Is The CEO Pickle Your Pickle Too?

Decades ago, Jack Welch told me about a problem he faced that might be yours too today.

He said, “I’m challenged by deep motivation. How do I motivate my full complement of employees? Sure, my direct reports are motivated. If they aren’t, they won’t be my direct reports. But how do I get that motivation happening in all functions and levels?"

This can be your challenge too because whether you lead two people, two thousand, or, like Welch, two hundred thousand people, you must get them motivated.

Attempted Solutions

He tried many solutions, manifesting values, instilling Six Sigma, promoting his one-or-two business strategy. training leaders at Crotonville, but he never achieved a complete, all-encompassing solution evidenced by GE's stumbles after he retired.

A Solution Exists

There is a solution, and it took me a decade of working with top leaders of all levels and functions in organizations worldwide to figure it out. It’s a solution that doesn’t come from complicated, sophisticated schemes but instead from a simple factor that lies in the hearts of all leaders.

I call it The Leadership Talk. Of course, leaders who are engaging in similar thoughts and actions call their activities something other than Leadership Talks. But the principles are the same. Those principles can be manifested in the difference between common presentations and The Leadership Talk. That difference is simple, knowing it and putting that knowledge into practice can make a world of difference in your leadership effectiveness.

The Critical Difference

Presentations format and communicate information while Leadership Talks not only communicate information, they do something more: they instill motivational connections with the people you lead to prompt them to achieve exceptional results.

To start to make those connections, simply ask three questions: D you know what the audience needs? Can you bring deep belief to what you say? Can you have the audience act for exceptional results. If you say “no” to any of those questions, you cannot give a Leadership Talk.?

Steppingstones to Great Leadership

But those questions are not stumbling blocks but steppingstones. Think things through so you can say “yes” to each of them. Those “yeses” are springboards to leadership transformation.

When you are developing and delivering Leadership Talks daily, motivation is driven throughout all functions and levels comprehensively and consistently.

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Copyright ? The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

The author of some 40 books, Brent Filson’s latest two leadership books are: “The Leadership Talk: 7 Days to Motivating People to Achieve Exceptional Results” and “107 Ways to Achieve Great Leadership Talks.” He is the founder of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc., which for 40 years has helped thousands of leaders of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide achieve sustained increases in hard, measured results. He has published some 200 articles on leadership. His mission is to have leaders replace their traditional presentations with his specially developed, motivating process, The Leadership Talk. www.brentfilson.com and theleadershiptalk.com.?

Besides having lectured about the Leadership Talk at MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia University, Wake Forest, Villanova, Williams, Middlebury, Filson brought the Leadership Talk to leaders in these organizations: Abbott, Ameritech, Anheuser-Busch, Armstrong World Industries, AT&T, BASF, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Betz Laboratories, Bose, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Campbell Sales, Canadian Government, CNA, DuPont, Eaton Corporation, Exelon, First Energy, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, GTE, Hartford Steam Boiler, Hershey Foods, Houghton Mifflin, IBM, Meals-on-Wheels, Merck, Miller Brewing Company, NASA, PaineWebber, Polaroid, Price Waterhouse, Roadway Express, Sears Roebuck, Spalding International, Southern Company, The United Nations, Unilever, UPS, Union Carbide, United Dominion Industries, U.S. Steel, Vermont State Police, Warner Lambert — and more

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