keeps employees tied to their
organization, committed to Hundred Percenter performance, and dedicated to achieving
your HARD goals.”
– Mark Murphy
“Not for one second do I presume everyone is convinced that being a Hundred
Percenter is a moral imperative. There are those who believe work is not the place to
„make a dent in the universe‟ as Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, would say. There are
those people who believe that if we can get our employees to be satisfied or even
engaged, „we‟ve done our job‟. And there are those who believe leadership is more
about making people happy and engaged than it is about making people great. Pushing
someone to give 100% is hard work; it requires caring about that person, interacting
with him or her, setting lofty goals, giving feedback, and lots more.”
– Mark Murphy
The simple fact is if you want to bring your HARD goals to life within your organization,
you have to find workable ways to turn your Talented Terrors around. This will require
some tough love but it will be worth it for three key reasons:
1. Talented terrors can negatively impact on teams – their bad attitudes can be
contagious if left unchecked. Hundred Percenters want to work for companies going
places, not unproductive outfits where everyone is watching the clock until they can
go home each day. Talented Terrors can make everyone miserable if left unchecked.
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2. Talented Terrors can destroy your leadership effectiveness – they send a message to
everyone else you aren‟t serious about achieving100%performance. This will
discourage and demotivate your current and potential Hundred Percenters. They lose
faith in your ability to lead.
3. Talented Terrors can get you fired – if you tolerate people with bad attitudes who are
low performers.
There are six rules when it comes to handling Talented Terrors appropriately and
productively:
1. Handle them in a timely manner – rather than standing back and letting a bad
situation fester while you wait and see whether they turn themselves around. If
someone has an obvious bad attitude, meet with them today. Confront the issues and
don‟t leave it until their annual performance evaluation. If you do that, they will
stockpile every snippet of small praise they can think of. Get to the heart of the matter
in real time while the facts are fresh in everyone‟s minds.
2. Be objective in delivering bad news to your Talented Terrors – keep emotions out of
the conversation because they won‟t help. State the facts clearly: “Your responsibility
was to provide me with the information I needed before my meeting with the client. I
didn‟t get your work so I had to go along unprepared.” Put the objective facts on the
table and make certain they know they are directly responsible for what‟s happening.
3. Base your conversation around specific events – and don‟t engage in a wide ranging
discussion about all and sundry. Avoid absolutes like “always” or “never”. State in this
instance, your performance was below par. “You showed up late for our training
meeting this morning, despite the fact this was calendared well in advance.” If you
don‟t get specific, your Talented Terror will drudge up recollections of other meetings
he or she showed up early to. You have to stay focused on specific and recent events
which are the result of a bad attitude.
4. Use candor – don‟t fudge or inflate the facts in any way, shape or form. And forget
about sandwiching your complaint between two compliments. That won‟t work with a
Talented Terror. Get everything out on the table if you‟re to have any chance of doing
something about it.
5. Stay calm throughout – even in the face of multiple efforts to deflect the discussion.
Talented Terrors are good at getting under the skin of their leaders. They have plenty
of time to justify their bad attitude to themselves. They‟re waiting for you to get angry,
speak without thinking or use illogical arguments because that‟s an out for them. If
you lose your cool, you end up apologizing to them so stay calm at all times.
6. Remember, all you can do is outline the choices and then enforce the consequences
– it‟s up to the Talented Terrors themselves to make a decision how they will act in the
future. They maydecide to walk away,to continue their bad behavior and face the
outlined consequences or change their behavior and start being productive. The
choice is up to them, not you. By all means, give them 24-hours to think things over. If
they do agree to change, be prepared to detail what good, bad and excellent behavior
looks like and sounds like. Paint them a vivid picture of the positive benefits they will
earn by changing their attitude. Then follow through and see they get the rewards
they earn in the future.
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The undeniable fact is dealing with a Talented Terror is a wild and eventful ride. All you
can do is follow the six rules and move forward from there. You can‟t do anything more
without stepping over the boundaries of good management practice.
“The six-rule technique is based on Leadership IQ‟s close observation of 100% Leaders
who are managing Talented Terrors with success. We can confidently say that it works.
It‟s a simple way to avoid the emotional roller-coaster ride these folks can take you on
while clearly saying, „These are the rules on what‟s acceptable and what‟s not. If you
follow the rules, you choose success. If not, you get removed.‟”
– Mark Murphy
“100% Leaders generate better everything – profit, retention, innovation. But even more
than that, when they help their folks become Hundred Percenters, greatness is possible.
Hundred Percenters achieve more (like all those who produce great creations of art,
science, and commerce throughout history). And they‟re more deeply fulfilled – after all,
who feels more fulfilled: people who slide by without breaking a sweat or people who
give their all and achieve something they might not even have thought possible before
they started?”
– Mark Murphy
To create and sustain a Hundred Percenter culture within your ownorganization, the top
ten things you can and should do are:
Make all your goals HARD – whether you‟re the CEO, a middle manager or an entry
level employee. Everyone needs to be setting and working whole heartedly towards
achieving goals which meet the HARD criteria.
Integrate your organization‟s HARD goals into your performance management systems
– in fact into everything you do. Don‟t set Hard goals and then turn around and use
entirely different criteria to evaluate performance. Ensure there is consistency and
alignment between the goals you‟re setting and the way you are appraising
performance on a regular basis.
Measure regularly whether or not you have a Hundred Percenter culture – at least every
six months. Don‟t just ask whether you‟re people are “satisfied”. Ask them directly
whether they are giving 100% effort. Ask them whether their boss is pushing them to
achieve greatness. Communicate your desire to have a Hundred Percent organization
at all times and in all places.
Also measure consistently whether or not your have 100% leaders in place – because
without these you will fail in pushing your organization that way. Figure out what kind of
leaders you now have in place and create a road map for moving more of these leaders
to become 100%-ers.
Train your leaders on how to become 100% leaders – rather than leaving it to them to
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figure out for themselves. Be proactive in delivering structured training on how leaders
can become better. Treat leadership as a professional discipline which requires lots of
training to master rather than merely common sense in action. Teach your leaders how
to become 100% Leaders.
Learn the shoves and tugs which work for your people – what motivates them to do
more and what impedes them. Getting people to become Hundred Percenters isn‟t
rocket science – you just have to find practical ways to eliminate shoves and implement
tugs. Evaluate your conversations and adjust as required. Track the key motivational
drivers which work for your organization for 60-days and you‟ll then have a blueprint you
can use to create a culture full of Hundred Percenters.
Figure out what proportion of your people are in the various stages of accountability –
and start giving the kind of feedback which will help your people move towards the
accountability end of the spectrum. A professional sports person typically gets 100 to
200 pieces of feedback during a 60-minute game. By contrast, some employees will
only get one or two pieces of feedback a week if that. It‟s not good enough. If you
genuinely want your people to learn what it takes to become Hundred Percenters, give
feedback and lots of it all the time. Let your employees zero in on what it takes to
succeed by providing consistent and structured feedback. Use the IDEALS approach by
all means so people don‟t become offended but let people know where they stand.
Enshrine your Hundred Percenters as heroes – make them role models for everyone
else. Tell stories about them on a weeklybasis and at staff meetings, board meetings
and other formal get togethers. Put your Hundred Percenters on a pedestal and you
send the message everyone should aspire to that level of performance.
Find workable ways to either improve or remove your Talented Terrors – your high
performers with bad attitudes. Mentor them, train them and provide a development path
which will help them make the transition from Talented Terror status to Hundred
Percenter. If they don‟t respond, fire them. You‟ll be better off being short staffed than
you are putting up with people with bad attitudes.
Start where your organization is today – and find practical ways to move forward. Don‟t
wait until the planets are in alignment but do something new today and every day. Get
started without fanfare and even before the budget is approved if necessary. Start
challenging your employees to do more and go from there.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead, anthropologist
“Yes, 100% Leaders push us hard. But when they do, they teach us something about
ourselves. They help us achieve extraordinary things. And they give us real
opportunities for deep and lasting fulfillment. Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft,
GE, Southwest, the Ritz-Carlton, and Wegmans manage to achieve significant
performance while still being fulfilling places to work. They invent and deliver
exceptional products and services while setting new standards. And they do it with the
knowledge a new generation of 100% leaders and companies is coming right behind
them.”
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– Mark Murphy
“If ever there was a time for 100% Leaders, this is it. Many historians have argued that
great leaders required great challenges. Well, folks, we‟ve got our challenges. Whether
you‟re a world leader, supply chain manager at a small start-up, Fortune 500 executive,
or nurse manager at a community hospital, you‟ve got no shortage of great challenges.
But if you‟re willing to challenge and connect with your people like never before, to be a
100% Leader, we can create a world we‟ll be proud to leave to our children.”
– Mark Murphy
“You don‟t have to be a world leader to issue a HARD challenge. Nor do you have to
have thousands of followers. You just have to be willing to push past what‟s easy – to do
what‟s right.”
– Mark Murphy
“It‟s hard to abandon your quest for greatness once you‟ve gotten a taste. Once you‟ve
realized that limitations are more fluid than fixed, that the deepest fulfillment comes from
climbing the highest mountains, it‟s hard to go back to satisficing. When you experience
the fulfillment and achievement that comes from giving 100%, it seems like it‟s difficult to
go back to giving anything less.”
– Mark Murphy
* * *
[세계 베스트셀러(NBS) 서비스는 영문의 경제·경영 및 정치 서적의 베스트셀러, 스테디셀러의 핵심 내용을 간략하게 정리한
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트셀러 도서의 핵심을 체계적으로 정리한 도서 정보로써, 이 서비스를 통해 세계의 정치·경제·문화의 흐름을 빠르게 파악할
수 있습니다. 세계 지도층이 읽는 세계 베스트셀러 도서를 가장 빠르고 효율적으로 접해보시기 바랍니다.]
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