Frankie was crying and I was on the verge. It was fall of 1997. We were trudging across the parking lot outside Jacobs Field. The Cleveland Indians had just defeated the New York Yankees and blown them out of their last chance to play in that year’s World Series.

My (then) twelve-year-old son was born in Columbus, Ohio, and that’s where our home is these days. Naturally, most of his buddies are nuts for the Indians, but he’s a die-hard, scorched earth, take no prisoners New York Yankees fanatic. Who’s to blame for making my kid an outcast?

I am. It’s in his genes. I grew up about ten miles from Yankee Stadium. In reality, it might as well have been right next door. I don’t care where I live today, that team belongs to me! Frankie does his share of rebelling, but on the subject of the greatest baseball organization in the cosmos, father and son are in sync.

Why am I telling you this? Fair warning. We’re going to break some conventions in this book because I believe in practicing what I’ve always preached as a business manager and leader. Over the years the people who have reported to me have heard this mantra:

And I dare you, too. Treat this book differently. Don’t just read it—do it. What I am doing now, on this page, by launching into a story about Frankie and the Yankees, is showing you who I am. My purpose is to get you to do the same. I want you to go to the office, the factory, the store—wherever you work and do business—and show them who you are. No more hiding from the customer, from your colleagues, or from your employees.

Not interested? Too risky? Not businesslike? Then you’ll never be a genuinely successful leader or manager. And for those who aren’t drawn to seeking an executive position or running your own business, your job is just going to be ho-hum, if not pure torture, without the courage to show the boss who you really are and demand that he or she reciprocate.

Example: I know a young executive named Dan. He’s dedicated and hardworking. One night he got a call from his boss, who, without so much as a “hello” demanded to know what his quarterly numbers had been. Dan took a deep breath and said, “I’ll give you the numbers after you ask me how I’m doing and about my family.” The shocked manager immediately apologized.

Good for Dan. He wasn’t going to allow his boss to dehumanize and depersonalize their relationship. It may have been an innocent mistake, but the message Dan heard from the boss was, “I care more about the numbers than I do about you”—and he wasn’t about to stand for it.

You shouldn’t either. By taking the easy way out and allowing business relationships to exist in a twilight zone devoid of kindness, courtesy, caring, and respect we make life miserable for ourselves and for others. Furthermore, there’s not even a justifiable tradeoff. Minimal courtesy and caring does not yield maximum productivity and profits. The reverse is true. To dehumanize an organization is to demotivate its people.

 

So what’s this got to with Jacobs Field? That final playoff game in 1997 wrecked the Yankee’s chances but renewed my faith in a style of leadership—both as a parent and a business executive—that I’ve practiced for nearly twenty years. A style that made my reputation, got me on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and provided the opportunity to write books like this one. Rather than telling you about it in theoretical terms, I’ll finish my story about Frankie to show you what I mean.

Frankie bugged me to go to that playoff game, and I didn’t want to. Why? I was busting my butt as the senior vice president for sales of Danka, a $2 billion office products corporation that I had joined after leaving Xerox. Leading a field operation of two thousand reps along with P & L responsibility for the entire office imaging division kept me pretty busy.

Going to the playoff meant a long drive from Columbus to Cleveland and back on the eve of a major business trip. A baseball game was not a good idea. To avoid disappointing my son, I said okay, immediately regretted it, and started looking for excuses. The day before the playoff final, I gently suggested that it would be a much better idea to watch the game on TV. We’d relax in the family room, have lots of pizza and soda. Our tickets weren’t all that good, I pointed out. We’d see more of the action on TV.

Great pitch, eh? And I’m supposed to be a super-salesman.

Frankie wasn’t going to buy that in a million years. I had promised, he reminded me—we were going and that was that.

It was a great game. The place rocked. The Cleveland fans were screaming their guts out. We were both thrilled to be there.

After the final out, our beloved Yankees crushed, the tumult was even worse. We could have surfed the sound waves back to the car. We were almost there when I noticed Frankie’s tears, and I instantly choked up myself. As an Italian-American, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, if you scratch me I will bleed drops of guilt. There I was, standing beside a boy who had just had one of the great experiences of a lifetime—win or lose—and I had done my best to cheat him out of it. Watch it on TV!

Yes, Frankie was disappointed that his team had come so close and lost. But he’ll forget those pangs—he has already—what he will always remember is the rush we felt together in the stadium. The idea that I had been willing to settle for ho-hum—for canned, for boring, for autopilot, for ruining a precious moment for my son—drove me nuts. I knew better than that.

I vowed then and there: No more ho-hum!

On the drive home, I thought about all the times my corporate superiors had told me, “You get great numbers, build top teams, and run first-class operations, but you’re too emotional, Frank.” Rather than respond with, “How else am I supposed to get great numbers, build top teams, and run first-class operations?”—I did my best to fix the problem. I dutifully turned down my emotional thermostat. But I eventually came to realize that that was cheating. Regardless of how good your numbers may look, if you wake up in the morning and don’t feel good about what you’re doing and know that it’s the very best use of your talent and passion—you are cheating yourself and your family.

Thanks to Frankie, I came to my senses: I stopped cheating. I tore the damned emotional thermostat off the wall.

I’m going to show you how to do the same thing. As scary and “dangerous” as it may sound, I promise it will work wonders for your career, your business, and your life.

To truly succeed and to escape from make-work foolishness, the point-lessness of marking time, and all the other forms of mediocrity that numb and deaden our lives, this kind of energized, committed leadership is not optional. It actually starts with you, no matter who you are or what your job. Whether you’re a CEO or a receptionist, some things—like career development or personal satisfaction—are too precious to delegate or leave to chance. Those are strictly do-it-yourself propositions, along with self-respect, family responsibilities, and—oh, I almost forgot—and happiness.

Yes, I’m suggesting that business success and personal happiness are not incompatible, and that both are products of effective leadership. But don’t panic, you haven’t inadvertently purchased one of the more than three thousand leadership books that are currently in print, which, for the most part, treat leadership as another form of management. My approach is different—quite different. It’s likely, in fact, to irritate and outrage all those who believe a business book must be neat, orderly, and unfold in a methodical way. I’ve got news for them: Business is rarely neat, orderly, and methodical.

Have you noticed? I’ll bet you have.

So don’t expect to see a lot of carefully crafted structure serving as a platform for carefully crafted theories and strategic thinking. In fact, when I see the words strategic thinking I have all I can do to avoid falling into a coma. You’re going to get an impressionistic, gun-and-go approach that puts as much usable stuff on the table as fast as possible. There’s twenty years’ worth of tips and techniques to draw from that I’ve used to get organizations out of trouble and ahead of the competition.

If you’re like me, you don’t have time to mess around. I want you to be able to read a page or two, pick up a workable idea, put the book down, and go to it. I know you’ll come back because you’ll want another idea that works as well as the first one did. Actually, it would be safer to try keep you glued to these pages right to the end by suggesting that until you learn the whole system it’s premature to take action. But as much as I’d like to think that every reader will read and savor each word, I know there are going to be dropouts who think that when they read the chapter on communication, emotion, or what have you that they’ve received their money’s worth.

Okay. If that’s what you want, good luck. But be warned. This book comes in two parts. It almost like a pair of cookbooks. The first one, chapters 1 through 8, lays out the necessary ingredients. The second provides the recipes and the cooking lessons. If you leave the table before chapter 8, you’re skipping the main course. I’ll even look the other way if you violate another sacred literary convention—sequentiality. Read chapters 1 through 7 in any order that you want. Chapter 8 serves as a review and checklist. Then hit chapters 9 through 16 at random. Shuffle the deck. Or don’t. Your choice.

In the end, if you’ve been using this stuff right along, you’ll have a personal leadership and management system up and running that will deliver higher productivity and profits, not to mention a lot more fun and satisfaction that you ever thought an adult had a right to expect in an activity that doesn’t involve food, sex, or speeding.

Now, let’s take a shot at ripping that emotional thermostat off the wall.

Make It Personal

When businesses fail, it’s rarely because of a lousy product or a poor economy. It’s because people were allowed to fail. A culture was created policy by policy that did not recruit, train, reward, deploy, and energize people. Those in charge could not or would not lead. They thought they didn’t need to bother, didn’t know how, or figured they didn’t have time.

What a shame. Leadership skills are the oldest and most effective “management” tool at our disposal. You don’t have to be Gandhi or Attila the Hun to use them.

The first requirement is a genuine passion for people. As a leader, my overwhelming desire is to see the people around me succeed. Are they growing? Are they living up to their potential? Are they happy? In turn, that’s how I measure my own success. This leadership characteristic is not unique to me. It too can be taught and learned. My first teachers were Mom and Dad. Yet it took Al Bird to call that to my attention.

I was a new district manager at Xerox running a $100 million operation. Al was the regional vice president. He summoned the members of his management team to Chicago for a get-acquainted session. Like me, there were several other managers new to the job. We were told to prepare a brief presentation that would serve as an introduction. Who are you? Where are you coming from? Bring some family snapshots, and that sort of thing. Hey, for a bunch of brash sales managers what could be easier?

The setting for the meeting was low-key: spacious, hotel suite, early evening, a nice spread of snacks and drinks. The team members chatted and sized-up one another. When it was time for the main event, Al said he would go first.

I expected the same old thing. There’d be a few ice-breaking jokes, a story about the kids and college days, some rah-rah about vision and objectives. What we got from this suave, savvy, impeccably dressed African-American executive was electrifying. I remember most vividly Al’s comments about the respect he had for his father, how strong and loving the man was, and how much he owed him. Al nearly broke down as he told us that his dad was dying of cancer.

It was completely unexpected, deeply revealing, and totally transformational. In just a few minutes, he had changed his relationship with us and altered the dynamics of the group. We knew who he was, the kind of leader he would be, and what we had to do to play on his team.

Al was a tough act to follow, but there were other managers who were also impressive. One woman showed a collage of pictures from her family album and high school yearbook. We got great glimpses behind the scenes. When it was my turn, I chucked my prepared presentation. I had planned to tell a bunch of jokes, keep things light and on the surface. Instead I told them about Joey.

He’s my older brother. Joey was born retarded. Something happened during the delivery that deprived his brain of oxygen. His speech, coordination, and mental acuity were all badly impaired. For as long as I can remember, he’s needed help with the most basic things, like tying his shoes and going to the toilet. But that was okay, Joey was Joey. Family life revolved around this chubby, laughing guy. Extra money earmarked for vacations, new cars, and clothes paid for medical care, tests, and the always fruitless search for a cure. But my sister, Carm, and I never had the slightest clue that our family was different or making a sacrifice. Our parents were always there for us. They never complained, never despaired. In word and deed, Mom and Dad let us know that we were blessed. And we were.

Family Money

Three years younger, I shared a bedroom with Joey. I was probably eleven or twelve years old when it began to sink in how long and hard my parents had worked to keep the family on an even keel, and how much I owed them. The realization meant that I had a really big job to do. I was going to repay my parents for the debt I owed them, and I would need to double it. One for me, one for Joey. He couldn’t cover his share. I could. Years went by before I truly stepped up to that task. You’ve heard of the sixteen year old going on twenty-five? I was the twenty-five year old going on sixteen.

When at last I grew up, I found that I had inherited a fortune. There was discipline and love, loyalty and common sense, straight talk, hard work, and joy. Plus, accumulated compound interest of faith, courage, and perseverance that could have wiped out the national debt. I had been bankrolled by the ultimate venture capitalists—Mom and Dad.

I took the capital and we invested it—Joey and me—in people. The objective was to make the good ones great. Every time that happens, it’s payback time for Mom and Dad.

The power of Al Bird’s example prompted me to tell Joey’s story for the first time. Now, I share it whenever I need to forge a leadership bond. And by the way, that team of Al’s was a winner. The region’s districts were among the highest performers nationally. From day one, the wall of suspicion and doubt had been torn down. He connected and so did we. There was a willingness to give other team members the benefit of the doubt and a helping hand because we knew them personally. Trust is the highest octane fuel of them all.

More recently, I was asked to stand before a group of beleaguered managers to give them the bad news that they were facing downsizing that included painful layoffs. They sensed what was about to happen. The room bristled with cynicism and hostility. I told them how I envied them. There was a snicker from the back of the room. I told them going from mediocre to good was easy; good to great was the hard part—the thrilling part. Then I told them about Joey.

Why? It doesn’t sound relevant or “businesslike,” does it? But that’s wrong on both counts. Those men and women needed to make a quick evaluation of my credibility. I was there to show them how to survive the next ninety days of hell. I suppose I could have launched into a briefing on severance pay arrangements. If I had, I would have been sized-up as being cold, unfeeling, and businesslike. Much of what I planned to say over the course of the meeting would have been colored by that impression. If you’ve read Homer’s Odyssey, you’ll recall that in the ancient Greek world when strangers arrived in a strange land they were given food, shelter, and lavish hospitality. In return, they were expected to tell their story. How they had come to that place, who their ancestors were, the travails they suffered, and the triumphs they’d won. Everyone sat around eating, drinking, and listening to the free floor show. But more than entertainment was involved. It was the way the strangers were judged as friend or foe, worthy or unworthy. I doubt whether humankind will ever outgrow this instinct. I certainly hope not.

That’s why Joe’s story was and is relevant; here’s why it was “businesslike.”

What I wanted to do was to put the group in touch with emotions that were strong enough to counteract those they were already feeling—anger, fear, and confusion. I offered them perseverance and courage when I shared the story of my parents and Joey. The managers I was speaking to were all going to need perseverance and courage to carry on in the face of adversity.

Moreover, if you are going to lead people into and out of a business crisis, the least you can do is to take off your mask. If you don’t, they won’t. If they don’t, you won’t succeed. All the vision, all the goals, all the good intentions go right down the drain. Even the routine stuff becomes difficult. The leader has to earn trust, and to do that he or she must offer sincerity as the first token, sign, or amulet to demonstrate that the one who leads is, in fact, trustworthy.

What Al Bird taught me, and what I’m passing along to you, is the need to make a personal connection to override the natural suspicion, anxiety, uncertainty, and anger that may confront a new leader (old ones too). There is a craving to be led, but fear of being misled is the counterweight. You’ll get just one shot, and, since emotion is the target, emotion must be the bullet. A heartfelt story that explains who you are and where you’re coming from changes the relationship immediately.

“You thought you knew who I was before I told you about Joey, didn’t you?” I said to the anxious managers. They all nodded.

“What do you think now?”

I made eye contact with a man in the front row and waited. After an awkward silence, he said, “I guess I trust you a little more.”

Good. Let’s go to work.

Eliminate the Question Marks

I’d like this book to be as interactive as we can make it. The traditional format—author pontificates while the reader nods—leaves a lot to be desired.

Take a sheet of paper and write down what you know about your boss. The personal stuff: hobbies, kids’ names, likes and dislikes, birthplace, favorite color, and those sorts of things. Leave the job-related issues aside for now.

Number the items. You should be able to come up with fifty or a hundred of them without much effort. But I’ll bet many of my readers can’t get past ten. The boss is a mystery man or woman. Right off, it explains why there is a lack of leadership. A leader should be an exclamation point, not a question mark. A flag, not a veil.

Now turn the tables. List the personal things your boss knows about you. The tally may be even shorter. And if you are a manager with people reporting to you, take a moment to jot down where Bill or Ellen spent their last vacations, or if Daryl is responsible for the care of his elderly mother. What do you really know about their aspirations, problems, and preferences?

I see a swarm of question marks.

Truly, no personal news in a workplace is bad news. There’s no connectivity. It’s an inhuman and antihuman place. Fragile and unfriendly, such organizations crack and fall apart in a crisis, or lack the buoyancy to rise to meet challenges. Military combat veterans will tell you that most acts of battlefield courage are usually not prompted by thoughts of duty, honor, or country. Nor is it a question of following orders. Facing death, the Marine holds a position for the sake of his fellow Marines. In training, Marine and other military leaders struggle mightily to forge those kind of strong personal connections.

William Locander, who teaches and mentors students in business leadership at the University of South Florida told me about an exercise he does with consulting clients. He arranges to take a company’s CEO onto the factory floor or wherever it is that the frontline troops are working. Bill structures it so that there is time for real give and take.

Invariably, the CEOs return to their offices surprised and impressed with the caliber of their workers. Not because they saw them bent over a drill press or driving a forklift on the loading dock, but as a result of the personal conversations that occurred. The executive will be stunned to learn that he employs expert horticulturists, prize-winning amateur astronomers, and museum-quality sculptors. If things really click, he may start wondering why it is that these bright people are leaving their talent at home instead of bringing it to the job.

Connection!

What can we do to tap that potential?

Connection!

What can we do to help our people develop and broaden their talent?

Connection!

But hold on. Don’t even dream about sending around questionnaires demanding that people reveal personal information. That’s no exclamation point—that’s an upraised middle finger and you get (and deserve) one in return. The same goes for a sudden chumminess. I’ve got a spare moment, tell me about the family. That’s phony and manipulative. In reality, it says, I couldn’t care less. To care more, and care genuinely, it’s necessary to practice people-ology the hard way: one on one. It can’t be delegated or done by the numbers. Building empathy and rapport—which is what has to happen—is a lot like making friends. You share, you drop your guard, you open up. Shortcuts don’t work.

Go to the loading dock or the retail outlet and make a connection. Tell them about your mom and dad, ask about theirs. The exchange will educate and energize both sides. Not only as a simple transfer of information but as an interchange of feelings. The isolated CEO or senior manager lacks sensitivity for people beyond his or her immediate circle. This an enormous barrier, and it is one that is a major contributing factor explaining why leaders and managers fail. Sensitivity is an acquired skill. You must be able to listen to others and be willing to reveal your own thoughts and emotions. Out of the process comes a set of responses from both sides. If you are an emotional blank, people will draw their own conclusions—she or he doesn’t care about me—and shape their actions accordingly. Conversely, sincerity and trust engender sincerity and trust. It makes for a solid investment that will pay off in higher productivity, profits, and employee satisfaction.

There are no “right” answers. This isn’t a psychological test or an employee satisfaction survey. We’re using the chain saw on a major barrier that’s blocking one-on-one contact. Let ’er rip.

TAN—Take Action Now

The shelves of the Barnes & Noble near my home are stuffed full of business and personal development books that are avidly read from cover to cover. If you could measure ideas by the pound, megatons of good ones are dropped on readers with practically no effect.

I’ve read plenty of these books myself. Often, I’ll see a neat new process or procedure, but I never get around to implementing it. One reason is that the author is presenting a system or methodology. By the time I digest the whole package, I’ve lost interest in the parts that initially caught my attention. As for the system, as brilliant as it may be, I simply don’t have time for the kind of wholesale restructuring that would be required. Do you?

What I’m offering you is an array of off-the-shelf techniques that work right out of the box. None of them, however, are worth a damn if you don’t use them. And the only way for you to verify my claim is to put the book down and try them.

There is something about business—any business—that fosters a “good idea, but won’t work here” attitude. I’ve been in meeting after meeting where executives lament their problems. Every time a solution was offered the response was, “Good idea, but it won’t work here…our situation is different.” In the end nothing works here but the stuff that is already being used—and failing.

There isn’t a single idea in this book that rises to the level of rocket science, brain surgery, or tightrope walking. That’s why you can afford to put it down and go try them. Wall Street will not tremble because you decide to build trust by being trustworthy. When I told my new management team about nearly flunking out of my freshman year at the University of Dayton, Xerox’s market share held steady.

Nonetheless there can be solid results. My team knew from that moment on that I was no academic superman. I was human. I needed their help. First, I had to earn their trust.

Put this book down. Go earn some trust.

Every strong, valuable relationship is trust based. It’s the same for families, marriages, friendships, and jobs. Governments rise and fall based on trust or the lack of it. Customers walk away—no, they run away—from businesses they cease to trust.

A few years ago, I accompanied a team of senior executives on a barnstorming mission to rally and inspire a newly restructured corporation’s far flung national workforce. At each stop, we rolled out the inspiration and the vision. We told them great things were going to happen, that there were terrific new products in the pipeline, and how rewarding it would be. After a while I started getting a queasy feeling: The reception wasn’t what I expected. The walls weren’t coming down.

Finally, at the end of a presentation, I moved to the rostrum and asked, “Do you guys even believe us?”

I looked around the audience and got my answer in the form of silence and classic body language.

No.

They had heard it before. Promises weren’t enough.

And they aren’t enough. I have a different take on the famous Jerry Macguire catch-phrase, “Show me the money!” It’s “Show me the honesty.” To build trust, we have to keep our promises.

It’s that simple. Keeping promises. I’m going to show you how to do that by offering you an example of how not to do it. When I was a young sales rep and just coming into my own by racking up respectable numbers, I got a new boss who was a dream come true. We all loved the guy. He was fun to be around and he knew the business cold. Or so we thought, prior to the appointment.

Peter Rogers, another hot shot rep, and I were overjoyed. We were going to slaughter the competition and retire at thirty! It was probably the single greatest kickoff that I’ve seen a leader deliver. He booked the hallowed local arena where the university team played championship basketball and laid out a vision that had us all standing on the seats cheering. The PA announcer introduced each member of the team. “We are the champions” blared out of the loudspeakers. He even had ladders ready at the end so that we could cut down the nets to symbolize the champions that we were going to become.

Within a month, we knew the guy was an unmitigated disaster. Good guy, empty suit. He was incapable of delivering on his promises and didn’t really even try. The team just collapsed. He was our guy, so Peter and I tried to defend him, but before long we just closed our eyes as the thing went from bad to worse.

He said all the right things; he did nothing. And his superiors did nothing to help him. It was a valuable lesson for me: I keep my promises, large and small. In fact, I’m crazed about it. My personal “do now” list is filled with follow-through items to fulfill promises that I’ve made.

I’m equally obsessive about seeing to it that promises that have been made to me get fulfilled. My people know that’s the deal. I keep my promises; they keep theirs. Amnesia is a fatal disease in business and, for that matter, personal life as well.

I hate the old cynical line—what have you done for me lately? Far better is, What have you done to keep your promises to me lately?

This sacred promise reciprocity is a key to building trust. It flows both ways and must be established at the outset of the relationship that a leader seeks to build with those he or she is leading.

Before we move on to the next chapter, I’ll give you a peek behind the scenes of book publishing. At an early meeting with my editor and publisher to discuss titles, one participant suggested Failure Is Not an Option. Sounds like the motto for a death squad, doesn’t it? Blow it up or blow yourself up! Give me a break.

I was so adamantly opposed to it that I told Laureen Rowland, the editor, that “Failure Is Not an Option is not an option.”

You know why? Failure is an option. People opt for it all the time. The whole idea behind this book is that we can opt for success every time.

You want to know what isn’t an option?

Insincerity. Insincerity poisons trust.

 

Sincerity is the starting point. Out of all the business leadership material in this book, sincerity is the only thing that must be treated like a cornerstone concept. It gets dropped into place first, or the whole edifice will eventually crack and crumble. All the rest can be jumbled around, mixed and matched, and plugged and played to your hearts content. While other concepts are important, sincerity is essential. You’ve got to get the sincerity bit straight right here and now. If not, you’ll blow yourself up as a leader. I’ve got big ears and I can hear the explosions all over corporate America, twenty-four hours a day, as leaders shade the truth, do a little spinning, selectively present the facts, or flat-out lie.

Puff. They’re gone. Sure, they may still have a job and management responsibilities. But their credibility and effectiveness are shot.

Sincerity also extends to your motives. Better check them closely because the people who work for you are going to give them a thorough going over for signs that you’re just looking out for yourself. If you are, then failure is not an option—it’s a certainty.

 

Going from good to great—the comment I made to the group of apprehensive managers that faced the prospect of severe downsizing—is the hard part precisely because it takes qualities of greatness that have nothing to do with business models, market timing, or the competition. It comes down to emotional engagement, personal commitment, perseverance, trust, keeping promises, and sincerity. All the things we’ve been focusing on. These qualities can only be found at the source—within ourselves and our people.

Starting from scratch or moving from mediocre to good is easy because it can be achieved through sheer muscle, luck, or cunning. The break-through to greatness comes through making person-to-person connections. I call it turning on the people juice.

“Just Do It,” Nike’s famous slogan, is meaningless without the next part, which is left unspoken: “because we know each other, trust, each other, believe in each other.”

Try a few other combinations:

If that’s the message, then truly, going from good to great isn’t an option, it’s an impossibility.