I dedicate this book with love to Art Van Elsender, Kim Yost, and the wonderful company they lead. Art Van Furniture represents the very best in modern management.

INTRODUCTION

If your actions inspire others to dream big, learn more, do more, and become better, then you are a leader.

John Adams

Welcome to the new world of business! In 2008, we entered a turning point, after which nothing will remain the same. The good old days are gone forever. Today we are dealing with a "new standard". Driven by factors such as shrinking markets, intensifying competition, demanding customers, and a persistent shortage of skilled, productive employees, managers will have to work harder than ever to do more with less and get better results with limited resources.

Due to a difficult economic period, companies today produce more products using fewer resources. They laid off millions of employees and made layoffs in almost every area of ​​their operations, while increasing their levels of productivity, efficiency and per capita output. Today's companies maintain or increase productivity and improve the quality of products by reducing the number of employees, but providing better recruitment and management of personnel, as well as the organization of the workflow. You must set yourself the same goal.

As a manager of any level, you manage the operation of a single business unit, which has income and expenses, inputs and product, production needs and performance indicators. The income statement reflects your ability to select the right people and resources to achieve results (especially financial) that exceed (ideally far exceed) the total cost of obtaining them.

Increase your profitability equity

The success of a business depends to a large extent on how successfully its owners manage to ensure a high and stable return on equity (ROE). Strategy, planning, tactics, and day-to-day activities are all geared towards the same goal: organize people and assets in such a way that the return on equity (that is, the return on capital invested by owners in the business) is the highest in the market, especially in compared to competitors in the same business or industry.

The manager's task is also to achieve the maximum ROE. Only for the team leader, ROE also means the “profitability of energy”2 expended by subordinates. Your focus should be on the goal of getting maximum profit on the human capital- the physical, emotional and mental efforts that your employees make or can put into the results that you are responsible for achieving.

According to Robert Half International, a common person uses only 50 percent of his potential at work. Due to lack of clear work assignments, lack of priorities, poor management and lack of feedback each employee spends on average about half of their time on activities that have nothing to do with work. This wasted time is wasted on empty conversations with co-workers, long lunches and coffee breaks, being late to work and leaving work early, surfing the Internet, solving personal issues, and other activities that are performed only for the sake of killing. time, but give the company almost no return on investment in wages and employee benefits.

However, as Napoleon said, there are no bad soldiers for a good general.

About the book

Who is this book for?

About the book
Guide to building a team of stars from guru Brian Tracy.

Success in business is largely determined by how effectively managers and entrepreneurs can use human capital - to engage employees, motivate and inspire them.

From this book by renowned guru Brian Tracy, you will learn:
how to make your employees and customers happy with simple actions without spending a lot of effort;
about key theories and types of motivation;
how to instill positive thinking in yourself and your team;
how to become a real leader, whose employees and followers feel their importance;
how to set correct and ambitious goals and achieve them;
how to find the right people and focus them on the result.
Each chapter is accompanied by exercises that will help you apply what you have learned here and now.

Who is this book for?
For managers and business owners.

Tracy was born into a poor family. In his youth, he dropped out of school and began working as a laborer. For eight years he worked on a ship that circumnavigated the world. During this time, Tracy traveled to 80 countries. When he returned, he decided to become a sales specialist in one company. He began his career as an ordinary "salesman", and two years later became the vice president of the company.

Even then - at the age of 25 - he began to put together his own system of success. In 1981, Tracy launched a training project in the format of The Phoenix Seminar. In 1985, he appears on cassettes under a new name - "Psychology of Achievement". This course thundered all over the world, becoming an absolute bestseller.

Since then, Tracy has written about 60 books, including Negotiation, Motivation, Get Out of Your Comfort Zone, Delegation and Management. His books have been translated into dozens of languages ​​around the world. Recorded several hundred educational audio and video programs on the psychology of success. In 2010, he founded Brian Tracy University, which trains entrepreneurs and sales managers online. Annually advises about 400 companies.

Success in business largely depends on how effectively managers and entrepreneurs are able to use human capital. Everyone who has held a leadership position has faced the need to unleash the full potential of their employees. But since business conditions are far from ideal, this is far from always possible. Brian Tracy's book will teach you how to engage, motivate and inspire your team. The book will be of interest to managers and business owners. Published in Russian for the first time.

* * *

The following excerpt from the book Full involvement. Inspire, motivate and bring out the best in your team (Brian Tracy, 2011) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Make employees happy

Create the highest, grandest vision for your life, because you become what you believe in.

During sales and marketing seminars, I often ask the audience this question: “How many times does a person tend to make rational decisions and how many emotional ones?” Most people refer to the ratio as 80:20 or 90:10. To conclude this exercise, I emphasize that people are guided by emotions 100 percent of the time. Human beings, including you and me, make decisions emotionally and then find a rationale for them. We draw conclusions instantly, sometimes based on a single glance or a single spoken phrase, and then often spend hours or months trying to find the logical basis for the decision.

Then I ask the audience, “What is the basic emotional stimulus that underlies all human actions and deeds?” After a few random responses such as money, fear of loss, desire for gain, or even love, everyone agrees that the most powerful motivator is the desire to be happy.

Aristotle spoke about this in his Nichomachean Ethics ("Nicomachean Ethics"). He argued that the basis of any human activity is a motive, behind which there is another motive, and so on until you get to the fundamental motive - the pursuit of happiness.

Happy clients

People shop most often because they think they will be happier after purchasing this product. When shopping, they anticipate what they think will be feel after this decision has been made. Therefore, the purpose of the seller or marketer is to sell them this "hope". It is the hope for more, not less, happiness that drives every action a person takes, including the decision to buy.

In business, it is very important to answer this question: if the purpose of the company is create and retain a customer, then how to make him make repeat purchases? The answer is simple: make the customer happy that they bought something from you; for him to become happier because it deals with you at all stages of interaction with the company - from the first purchase experience to after-sales service; to make him happier than he would be if he bought from someone else. Happiness is the key to everything.

Happy employees

For managers, the logical continuation of a series of questions I ask is: how to get the most out of each subordinate? How to influence people and make them willingly put maximum physical, emotional and mental energy into work and fulfill their job responsibilities the best way? How do you make employees passionate, loyal, and committed to you and the company? How do you get them to interact harmoniously with each other and constantly look for ways to do work better, faster, and at lower cost?

Answer: make them happy.

From the first stage, that is, the hiring process, to the last minute, the celebration of retirement, organize the workflow so that people are happy with you, their colleagues, interactions with customers and suppliers, and everything that they do and what impacts your company.

For many centuries, smart people, researchers and scientists from different fields of science, have sought to create a unified field theory - common law which explains all other laws. At the beginning of the 20th century, Einstein formulated the theory of relativity (the most famous formula is E = mc2). This breakthrough theory supplanted Newtonian physics. Some scientists are still using and expanding it, while others continue to search for a unified field theory in the field of physics. In the field of management and motivation, the principle “make employees happy” is a kind of unified field theory, or law that explains all other laws.

Apply " Golden Rule»

Fortunately, implementing the above principle is easy and simple. To do this, it is necessary to be guided by the “golden rule” in all your actions: treat others the way you want to be treated. Throughout the history of mankind, many ideas have appeared to improve relations between people, but none of them surpassed this simple principle. In fact, it underlies most of the world's great religions.

Why then not try to make people happy at work? After all, leaders are well aware what exactly need to do this. But, unfortunately, they often forget to do specific things that make people happy, or don't do them because they get distracted by other tasks, or refuse to do it because they don't understand the importance of this task, or, worst of all, they do things who make people unhappy by justifying their behavior with hypocritical excuses.

First, as a leader, you need to understand why your employees think and act the way they do. This will allow you to understand how to ensure their full involvement in the work, as well as how to get the most important results that depend on the success of your business in the market in an increasingly competitive environment. At the same time, you realize a uh, how was your personal growth to date; understand how to create a work environment in which people work with maximum efficiency; and how to practice motivational management and get the best out of yourself in everything you do.

If you are reading this book, then you are tired of having too much to do and too little time. Many readers of these books rarely get past the first chapter, so in the first chapter of my book, I provide a crash course that explains how to make employees happy and get them to their fullest potential. Listed below are twenty-five ideas that you can use to create an effective working environment and ensuring that every employee contributes to your company as much as possible. The following chapters present more detailed description some of these ideas, but for now you can start exploring them.

1. Smile. When meeting a person for the first time in a day, smile at him. Look him straight in the eyes and smile, letting him know that you are glad to see him. To smile, you need to use 13 muscles, and to frown - 112. Therefore, every day it is much easier to smile at people when you meet than to build displeased grimaces.

2. Ask people questions. Talk to them; ask how they feel and how they are doing in general. When people show genuine interest, they feel more respected and significant. They feel a sense of deep inner satisfaction and seek to thank you for the good performance of their work.

3. Listen to your subordinates. Listen carefully to employees when they are talking to you. If you listen to another person without interrupting, he feels his own value and significance, while his self-esteem increases. Thanks to this, endorphins are produced in the brain, under the influence of which they feel even happier and more self-confident. While listening to the interlocutor, nod in agreement, smile and look at him. Show that everything he says is of great interest to you. Active listening takes only a few minutes a day, but it has a very positive effect on people's work.

4. Be polite. Always be courteous, courteous, and respectful when interacting with employees. Treat them like they have great talent, intelligence, and experience. Leaning forward a little, turn your whole body towards the interlocutor, as if at the moment there is nothing more important for you than this communication.

5. Say "thank you". Thank subordinates for everything they do, whether big or small. Express gratitude to them for coming to the meeting on time, for completing the task, for providing information, and for all that they do as part of their official duties. When expressing appreciation, thank people for what they said or did. This will make them feel more valued and important. Since the words of the leader have a great influence on the thoughts, feelings and actions of subordinates, gratitude makes them happier and more satisfied with themselves and their work.

6. Keep employees up to date. Inform them about what is happening in the company, business, and especially about what may affect their job or job security. Satisfied employees usually admit that they feel like insiders, that they are up to date and aware of everything that is happening around them and in one way or another affects their work.

In this sense, it is useful to adhere to an open door policy. Tell subordinates that you have no secrets from them and that if anyone has questions about what is happening in the company or outside of it, they can ask you personally and get an answer.

7. Encourage continuous improvement. Encourage people to look for ways to do their job the best they can, or whatever possible ways improve the performance of the company. After World War II, the Japanese rebuilt their economy with a system kaizen which means continuous improvement. They encouraged every employee at every organizational level to look for small and big improvements that could be implemented in their area of ​​influence.

You must do the same. If one of the subordinates offers new idea, then whatever you think about it at first, suggest that this employee put it into practice on a small scale to see if it gives the required results. How more ideas you try it, the more you get. And when employees are encouraged to use their creativity to do their jobs better, they feel much happier and more satisfied with themselves and the company.

8. Treat employees like volunteers. Treat employees as if they were working for a charity. Imagine that every member of your team is talented and successful man who could have worked anywhere but chose to work for you because he likes you and your company.

AT non-profit organizations, where almost everyone is a volunteer, everyone who wants to help is treated with great respect, because the leaders want these people to come to them in the future. You will greatly improve your relationship with your subordinates if you treat them like volunteers who work for free, donating their time to help you and the company because they like you and enjoy this work.

9. Think of your employees as million dollar customers. Think about how your behavior changes when you hear the voice of one of the company's most important customers on the phone. You immediately begin to demonstrate politeness, friendliness, charm, attention and respect. You are doing your best. No matter what the client tells you, you remain attentive, patient, friendly and well-meaning.

Now imagine that each employee is able to influence a multi-million dollar deal to buy a company product. When you treat employees as if they were your most valuable customers, it has a huge positive impact on them and gives them the most pleasant feelings about themselves and their work.

10. Pay well. Provide employees with fair compensation and decent pay for their contribution to the success of the company. Of course money is not main factor motivation, but if a person is paid less than he deserves, this can demotivate him.

In fact, good employees cost the company nothing because they create value for the company that exceeds the cost of labor. The development of the company depends entirely on the extent to which it is able to attract and retain the best specialists, whose work provides continuous improvement final scores.

Just think of the enormous intellectual capital that employees have amassed about the company, the job, and the way it is done! Think also about everyone these people have contact with inside and outside the company. After analyzing this, you will understand how difficult it is to replace good employee and how much it will cost you.

When in doubt, pay people more, not less. Offer them a raise instead of waiting for them to ask for a raise. Tell them how much you appreciate their work and contribution to the company, and back up your words material reward. Thanks to this, people will feel their value and significance, as well as become more loyal to you and the company.

11. Compliment your employees. Take time to express your admiration for their abilities, appearance, and personal qualities. Everyone loves compliments. You can say something nice to an employee about a piece of clothing, a new handbag or business briefcase, a haircut or hairstyle. In addition, you can praise subordinates for their qualities or character, for example: "You are very tenacious" or "You always do a very good job."

People spend a lot of time and energy on their appearance, houses, cars, achievements and deeds. When you pay attention to all this and talk about it, they feel significant and special; they are happier and more satisfied with themselves and what they do.

12. Ensure harmonious interaction of employees. You should seek from subordinates coordinated work with other positive-minded and competent specialists of the company. One of the most important tasks of a leader is to create a harmonious and joyful atmosphere for the work of his team. One negatively-minded or difficult person to communicate can poison the whole atmosphere in the team. You should make sure that everyone is happy to work alongside their colleagues, and do everything necessary to get negative people to leave your company.

13. Praise employees regularly. Spread praise to employees, express their approval for every achievement, large or small.

Self-esteem depends on the extent to which a person considers himself worthy of praise. Every time you praise people, you boost their self-esteem and make them feel more valued and significant. Employees who are satisfied with themselves because they have been praised have intrinsic motivation repeat the same actions or provide the efficiency that deserves flattering words. As a result, they strive to perform more and more important tasks and increase their level of skill each time.

be guided simple rules: first, give praise immediately . Express your pleasure in the work of subordinates immediately after they have done something worthwhile or completed the task assigned to them. The sooner you do this, the more powerful your words will be.

Second, praise for something concrete . Name a job or task done by the employee and talk about what was done well. The more specific your praise, the easier it is for the employee to repeat the same actions in the future.

Third, praise employees whenever possible. publicly . When you praise a person in the presence of one or more employees, the power of your approval, which influences his behavior, increases as much as the person heard the praise.

All good leaders are constantly looking for opportunities to praise subordinates for their achievements in the presence of other people. This task is within their competence, and if done correctly and regularly, people will become incredibly proud of themselves and the fact that they work under you.

14. Don't criticize. Refrain from criticism, condemnation and claims against anyone or anything if subordinates can hear it. Any negativity, no matter how justified, demoralizes people and makes them unhappy.

If you have a problem, keep it to yourself. In a difficult situation, you can objectively, without emotions, explain what is happening to employees. Ask them if they have any ideas about what steps or actions could be taken to solve a problem or resolve a difficult situation.

In professional life, there are always different problems, difficulties, obstacles, failures and hardships. They literally happen every day. What matters is how you respond to them. Whatever happens, try to focus on the future and problem solving. You should focus on what can be done now, not on what has already happened. You must force yourself and everyone else to look for original ways to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.

15. Celebrate your successes. It is necessary to regularly celebrate the successes of both individual employees and the team as a whole. Organize a lunch for everyone in the office to celebrate an achievement, such as signing a major contract, or simply express appreciation to employees for doing a good job. For larger accomplishments, arrange for the team to have lunch at a local restaurant. During staff meetings, you can first single out one or more employees who have done something noteworthy, and then invite the rest to give them credit for it with applause.

Each employee who is celebrated will have a redoubled desire to earn praise and reward again, and everyone else will also have a desire to do something worthy of the same celebration.

16. Show interest in employees. Take an interest in their personal lives. Ask about family, relationships, and everything they do when they're not at work. The fact is that every person has a complex, rich, full of emotions active life outside the office. For most people, their personal lives underlie all thoughts and actions, and their professional life plays a secondary role.

When you take a sincere interest in your employees and see each of them as individuals and not just as staff, they feel their own value and importance. Your interest in their lives will make them happier.

17. Be a mentor. In every possible way encourage subordinates to learn, develop and improve in their business. Recommend them books, articles, and even buy them all. Encourage your team members to attend additional seminars and courses and offer to pay for them. Provide employees with time off work for continuous personal and professional development.

One of the greatest desires of every person is to learn, develop and increase their value in the eyes of others. In a leadership position, you must have accumulated a wealth of information about what knowledge your employees need to master, what they need to learn in order to increase their value to themselves and the company.

Some executives ask, "What if we teach them and they leave the company?" But it's better not to ask such a question. Better think: "What if we we won't teach and will they stay?

The more time you spend training and educating subordinates, the more you give them valuable advice and recommendations, the more likely they are to stay with you for a long time.

18. Give employees freedom of action. Give subordinates freedom of action in the performance of their work. People want to know exactly what you expect from them, but they also need to have as much leeway as possible in completing the tasks assigned to them.

Encourage employees to take full responsibility for their work and for how they organize their activities and use their time. When people show themselves to be independent and self-sufficient specialists, give them more freedom of action in performing assigned tasks in the best way they know how. The freer they feel within well-defined boundaries, the more satisfied they are with themselves and their work, and the better they do it.

19. Protect your employees. Protect subordinates from negativity, rudeness, or mistreatment by others both inside and outside the company. It is very important! You must not allow anyone to mistreat any member of your team, just as you would not allow any person to mistreat a member of your family.

If someone in the company mistreated one of the employees, you should immediately take action and demand that this does not happen again. If an outsider, even a client, is rude or insults towards any of his subordinates, you must also immediately stop this in order to never allow this to happen again.

Subordinates, knowing that you will stand by their side and protect them from negative statements and actions of other people, feel safe, and this makes them happier and more satisfied with their work.

20. Treat employees like your children. If you truly love and care for your children, then you are being very patient while they learn and experience life. But “adults also often behave like children, only they come up with stronger excuses for their actions.” No matter how old we are, we often think and act in many ways as we did when we were children. Showing patience, compassion and tolerance towards subordinates (as you did with your children during their growing up), you will completely change your attitude towards them and behavior.

End of introductory segment.

This book is well complemented by:

Motivation

Brian Tracy

Delegation and management

Brian Tracy

Engage and Conquer

Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter

Hug your employees

Jack Mitchell

Full Engagement!

Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People

Brian Tracy

Full involvement

Inspire, motivate and bring out the best in your team

"Mann, Ivanov and Ferber"

Information

from the publisher

Published in Russian for the first time

Tracey, Brian

Full involvement. Inspire, motivate and bring out the best in your team / Brian Tracy; per. from English. N. Yatsyuk. - M. : Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2016.

ISBN 978-5-00057-941-1

Success in business largely depends on how effectively managers and entrepreneurs are able to use human capital. Everyone who has held a leadership position has faced the need to unleash the full potential of their employees. But since business conditions are far from ideal, this is far from always possible. Brian Tracy's book will teach you how to engage, motivate and inspire your team.

The book will be of interest to managers and business owners.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of the publisher.

Legal support of the publishing house is provided by law firm Vegas Lex.

© Brian Tracy, 2011

© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2016

I dedicate this book with love to Art Van Elsender, Kim Yost, and the wonderful company they lead. Art Van Furniture represents the very best in modern management.

If your actions inspire others to dream big, learn more, do more, and become better, then you are a leader.

John Adams1

Welcome to the new world of business! In 2008, we entered a turning point, after which nothing will remain the same. The good old days are gone forever. Today we are dealing with a "new standard". Driven by factors such as shrinking markets, intensifying competition, demanding customers, and a persistent shortage of skilled, productive employees, managers will have to work harder than ever to do more with less and get better results with limited resources.

Due to a difficult economic period, companies today produce more products using fewer resources. They laid off millions of employees and made layoffs in almost every area of ​​their operations, while increasing their levels of productivity, efficiency and per capita output. Today's companies maintain or increase productivity and improve the quality of products by reducing the number of employees, but providing better recruitment and management of personnel, as well as the organization of the workflow. You must set yourself the same goal.

As a manager of any level, you manage the operation of a single business unit, which has income and expenses, inputs and product, production needs and performance indicators. The income statement reflects your ability to select the right people and resources to achieve results (especially financial) that exceed (ideally far exceed) the total cost of obtaining them.

Improve your return on equity

The success of a business depends to a large extent on how successfully its owners manage to ensure a high and stable return on equity (ROE). Strategy, planning, tactics, and day-to-day activities are all geared towards the same goal: to organize the work of people and the use of assets in such a way that the return on equity (that is, the return on capital invested by owners in the business) is the highest in the market, especially in compared to competitors in the same business or industry.

The manager's task is also to achieve the maximum ROE. Only for the team leader, ROE also means the “profitability of energy”2 expended by subordinates. Your focus should be on maximizing the return on human capital - on the physical, emotional and mental effort that your employees put in or can put into the results you are responsible for achieving.

This book is well complemented by:

Motivation

Brian Tracy

Delegation and management

Brian Tracy

Engage and Conquer

Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter

Hug your employees

Jack Mitchell

Full Engagement!

Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People

Brian Tracy

Full involvement

Inspire, motivate and bring out the best in your team

"Mann, Ivanov and Ferber"

Information

from the publisher

Published in Russian for the first time

Tracey, Brian

Full involvement. Inspire, motivate and bring out the best in your team / Brian Tracy; per. from English. N. Yatsyuk. - M. : Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2016.

ISBN 978-5-00057-941-1

Success in business largely depends on how effectively managers and entrepreneurs are able to use human capital. Everyone who has held a leadership position has faced the need to unleash the full potential of their employees. But since business conditions are far from ideal, this is far from always possible. Brian Tracy's book will teach you how to engage, motivate and inspire your team.

The book will be of interest to managers and business owners.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of the publisher.

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

© Brian Tracy, 2011

© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2016

I dedicate this book with love to Art Van Elsender, Kim Yost, and the wonderful company they lead. Art Van Furniture represents the very best in modern management.

If your actions inspire others to dream big, learn more, do more, and become better, then you are a leader.

John Adams1

Welcome to the new world of business! In 2008, we entered a turning point, after which nothing will remain the same. The good old days are gone forever. Today we are dealing with a "new standard". Driven by factors such as shrinking markets, intensifying competition, demanding customers, and a persistent shortage of skilled, productive employees, managers will have to work harder than ever to do more with less and get better results with limited resources.

Due to a difficult economic period, companies today produce more products using fewer resources. They laid off millions of employees and made layoffs in almost every area of ​​their operations, while increasing their levels of productivity, efficiency and per capita output. Today's companies maintain or increase productivity and improve the quality of products by reducing the number of employees, but providing better recruitment and management of personnel, as well as the organization of the workflow. You must set yourself the same goal.

As a manager of any level, you manage the operation of a single business unit, which has income and expenses, inputs and product, production needs and performance indicators. The income statement reflects your ability to select the right people and resources to achieve results (especially financial) that exceed (ideally far exceed) the total cost of obtaining them.

Improve your return on equity

The success of a business depends to a large extent on how successfully its owners manage to ensure a high and stable return on equity (ROE). Strategy, planning, tactics, and day-to-day activities are all geared towards the same goal: to organize the work of people and the use of assets in such a way that the return on equity (that is, the return on capital invested by owners in the business) is the highest in the market, especially in compared to competitors in the same business or industry.

The manager's task is also to achieve the maximum ROE. Only for the team leader, ROE also means the “profitability of energy”2 expended by subordinates. Your focus should be on maximizing the return on human capital - on the physical, emotional and mental effort that your employees put in or can put into the results you are responsible for achieving.

According to Robert Half International, the average person uses only 50 percent of their potential at work. Lack of clear work assignments, lack of prioritization, poor management, and lack of feedback means that each employee spends, on average, about half of their time on activities that have nothing to do with work. This wasted time is wasted on empty conversations with co-workers, long lunches and coffee breaks, being late to work and leaving work early, surfing the Internet, solving personal issues, and other activities that are performed only for the sake of killing. time, but give the company almost no return on investment in wages and employee benefits.

However, as Napoleon said, there are no bad soldiers for a good general. A great leader with a clear vision can quickly turn a group of average performers into a highly effective team of top performers. You just need to learn it.

Fortunately, the ways to achieve these goals are already known and easy to use. Thanks to decades of research and millions of hours invested by scientists in studying the problems of increasing personal and organizational efficiency, we now know exactly what to do and what to stop doing in order to get the best performance from subordinates. Since 65 to 85 percent of the cost of doing business (excluding the cost of goods manufactured) is spent on labor costs, it is critical to access the 50 percent of that investment (left behind because people are working half-heartedly) and channel the energy of employees into increase in labor productivity. In the end, it depends on whether you can do something truly meaningful, regardless of your position.