Can you recite the mission statement for your organization? Can everyone who is on the payroll? Does everyone know where they impact the bottom line? It is one thing to have the mission statement framed in the lobby, it is another thing to have it in the hearts of all employees. Your mission statement should be 5-6 words, understood by a 12 year old and can be quoted at gunpoint.

-Greg Blake

If you can edify, elevate, engage, empower, enthuse, excite, encourage, enhance, excel and energize your people, they will be 20% more productive.

People don’t leave organizations. People leave people...usually an incompetent leader!

You need 'Touchology with technology'...Touchology is not warm and fuzzy or touchy feely... it is a dare to care attitude catching people doing things RIGHT.

-Greg Blake

Conduct a Good Job Tour! Once a week, go to your associates worksite and tell them something positive they did that week. We tend to praise in private and criticize in public.

-Greg Blake

Heartpower is just as important as horsepower. Engaged hearts do not need to be motivated. Engaged hearts motivate themselves. The organization that reaches its people’s hearts will provide the very best service to the internal and external customer. Excellence is not possible with a disengaged heart.

-Hal Rosenbluth

Get the right people on the bus. Get the wrong people off the bus. Get the right people in the right seats on the bus and then figure out where to drive the bus...and some may not make the ride.

- Jim Collins, Good to Great

Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.

-Phil Daniel. Australian businessman

Hire people who color outside the line, think outside the box, have broken a Guinness world record and may not be a 4.0’er.

Hiring the right people is about passion and attitude before skills, ability and experience. Hire talent, not experience. Hire attitude. Teach aptitude. Hire first round draft picks! A first round draft pick is different than just a warm body that breathes.

No one wakes up in the morning and says, I think I will go to work today and screw up. Everyone is motivated by something. You just gotta find out what that motivation is. You can’t motivate anyone. It is an internal mental state we choose as soon as our feet hit the floor in the morning and it may be dark and gloomy outside.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. Where there is no people, the vision perishes.

If a person has passion and attitude, but may not be getting me results yet, I will keep them. If a person has NO passion and attitude, but they are getting me results, FIRE THEM!

-Jack Welch, Winning

The top five reasons I will join an organization: 1)Recognition and appreciation; 2)Challenge their specialties and talents; 3)Allow them to make a contribution; 4)Listen to their ideas and value their opinions; 5)Treat them with dignity and respect. These are also the same reasons given on why an employee is leaving.

-Bob Nelson, 1001 Ways to Recognize your Employees

Pedro Martinez is a better pitcher than you. Yo Yo Ma plays the cello better than you. Peyton Manning throws the football better than you. Roger Federer serves the tennis ball better than you. Find people better than you.

-Greg Blake

Highly engaged people rarely leave an organization. The heart is harder to win than the mind. Win the heart and mind, not just the hands and feet.

Don’t promote people because they have the best technical skills; promote them because they have the best people relationship skills.

You must continually gut your apathetic, whining, griping, complaining, complacent, uncooperative, cynical, mood shifting, rolling their eyes, that’s not on my job description, just get byer, do the bare minimum, negaholic. You can’t afford to keep these people on the payroll in uncertain, challenging and turbulent times.

A leader can force a person to show up for work, but a leader can’t force a person to contribute his or her passion and imagination on a regular basis

-Tom Peters

Are people better off after they have left your presence? Are they sapped or zapped? Don’t be a seagull leader....one who flies in, dumps on others and then flies away.

Power is the ability to force or coerce others to do your will even if they don’t want to. Authority is getting others to WILLINGLY do your will because they want to and because of your personal influence.

You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.

-Winston Churchill

Are you honest, fair, competent, professional, trustworthy, accessible, approachable, and an empathetic listener? Are you down to earth, transparent, sincere, don’t need your ego stroked? Do you go the extra mile? Do you roll up your sleeves, mingle with others and believe people are more important than profits?

A message from your mind will change people’s minds. A message from your heart will change people’s hearts. A message from your life will change people’s lives.

-Del Fehsenfeld

Every person I know who is truly happy has learned how to serve others.

-Albert Schweitzer

The trouble with the rat race is even if you win, you’re still a rat.

-Lily Tomlin

Find your passion and you will never work another day.

-Harvey McKay

Scatter Joy...Stop doing what makes you unhappy!

-Emerson

The overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing.

Live by the compass! Don’t live by the clock.

-Bill George, True North

Fine tuning is not enough. You must undergo total transformation. When you fall into a myopic (near-sighted) state, you will find yourself unable to deal with change. Transformation always involves creative destruction of old ways of doing things.