Bloghound

It always seems ironic to me when
something new gets published that links telling the truth to being
successful. Surprise! People – that is, employees, customers, anybody
— respond really well when you tell them like it is, including the
stuff that’s not so great. They’ll work twice as hard and come up with
amazing business-growing ideas if you are real and candid and involve
them.

This month’s cover story in Inc.
magazine features an excerpt of Bo Burlingham’s new book, “Small
Giants: Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big.” Too bad it
seems to be one or other.

Must it? No, but it takes a special breed of leader to adopt the
straight talk, open books, inclusive MO that inspires and motivates
employees beyond all other incentives. I know this philosophy works
from my firsthand experience years ago working for Jim Mullen, founder
of Mullen advertising (now part of communications conglomerate
Interpublic.) (I think Inc. was a Mullen client for awhile, as Jim and
Bernie Goldhirsch were close acquaintances.)

Way back in the days of acetate overheads, Jim was opening the books
and showing us what we spent on paper clips and how profit sharing –
which every employee participated in — was trending for the quarter.
We all went back to work knowing exactly what we needed to do to fix
something or create something, and we knew how we would personally
benefit. The agency was consistently and highly profitable and earned a
reputation for strong values, great work and a ferociously loyal
workforce. (His book, “The Simple Art of Greatness” — out of print but
available from Amazon — would make a good companion to “Small
Giants”.)

There’s no question, it’s harder – at least in the
beginning – to say it like it is. But the good news is, you can start
in small ways. As you look at the next speech, employee update, press
release or call center script , see if there isn’t a way to say what
you need to say with a little more candor, and like you really mean it.
Watch what happens. I’m guessing you’ll do it again. (Imagine what
might happen if our politicians started behaving this way…)

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.