Today everyone – whether they know it or not – is in the emotional transportation business. More and more, success is won by creating compelling stories that have the power to move partners, shareholders, customers, and employees to action. Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it. And this book tells you how to do both.

Historically, stories have always been igniters of action, moving people to do things. But only recently has it become clear that purposeful stories – those created with a specific mission in mind – are absolutely essential in persuading others to support a vision, dream or cause.

Peter Guber, whose executive and entrepreneurial accomplishments have made him a success in multiple industries, has long relied on purposeful story telling to motivate, win over, shape, engage and sell. Indeed, what began as knack for telling stories as an entertainment industry executive has, through years of perspiration and inspiration, evolved into a set of principles that anyone can use to achieve their goals.

In Tell to Win, Guber shows how to move beyond soulless Power Point slides, facts, and figures to create purposeful stories that can serve as powerful calls to action. Among his techniques:

• Capture your audience’s attention first, fast and foremost
• Motivate your listeners by demonstrating authenticity
• Build your tell around “what’s in it for them”
• Change passive listeners into active participants
• Use “state-of-the-heart” technology online and offline to make sure audience commitment remains strong

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, his provocative and persuasive new book. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague — be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (“If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don’t put yourself in harm’s way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.

If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.” By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don’t need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It’s never what you are, but what you do.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. 

Originally Published in Harvard Business Review, Feb 2011

Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard University is one of the most progressive thinkers in contemporary management. In this article she explains how companies that go beyond the myopic profit-driven bottom line, can reap rewards in a sophisticated global economy. In essence, it’s the 3 Ps of people, planet , profit, with a twist. She insists that firms that focus on the long-term are sustainable institutions with deep and long-lasting roots.

Moss Kanter takes exception to the narrow view that reduces the role of management to the maximisation of shareholder value. Business is part of society and should not be disconnected from it through an insular focus on profits. At its best, business is part of the fabric of society, like religion or culture.

Great companies have what Moss Kanter calls “institutional logic”, building resources in order to endure. She describes six facets of institutional logic: common purpose, a long-term view, emotional engagement, community building, innovation and self-organisation.

In talking about common purpose, Moss Kanter highlights Pepsico’s Performance with Purpose programme, which seeks to orient the business towards more sustainable products. The appointment of a global head of health and a commitment to eliminate sodium and sugar from the diet was a key driver for this project. Such approaches can re-engage employees with the core purpose of the organisation and also drive sustainable financial value and shareholder return.

This links to another aspect of “institutional logic” – the long-term view. Moss Kanter’s cites Korean bank Shinhan, whose deferral of a culturally and politically sensitive bank acquisition in the 90s contrasts with the heady decision-making of organisations such as Enron, and the resultant corporate crises. Banks like Standard Chartered emerged in better health because they were not hypnotised by short-term shareholder value. (In the CIPD’s own Shaping the Future project, Standard Chartered Bank’s “Here for Good” programme was shown to connect its employees worldwide.)

As Moss Kanter points out, the real test is whether employees can commit emotionally. She contrasts this with the desiccated economic rationalist view which permeates many motivation theories. In an example of emotional engagement, she discusses how P&G connected its employees with infant mortality issues in Africa. The emotional commitment of local managers helped to build sales of the company’s key brand, Pampers. To be honest, I feel Moss Kanter’s veneration of P&G’s Africa policy, which could be seen as a marketing strategy, devalues the concept. It needs to link much more to issues outside global brand strategy where it is “giving back” rather than building market share. I think HR has a questioning role to play on these kind of issues and at least address potentially harmful claims of doing good when firms are simply doing business.

Moss Kanter believes that firms can help to tackle those perceptions through community building. She argues that globalisation means that companies have to put down roots in local markets by engaging with local communities. Companies that adhere to institutional rather than a profit-maximising logic can cultivate relationships with public officials and communities. It helps to counteract the rootlessness that often attends globalisation. This is essentially a form of corporate responsibility (CR) and isn’t entirely altruistic. It can and does drive benefits for the companies concerned. IBM, for example, has built brand and profile in China by harnessing its considerable consultancy and technology resources towards developing evidence-based local medicine. But, nevertheless, linking with local communities is a key part of how great companies think differently.

Thinking differently is also key to innovation, another aspect of great companies. Innovation is unleashed by the idea of common purpose, according to Moss Kanter. She talks of the Mexican cement company CEMEX whose development of antibacterial concrete came from an innovative approach that focused on unmet needs and subsequently became profitable. This is also an approach being used by pharmaceutical companies as they seek to expand the sustainable market for drugs and medicines. Institution building creates an ecosystem that sparks business innovation. It is also critically important to work in a sustainable way when developing this approach.

Finally, great companies trust talented people to deliver, says Moss Kanter, in describing self organisation. They reject the idea that people are “self- interested shirkers” or robots to be commanded. People decide whether or not they deliver discretionary effort, and firms that have an institutional logic are more likely to be able to harness this. Great companies ensure that formal structure and reporting lines are relaxed or even dissolved to allow ideas to flow. It’s self evident that rigidity stifles innovation. Empowered employees can innovate freely and meet society’s needs.

Moss Kanter’s article is a useful rallying call for those who want their companies to operate on a more long-term and sustainable basis, and she helps drive debate on the purpose of business. The CIPD’s own Shaping the Future project, and joint work with Tomorrow’s Company shows many organisations are already addressing these facets of institutional logic, such as common purpose and the long-term view.

Originally published in Harvard Business Review November 2011

This is blog number 4 in support of the CIPD’s HRD 2011 conference and in particular the focus day I will be running called “Hands-On Talent” on 7 April.  I had some fabulous retweets on my “Hands on Social Media” blog last time around – thanks to those of you who commented and retweeted.  I wonder if this one will generate such interest?  My experiences tell me this will.

And that’s one of the areas that I’d like to feature this time – experiences or as we say in talent development – experiential learning (learning through doing).  Bless the Learning Styles, I am an activist so I learn through doing.  But I’m a pragmatist too and won’t just take a clock apart for the heck of it.  Only if it’s broken will I resort to disassembly.  I theorise a bit – some who know me might say a lot – and when I reflect I go deep and dark.  But whilst I reflect on this, let’s get into the thick of the blog…

Experience definitely counts for me and is a hallmark of my delivery style.  When I run workshops, it’s about doing not lecturing.  It’s about sharing, discussing, thinking things through, putting theories to the test, doing something with your head and your hands – I believe the range of “doing” activities make it “stick” especially when combined with a purpose and some reflection time.

“Our experiences define us” so someone said and it does for me certainly.  For the second time in 4 blogs, I want to get out of the conventional instructor-led classroom and talk about learning through experiential immersion.  By this I mean the following 3 aspects:

Stretch assignments – being given (or taking on) things where you don’t have all the skills in your “kitbag” to deliver it – but hey, you’ll learn how to.  Great way to learn, take on something you know you can’t yet “do”.  Risky, but managed well, it’s been my best kept secret for ages.  Until now that is…

Field exercises & high impact “real” work – either in a “lock-in” environment (observed talent pool exercises using real work) or real pieces of work conducted out there in the real world, these experiential learning activities are best delivered when there’s some supervision or support – a bit like ten-pin bowling with the inflatable gullys on – just in case you skew your shot.  Line managers play a crucial role in field exercises and real work situations.  In a coaching/mentoring/facilitating way of course.

Projects and tag-teaming – this looks like the Master/Apprentice model to me – and I’ve been using it a lot to bring on eager, talented but low-on-experience learning consultants.  The reports back are immense – where it’s tag-team is that we share the delivery/duties and we have a project feel to things so we can track the process – start; scope; plan; engage; review; build; test; deliver; evaluate – and then this forms patterns or models in the apprentice’s mind to replay and reuse as they start to break out on their own.  It’s about 3 Cs – building capacity; capability and confidence.

And the tag-teaming is where I’d like to refer you to some people I connected with this past week or so.  There are 2 amazing organisations out there doing some fabulous stuff in the experiential world and with the other “E” I mentioned – entrepreneurialism. Business in the Community (www.bitc.otg.uk); and Room 54 Ltd (www.room54.co.uk).  At the heart of both organisations are driven, outstandingly skilful, committed people but their reason for being is unearthing entrepreneurial skills and creating a learning environment with experienced senior leaders sharing what they know with the latest innovative business people from either Generation Z or Gen C (Content Generation).  I’ll say no more other than – FANTASTIC for all concerned.  The mentor and the mentored – learning whilst they’re sharing their learning; gaining new insight all the time leading to more to share with others.  Please go and have a look at their websites and if you’re a senior Business/HR figure reading this blog and want to help, I’m sure Anna (BITC) or Jan (Room54) will be delighted to hear from you.  Our entrepreneurs need you..!

And I think that’s what talent programmes do – they unearth entrepreneurs – or to some intrapreneurs – as they’re internal to a company.  Talent Programmes (IMHO) find people with ideas, drive, creativity, infectious dynamism, boldness, pioneering spirit, energy -  they’re then put with experienced mentors and coaches who help them channel all that brilliance and make sure that any knowledge and insight is going to help them succeed quicker and with more impact.  So next time you’re invited to participate in a talent programme, ask yourself “Am I an entrepreneur?”  If you are, you might be JUST what we’re looking for.  For the low-down on what it takes to innovate and be an entrepreneur, you should check our Cris Beswick’s cutting edge thinking and work at www.letsthinkbeyond.com.

So that just leaves excitement – and what a place to leave this blog.  Why excitement?  It reminds me of the story of the “vertical coffin” toll booths – where one chap was full of excitement and energy as he wanted to be a dancer – so he used his toll-booth hours to practice moves.  He was full of excitement and came to work to come alive whilst others methodically processing transactions from a “vertical coffin” came to work and effectively died.  Excitement in a job, in any activity, creates all sorts of possibilities, energy, insight and I’m sure most of the world’s breakthrough inventors must have had an abundance of excitement.

And when you’re an entrepreneur, I believe you’re full of excitement.  And that’s the lesson for us in talent development – if it’s exciting, it’s more likely to have a bigger impact, mean more to the individuals and create a buzz of positivity that spills out beyond the elite on a talent programme.  It’s the difference between visiting the Ivy or your local fast-food outlet.

• One is exciting; abound with experience, mystery, anticipated fulfilment and lasting memories.

• The other is a transaction that fills you up for about 10 minutes.

So for now be excitable, entrepreneurial and experience whatever you can.

Originally published in CIPD by HRD 2011, Perry Timms

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The Situation

The international recruitment sector experienced squeezed margins, increased competition and fewer vacancies since the global economic changes in 2008 and afterwards.  The pressure was even more intense to ensure that candidates selected for vacancies were not just a good skill-match but a great culture-match too.  All clients now expect underwriting the risk associated with placement.  Getting it right was a financial imperative.

The Challenges

To differentiate the firm’s offer from the increasing competition and still provide a relevant services that clients value.

To provide a seamless cross-border service with high levels of consistency and quality.

To redefine the engagement process from self-orientation – recruitment to client and candidate outcomes – retention and risk reduction.

The Solution

Provide all consultants with access to Saviio MAPs to use with all clients and candidates in their language of choice.

Empower consultants by enabling self-service 24/7 access to use Saviio MAPs analytics in their languages of choice to compare and rank data in real time.

Communicate these changes to clients and candidates using their outcomes and business langauage and ROI data related to each assignment.

The Outcomes

Increased cross-border assignments and the opening of new offices to service these needs in Scandinavia, Europe and the Far East

Improved volume of repeat business – one measure of client satisfaction.

The adoption by the firm of Saviio MAPs as a strategic tool for engaging with clients in the sales and production processes.

See More…