AFTERWORD

Ken Blanchard

When Susan Fowler asked me if I would write the afterword to this book, I was thrilled because I’m a great admirer of hers. Susan is one of the greatest learners I know—always pushing herself, and all of us, to think about things differently. In Master Your Motivation, Susan asks you, her reader, to think about your development in a whole new way.

This book is not about managers working with you—a subject I’ve written about for years. Instead, it is about you working with yourself. Bringing these two concepts together has been an interesting outgrowth of many conversations I’ve had with Susan. Let me explain.

People sometimes ask me, if somebody took everything away from me that I’ve taught over the last forty years except one thing, what would I want to hold on to? My answer has always been the Second Secret of the One Minute Manager—One Minute Praisings. They are all about accentuating the positive and catching people doing things right. When I started to talk with Susan about her work, she explained to me that while she thinks my answer is well-intentioned and that it’s great to notice the good work people are doing, she sees a problem.

You see, the second part of a One Minute Praising is for your manager to tell you how your actions made her feel and to encourage you to keep up the good work. Susan’s concern is that when your manager says how your good performance makes her feel, the focus of the praising conversation turns away from you (the praisee) and back to your manager (the praiser). I think Susan makes a good point. She suggests an alternative scenario.

Let’s say you’re the manager. What if, instead of telling a person how you feel about his effort or performance, you were to ask him how his good work made him feel? What if you kept the ball in the other person’s court? It might go something like this:

“Hey Jeremy, I just heard that your conversion rates went up 15 percent this quarter—5 percent over your goal. That must have taken a lot of work on your part. How do you feel about your effort?”

“I’m really happy about it. It was hard work, but it paid off. Thanks for asking!”

Susan and I both want to help people move from dependence on others to independence—and the sooner that process starts, the better. When your manager gives you feedback in a way that leaves you thinking about your own actions, rather than her opinion of your actions, the responsibility falls to you to evaluate your own effort and performance.

I’m excited about the idea of you evaluating your own work and coming to your own conclusions. After you have a sense of how well you’re doing, you can ask other people for input. Susan calls this “flipping the feedback.” What have they noticed about your performance? In this case, you are taking the initiative to get feedback—not waiting around for others to tell you whether they think you’re good or not. What would you say to them? If you were to ask your manager, you could say, “I’ve been doing this particular job for a while and it seems I’ve met the expectations you and I discussed—but getting feedback about what you think would be helpful.” Flip the feedback—ask for it rather than waiting for it. Go ahead and ask for feedback from your coworkers too.

Remember, the earlier in life you start moving toward accepting responsibility and taking initiative to get better at what you do, the better and quicker you’re going to move from dependence to independence. I think some people get stuck where they are—they start relying on other people’s praise, recognition, and redirection, not their own. And they also get stuck on what they think about when they consider their self-worth.

My friend Bob Buford wrote an interesting book called Halftime, where he said that sometime in midlife, people find themselves in the locker room thinking about coming out for the second half of their life. Most people want to move from success to significance—to make a shift from getting to giving, in a big-picture way. But Susan says, Why wait until midlife for that transition? Why not start looking at where you are in your life’s journey right now?

When your self-worth is based on external success factors, your focus tends to be on how much money you make, the recognition you get for your efforts, and the power and status you gain. That becomes the scorecard. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making good money, being recognized for your efforts, or gaining power and status—but if that’s who you think you are, the only way to maintain your self-worth is to get more of those things. That’s why some people are all about attaining a more powerful position, more money, and more recognition.

So what is significance?

The opposite of accumulation of wealth is generosity of your time, talent, treasure, and touch (support and encouragement). The opposite of recognition is service. The opposite of power and status is loving relationships.

If you focus on success in terms of external rewards and the opinion of others to define who you are and your self-worth, you’ll never get to significance. But in my experience, if you focus on generosity, service, and loving relationships, you’ll achieve the feeling of purpose, contentment, and joy that comes with living a life of significance. My mother always used to say to me, “Ken, don’t do something good for somebody else just to get something back. Do it because it’s the right thing to do—but you’ll be amazed at how much good comes back to you.”

When Susan talks about choice, connection, and competence, she wants you to flourish and to experience optimal motivation and well-being—not in a self-serving way but in a way where you can make a significant difference in the world. If you do it early, you’ll be surprised by the “good” success that comes your direction.

Ken Blanchard, cofounder of The Ken Blanchard Companies and coauthor of more than sixty-five books, including The New One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level.