This chapter is going to function as a short review of what we’ve been doing. The problem with a book is that it’s too linear. I can’t hop around as much as I’d like. The last chapter is a good example. All that communications stuff could be scattered throughout the book to mix and match other subjects, like retention, training, and motivation. But if I did that, many readers would think that communications is only marginally important—and that would be stupid.

Or by tackling vision before communication, am I signaling that one is primary and the other secondary? Likewise, the way things are organized may suggest that people-ology is nothing more than a gimmick.

No way!

Think of each chapter in this book as functioning as a column—Doric, Ionic, or whatever—supporting the dome that is people-ology. The columns form a huge circle. There’s no order of precedence. You can lose a few in a windstorm, or perhaps a couple are a little shorter than the others. The dome still has support, though. But if there’s no people-ology, the dome falls away and what’s left of the structure is wide open to the freezing rain and the burning sun.

People-ology: What It Is and Isn’t

People-ology is a discipline based on the principle that people need and want caring, committed leadership to help them develop their full potential.

People-ology isn’t a form of manipulation.

People-ology is value-centered and is dedicated to producing value in terms of direct financial and personal rewards, like strength, courage, balance, and fulfillment.

People-ology is not coercion.

People-ology is multidimensional and multicultural.

People-ology is not a luxury to be turned on when times are good and switched off when there’s trouble.

People-ology is a necessity at all times.

People-ology is not PR.

People-ology is a set of working principles that recognizes that people are a company’s number one asset and that every other product and service depends on the success of its people.

People-ology is not talk.

People-ology is action.

People-ology is not command and control.

People-ology is respect, responsibility, and accountability.

People-ology isn’t for an elite few.

People-ology is for all.

People-ology isn’t dull drudgery.

People-ology is electric and fun.

People-ology isn’t about making do.

People-ology is about making history.

People-ology isn’t only about making profit.

People-ology is about taking pride.

 

I know I promised to give you a review of the work in progress, and I will but I’m not ready yet. First I want to show you a people-ology organization chart and touch on the subject of creating a chief executive officer of people-ology, also known as the people czar.

Message—“What a great company to work for.”

The People Czar

I know, I know. People czar sounds too authoritarian, but anything else tends to sound like the product of a human resources group therapy session. Ideally, the CEO should function as his or her own people czar, but it will work to have another senior executive charged with the responsibility of driving people-ology through the corporate obstacle course.

This has to be one powerful, experienced dude, because he or she is going to be involved in every department and every nook and cranny of the operation. If a policy impacts people—and they all do—the people czar gets involved. Actually, “involved” is too mild a word. The people supremo signs off on it. No one gets to bypass the people czar, who has the right and mandate to stick an oar, a spoon, or a monkey wrench into everything. If a decision doesn’t conform with the people policy, he or she is charged with saying so, saying it loud and clear, and working to make it compatible.

This people-ology honcho should be an experienced field executive, street smart and tough; a top performer who knows how to lead and develop other top performers. It’s a great job. The symbol and badge of office should be the chain saw. The mission is to cut down barriers throughout the company.

Love the smell of saw dust in the morning!

You want your people begging for the chain saw. They’ll see and believe from the very first day that the people czar doesn’t get in the way of deals and doing business, but is the number one tool for getting obstacles out of the way. This isn’t just retreading and renaming HR, I’m talking about creating a mega-executive whose work will focus and sharpen human resources to assist in the effort of making successful people the hard core of the company.

I’d have a contract with my people czar that’s as brief as a haiku and as long as the Manhattan telephone directory. He or she would be held accountable for measurable improvements in every aspect of the operation, and would be rewarded commensurably. Since I personally believe that I can return a minimum of an extra 10 percent by practicing total people-ology, as a people czar I would be willing to commit to a 10 percent productivity and profit gain. In return, I get roaming rights over every square inch of territory. I won’t have dictatorial power, just my leadership skills, access to the CEO, and the right and duty to tell it like it is:

• This policy, decision, or process helps—and here’s why.
• This policy decision or process hurts—and here’s a better plan.

Would CEOs see this as a threat? They shouldn’t. The final decision rests at the top. As people czar, if I don’t agree, it’s my job to make it clear why I oppose a decision, lay out what I see as the negative consequences, and propose alternatives. If I’m overruled, the next move is to make people-ology as effective as possible within the new context. If that can’t be done, I have to make that clear and, perhaps, get another job. Even so, I don’t think that falling on your sword will become a way of life for the people czar. He or she will quickly establish how profitable people-ology can be.

Early in my career as a leader, I almost had a mutiny on my hands. All of my teams had effective managers except one. I knew it, but I didn’t face up to my responsibility and make a change. I figured that I could finesse it by managing the manager. I was also ducking the blame. I had promoted her, even though I had doubts about whether she was ready for the job. Her team actually did well. They got their required numbers. But they came to me and demanded action. Why? Because the other teams were having all the fun and excitement beating the numbers. They wanted that too. They felt cheated. I didn’t have a choice; I made the change. The story had a happy ending because the manager did extremely well in a new job within the operation and was far more satisfied with her situation.

That’s the kind of effect the people czar will have on an organization. He or she would have been on my case earlier—“Frank, she’s not ready,” or “Let’s move on this, Frank, your people feel cheated.” All concerned would have been a lot happier and more productive months earlier. How can you resent, oppose, or attempt to politically stymie an executive who is going to make your life profitable, fun, and fulfilling? I’d want the people czar permanently camped in my operation.

Trouble? Send the cavalry. No, send the people czar. But you won’t have to. She or he will be there already.

Serving Spaghetti and Meatballs for the Soul

My mother and father are the prototypes for the people czar. They practiced—and still do—pure people-ology. In the next four or five pages, I’d like to take you back home with me to experience leadership in its most robust, direct, and humane form. My objective is to dispel the notion that leadership is mysterious, manipulative, and the province of uniquely endowed practitioners, who are “born and not made.” What I learned from my parents—from clarity of communication to strict accountability—is at the core of everything I do as a business leader.

Mom and Dad spent every waking hour working to create a family atmosphere where the very best things flourished and grew, where there was fun, warmth, love, security, and wisdom.

The Pacetta family never went on vacation or bought much; there wasn’t enough money. But our little bungalow in Far Rockaway was stuffed full of priceless treasures.

My parents required my sister and I to do our best and keep our promises. They expected, inspected, and corrected. There were rewards for success and consequences for failure. It wasn’t easy; my father started his business career as a bank teller with only a high school education and went to night school to get a college degree. As he worked his way to vice president at Chase Manhattan bank, he was always there for us. I was on the school baseball team, which played all over the city on weekday afternoons—Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx—and by the third or fourth inning, I’d check the stands and Dad would be there cheering. I can remember how it made me feel proud, warm, and protected.

My father is a staunch conservative. He made it a point to drop by the school frequently to make sure the younger Jesuit priests weren’t being too permissive with the students and letting us drift dangerously to the left. The school had a prefect of discipline, though. Father Hamel lined us up and checked our appearance every Monday morning. Long hair and other radical tendencies weren’t going to slip by on his watch. Dad was his strongest backer. But he was more than willing to buck authority when his family was involved.

Before I got to Brooklyn Prep and was still in elementary school, Dad had a classic run-in with the teaching nuns. He always gave me a quarter to pay for milk. I’d put the coin carefully in my pocket. One day, a little girl complained that she dropped her quarter and lost it in the cloakroom. The sister asked the rest of the class if anyone had found it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my quarter to show her. We were discussing money after all. I was immediately suspect number one. I wasn’t about to give up the coin and I wouldn’t confess, so the sister took me back into the cloakroom and made me kneel and swear on the cross that I hadn’t taken the girl’s money.

At supper that night I told the story. My father was furious; he gulped his meal down and headed for the convent to let the nun know that she was never to question his son’s honesty ever again. Gene Pacetta’s boy doesn’t lie. “Don’t mess with my family” was the loud and clear message.

Classic Italian-American, and about as far removed from the Mafiosi stereotype as you can get. My world was filled with relatives coming and going from the house, music playing in the background off the radio and, on special occasions, provided by Uncle Mike on the harmonica and Dad on the accordion. After the first bottle of red wine, as far as they were concerned, the Guy Lombardo orchestra had nothing on them.

One stereotype is true—food. It always took center stage. Every Sunday, pasta accompanied by gravy with meats—meatballs, sausage, or lamb. Stuffed? Wait. That would be followed by a whole chicken or roast beef, potatoes, and other vegetables. Dessert? Of course. “The Meal” was an event. It took hours to consume, what with the laughing and the talking and the crying. Usually, there’d be a break. We take a walk around the neighborhood, come back, and start again. I loved every minute of it. As a child, I was encouraged to listen, learn, and to make a contribution. And eat. Mangia!

Weddings, anniversaries, communions, name days were all celebrated with gusto. In between, if one of the family so much as cut a finger, the house was jammed with visitors to inspect the wound, provide sympathy, and offer medical advice. My aunts and uncles were second parents. They dispensed abundant love and discipline with equal authority. And there was Joey. Everybody owned Joey. He was tickled and teased and played with. Mom was so protective of him. In that deeply Italian combination of faith and superstition, she would tell Carm and me that because of what he had to endure, wonderful things would happen to us. And wonderful things have happened. To this day, when there’s good news to share, she gets the first call, and I know Mom still says to herself, “It’s because of Joey.”

Joey’s personal hero was Uncle Dom, a guy who never went to high school but didn’t let that stop him from building a hugely successful home heating oil company. Joey loved to see Uncle Dom’s trucks rumbling down the street. Dom died a few years ago but Joey still asks about him and those trucks.

My brother is in a resident nursing facility now, still unable to speak more than a few words or care for himself. At their ages, there was no way Mom and Dad could continue to take care of him. It was probably the toughest decision they ever made. On Dad’s seventieth birthday, my brother-in-law Steve wrote and read this verse tribute at the party.

Now I didn’t reprint this poem just to make my brother-in-law Steve feel like Robert Frost. With a hundred words or so he captured the essence of leadership that has eluded the three thousand books on business leadership that are in print: “The patience, the kindness, the love that I owned.” Pretty touchy-feely and fuzzy, eh? No, basic and human and grounded in the belief in the power of doing what’s right. Mom and Dad knew there was no point in whining about Joey’s condition, and so they went about the business of winning the best life possible for their three children and each other.

Got it tough at the office? Boss is a bastard? I’m sorry to hear that. But maybe we’ve forgotten what it really means to have it tough. While I risk sounding arrogant and unfeeling when I say, “Stop whining—and start winning,” I’ll take my chances because I know it works in far tougher situations than selling copiers, or whatever business we happen to be in.

But is all this ancient history really relevant to the every day cut and thrust of business? You bet it is. My parents were fiercely protective of their children. One of my fondest memories of my mother stems from an incident that occurred when I was ten or eleven. Joey was in his favorite spot, which was the front porch overlooking the street. He was probably out there waiting for one of Uncle Dom’s trucks to pass by. A couple of teenage boys saw him and began to taunt him. In a flash, my five-foot-tall mother was out the front door and flying down the walk, brandishing her big metal pasta spoon like a sword. Don’t mess with my family. They ran for their lives.

I can’t think of a better motto for people-ology—Don’t mess with my family. There was an incident in Xerox’s Cleveland with one of our customers that came to be known as the “The Rescue.” It was a classic “don’t mess with my business family” situation. One of our sales reps called in from the field to say that a customer had just verbally abused her during a presentation. He had shouted and cursed her out about the price or some other aspect of the package she was offering. She was in the lobby of the building on a pay phone in tears. My administrative assistant took the call and immediately interrupted a meeting I was having with two other managers (Pacetta’s first rule of setting priorities—if it’s about a customer, the meeting’s over). “Tell her to stay right where she is,” I said. “We’ll be right there.” The three of us piled into a car and took off. On the way to the customer’s office, one of my colleagues asked what we were going to do when we got there. “We’ll tell him that his business is important to us, but not that important,” I said. “He’s not going to do that to one of our people.”

We got there, went in to see the customer, delivered the message politely but directly, lost the deal—it was a nice one too—and left. Nobody messes with my family. And you know what? Word of what we had done spread like wildfire around the office. Our people loved it, hit the street even harder, and more than made up for the lost business.

 

That one was for my mother. By inviting you to come home with me via these pages to have spaghetti and meatballs for the soul, I’m struggling to put you in touch with your own deep attachments to others. Get hold of it! Please! There’s incredible energy, strength, and value to be found in this soft spot. And it is so easy to forget or to be persuaded that it doesn’t matter—that it’s only business.

Only business? I’ll take don’t mess with my family any day. My business family will outsell, outwork, outperform, outrun, and outshine the cynics and gunslingers every time.

I love being Italian. We’re taught to be emotional and proud of it.

We’re taught to show and give affection.

We taught to honor traditions.

We’re taught to offer respect to others.

We’re taught to know and to show that our families can be seen through us and through the way we live.

Go ahead, look at me. Look at me and see my family.

But the marvelous thing is, you don’t have to be Italian to practice people-ology. You just have to have a heart.

Rewind and Replay

Whoa! I should give you an 800-number to call for a CD of my father playing the accordion as a soundtrack for this chapter.

But let’s switch to Steely Dan and do the review I promised a while back.

First, there’s emotion. That probably comes as a big surprise. Seriously, emotion is the price we pay for going from good to great. That journey, that transformation isn’t easy. There’s so much work, endurance, and stubbornness involved in pulling it off, that without emotion—“passion” is the best word—the odds against success are enormous. Intellect simply isn’t enough, and it never has been. Without emotion, there can be no bond or connection forged with others. We know that. There is strength in numbers. Its wisdom that is as old as the first family—and I’m not talking about the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Make it personal. Forge a bond with your people by letting them know who you are and discovering who they are. Caring is the secret to building a care-full organization. Eliminate the question marks.

Practice people-ology. It offers the only genuine competitive advantage. Even if you got a lock on the secret of cold fusion, somebody else will soon come along and one-up the invention. Technological innovation is happening so fast, no one can count on staying in the lead for very long. That’s why Bill Gates of Microsoft and Andy Grove of Intel are so crazed. They know some guy or gal in a garage is cooking up the next killer app. The only defense is having people who are just as smart, dedicated, and ready to make a difference. The social compact between the corporation and the worker is dead? It better not be. You take care of them, they’ll take care of you. Believe me, if Bill Gates ever walks into the company’s auditorium in Redmond, Washington, and says “Boys and girls, I need you to save Microsoft and we’ve got six months to do it,” it will be fixed bayonets and helmets all around.

Work on your TAN. Take Action Now. All of the techniques and tips that I’m offering in the book work. I’ve road tested every one of them successfully. But they won’t do you any good if you don’t use them. It’s not necessary to formulate a complete system or a methodology, so get started. And don’t give me any of this, “Good idea, but it won’t work here,” stuff. In the remote chance that it doesn’t work here, you lose nothing by trying and everything by breaking through the barrier of inertia.

Make promises and keep them. How else do you build trust? If you know a better way, let me know. Without trust, there’s a dead spot at the core of your organization. People don’t surrender trust lightly because it is such a precious commodity. They do it only when they see evidence that the investment will pay off. Making promises and keeping them is a demonstration of your sincerity. Breaking promises is a trust-buster.

Sincerity is the cornerstone of credibility. Liars are always losers. There are so many supposedly foolproof techniques for shaving the truth, spin doctoring, and manipulating reality. But the real proof is that those who use them are the fools because they lose the trust they’re hoping to dishonestly gain.

Success is really very simple: people, passion, preparation, process, performance. Don’t complicate your life. Identify your fundamental business purpose—what do you do that pays the rent? Then do it faster, better, and more productively. Get back to basics. Relearn the art of blocking and tackling. Rebuild a platform of success by reintroducing yourself to the customer. It is an uncomplicated truth, but customer contact is the soul of all business relationships. The less contact with the customer, the more soulless the business. Repair the bottom line by mending your soul.

Use a red notebook to record your leadership experiences. It’s a good place to list dos and don’ts and maybes. Make an ongoing, thorough study of leadership. If you believe leaders are born, not made, you probably believe that taxes will be abolished someday. Leaders are made. We have to work at it and learn how it’s done consistently and effectively.

Decontaminate your activities. Cut down on nonessential duties and activities. Ask, “What does this accomplish? Is it necessary to our success?”

Keep score. How do you know if you are winning or losing if you don’t keep score? You don’t. Track everything that’s trackable. When you accomplish a goal make sure everyone knows it And when you lose one, don’t keep it a secret. People can become comfortable with failure if they are shielded from the consequences. Make sure they know what it means to win and to lose.

Never stop practicing the fundamentals. Basic training is just exactly that—basic. It’s too easy to end up spending time and resources training for nonessential activities. Training is one area that is prone to contamination because nobody asks the trainees, “What do you need to be trained for?” Start asking.

Zero tolerance for defects and errors. Zero. You may never get there but you end up a lot closer if you try. Pursuing perfection generates passion. A 1 percent failure rate means that for every 100,000 products, 1,000 of them are disappointing somebody. It’s a big country, but I’d rather not alienate a thousand people. Striving for perfection is the right thing to do.

Do your best, be the best. Don’t settle for less. Who’s passionate about being second or third?

Check your PQ—the Pride Quotient. There’s no passion or high performance without pride. The best way to do this is to simply ask your people: “Are you proud of our company, our product, and our service?” Yes or no. Or give them a one to ten scale to use. Anything less than a ten is cause for alarm. Remember we’re after perfection.

Make talent scouting and talent gathering your number-one priority. If you’re pursuing perfection and out to be the best, you need the best people. I deliberately contradicted an early rule that you must identify the basic action that pays the rent and make that your first priority. Now you have two top priorities to juggle. You have to pay today’s rent with the resources on hand, and you have build resources to cover tomorrow’s rent—today.

What a great place to work! Find out if your people are saying it; if not, make hearing it your mission.

What a great company to do business with! Do your customers say it? If not, you have another mission to perform.

Compete, damn it. Complacency and failure grow out of a sense of entitlement. Go out and earn success every day. Beat the other guy to the business and revel in the victory. Impolite to gloat? No, it’s imprudent to lose, and if we don’t enjoy winning we’ll learn to tolerate losing.

Say thank you. Succeeding is hard work. It’s nice to be recognized when you pull it off. Take the time and effort to reward people for doing their job well. While you’re at it, find out if your people feel appreciated and sufficiently rewarded. How? Ask them. You’ll probably be shocked to learn that they feel underappreciated and overworked.

Have fun. There comes a point when the hardest working people need to kick back, laugh, and have a good time. As hard as my mom and dad made me work, I always knew Sunday was coming or a wedding, anniversary, or confirmation to celebrate.

Celebrate your successes. And remember to celebrate those who succeed.

Make’ em dance. Use music to create excitement.

Keep your people aware of the consequences. It’s not about fear, it’s about respect for the consequences of one’s actions or failure to take action. In King Lear, Shakespeare wrote, “Nothing comes of nothing.” And Lear’s nothing was really something: civil war, murder, fratricide, and utter destruction. All because Cordelia wasn’t willing to tell her father how much she loved him. Consequences.

Move fast. Don’t wait to make a difference. Start solving problems right away. Trust needs to be established or it will sour and turn to skepticism.

Cut down barriers. They get in the way of your organization’s speed, productivity, and performance. Make it your mission in life. Go for three a day, or at least three a week.

Make sure the first impression conveys who you are and what you stand for. Trust is so fragile, a leader may not get a chance for a meaningful second or third impression. The jury hands in the verdict and you’re guilty of business as usual.

Ask for help. Tell them what’s going on, why it’s happening, and how they can contribute.

Know who your top performers are. Ask them for extra effort.

Create a vision and mission statement and live them every day. A vision without action is pure bologna. It’s proof that you are insincere. Demand to be held accountable for the vision. Cross check it against every policy, product, and decision.

Set a blistering pace by bumping up a key activity rate. Double, triple, even quadruple it. You’ll quickly see where the problems are and what you have to do about them.

Over communicate. Tell your people everything—good and bad. Insist on full disclosure and a constant dialogue. Ask questions and demand answers.

Put it in writing. Every employee has a personal performance contract that spells out what’s expected and how he or she promises to meet those expectations. And don’t forget the second contract—yours and the company’s—to help people succeed.

Become a feedback freak. Gorge on it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s the report card of people-ology.

Admit your mistakes. Then fix the damage and move on.

Communicate with your customers. Ask them how you can improve the operation and serve them better! And actually follow their recommendations for change.

Using the Weed Whacker

I have to ask this question before we go any further: Have you done any of this stuff yet?

We’ve been at it now through nearly eight chapters. I hate the thought that even one reader is giving me a New York nod. Yeah, I know. You’ve been too busy. Things have been really wild around the office. Maybe next week.

Is it procrastination?

Is it laziness?

It is complacency?

Is it fear?

If you’re still with me, I must be making a little bit sense. Either that or you like Italian food and you’re hoping I’ll print some of my mother’s favorite recipes. Don’t hold your breath. Those are going in the sequel, to be titled Bella Deals, Bella Meals.

I’ll make it easy. Just close your eyes, run a finger back across the last couple of pages, and stop anywhere. Whatever item in the review your finger is on, do it. Or I’ll choose one for you: Cut down barriers.

My favorite. I could spend every day just cutting down barriers. Have chain saw, will travel. Barriers are to a business what weeds are to a garden. There’s always a fresh crop even in the most successful, well-run businesses. Because they proliferate so fast, barriers will get so thick that they will choke an organization. You spend all your time climbing over them, working around them, digging under them that there’s no time for productive work. Barriers crowd out your cash crop.

I know a businessman who spent seventeen years growing barriers. At first, he was full of energy and talent. He’d leap those barriers with a single bound. But the business grew, and so did the barriers; getting over them started becoming harder and harder. Occasionally, he’d crash. No problem, the guy was good. He’d get back under control, but the barriers kept growing. Today, he is in his early forties, totally burned out, and looking to sell his company.

Have I got you interested in barrier busting? Kind of? Okay, go to the Joe DiMaggio of your organization. Everybody’s hero, the home-run hitter. Ask her what slows her down (and I’m not kowtowing to the PC-gender police—in many of my organizations it’s been Ms. DiMaggio who hits the ball out of the park day after day). She’ll have a long list. Take notes, flag three of them—the easy ones—and get rid of them.

But don’t run off just yet. Before you leave, ask her, “If I cut down these three barriers, will you give get me an extra 20 percent?” You may have to negotiate down to 10 percent, but your star is going to do a deal. She knows what it’s worth to get rid of the barriers, even if you don’t. Hold out for the biggest number.

“I need twenty, Sharon. You’re going to be jet propelled with this stuff cleared out of the way. Plus, I’m going to work on the rest of the list too.”

Does this sound too crass and undignified? Please. Leadership is a dirty business. There’s nothing wrong with a quid pro quo. It’s the essence of leadership. Moses promised his people a land of milk and honey (quid) if they gave up the golden calf and followed him into the wilderness (quo).

Repeat these words aloud: “If you deliver for me, I will deliver for you…I promise.” Don’t just say it—mean it.

Are you afraid that the barriers will turn out to be essential command and control mechanisms? Fat chance. But let’s say they are, and not quibble about whether command and control is an oxymoron these days. Suspend the barrier for thirty or sixty days. Perhaps it’s a burdensome paperwork requirement or a strict pricing formula that limits the field’s ability to meet customer needs. Put them on ice temporarily to see what happens. Thirty days isn’t going to cripple the company.

Besides, you have Ms. DiMaggio out there hitting for the fence. She’s going to prove that the paperwork or the pricing formula were bad ideas. The effect will ripple through the rest of the organization; the other players will start getting base hits and scoring.

Still nervous? Try another selection from the review list: Have fun. You could use a break yourself. Announce that you’re taking the whole operation for a weekend at a nearby resort for R&R. Throw your people together, let them golf, play tennis, swim, and party. Don’t try any exotic team-building stunts, but at the end of the weekend call everybody together and ask if they enjoyed themselves. Tell them that you’re going to do that sort of thing a couple of times a year from now on—if—if they pay for it by exceeding the business plan by 20 percent in the next quarter.

Bribery? No, fun. A lot of fun. But somebody’s got to foot the bill. They’re all adults and know that paying the piper is a fact of life. Plaster the office with the snapshots taken over the weekend, track your numbers, and tie them to whether they are getting closer to their goals or slipping away from them. Talk it up. If the extra numbers aren’t coming in, tell them what’s at stake and ask them to work on a plan to goose performance. Count it right down day to day to the end. If you don’t make it, find out why, thank those who turned in the best effort, and do not go to the resort. Nope. But make sure you tell them why they’re not going.

When I returned to Xerox’s Columbus office for another turnaround assignment in 1994, my predecessor had promised that he would pay for a trip to the Virgin Islands. It was open ended, no quid pro quo. Their numbers were so cruddy, I said, “We’re not going.”

“But he promised.”

“Yeah, he promised. And I promise you, we’re not going with this kind of a performance.” The message has to be clear: Have fun and perform. It was clear all right, and it was heeded.

Less than a year later most of those same people were on board the Radisson Diamond, cruising the Caribbean because almost the entire district had qualified for Xerox’s President’s Club, a reward for sales reps who exceed their plan by roughly 150 percent. We had gone from the bottom to the top to become the number one district in the United States—as I had predicted would happen my first day on the job as district manager. That’s right. Prosaic, mild-mannered Columbus, Ohio, number one. Not New York City. Not Chicago. Not Atlanta. Not Los Angeles.

As we posed for a group picture on the main forward deck of the ship, there was so much exuberance and energy I think the captain was worried that the Diamond would go down bow first. What a moment! Those people were so proud and joyous about what they had accomplished. The entire boat was under charter to Xerox, and our fellow passengers were—I think—totally envious. You could tell the way they glanced sideways at our “Caribbean by sales. Columbus—number one” T-shirts and glared at us.

Recently, I recalled that moment in a video store where I happened to see a copy of Glengarry Glen Ross, the David Mamet play about sleazy salespeople that was made into a movie. By coincidence, at about the same time, the Tony Award-winning revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opened on Broadway. Miller’s play is a classic, but I despise it. And I’m no fan of Mamet’s work, either. What is so vividly displayed on stage in both plays is, to my mind, not the death of a salesman. No way. It’s the death of leadership and management—that’s what destroys an individual and his family.

Nobody cared enough to rescue Willy Loman or the characters in Mamet’s play. Nobody cared enough to set high standards, develop talent, and create the right atmosphere. Willy and the other salesmen were road-kill—casualties of good old-fashioned business as usual. If you want to see sleaze, turn the spotlight on those who hired them, paid their commissions, and established poisonous business cultures. When someone does care, there are moments like the one on the Radisson Diamond, and there are lives that are fun and full and rewarding in every sense.

As we move into the second part of this book, people-ology and caring are still the main themes. Now that I’ve laid out the tools that are needed to stop whining, we can set about accomplishing the rest of the mission—to start winning (if you aren’t already, and I’m sure many of you are). Ahead there will be insights on recruiting the best talent and retaining it, team building, customer satisfaction, and—about time!—business process. Along the way, I’ll continue to do my damnedest to help you attain effective, caring leadership.