100 Ways to Motivate Others

Chapter 13. Tell the Truth Quickly

Question: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Answer: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.

—Abraham Lincoln

Great leaders always share a common habit: they tell the truth faster than other managers do.

Steve recalls his work with helping managers motivate salespeople. (And notice that this doesn’t just apply to salespeople. It applies to all people.)

I always found that people would tell me about their limitations, and I would listen patiently and try to talk them out of their limitations, and they would try to talk me back into what their limitations really were. Limitation seemed to be their fixation.

One day, I was working with a salesperson in a difficult one-on-one ...