1.  The best leaders seem to have a strong enough ego that they don’t need the recognition and can easily pass all the credit to a team member or team.  They see the big picture and the vision of where the company is going, but realize that they do not need to take the credit.  They actively seek out recognition and use it to motivate their team and are content with pushing the spotlight on everyone else.  The converse is true as well, they can and are willing to take criticism and deflect it from the team.  They possess an ego that doesn’t need stroking and can take punches when necessary.   You’d think a leader would want to take credit, but the opposite is true. 

2.  Leaders rarely have to dictate.  They surround themselves with competent and motivated people.  They attract the best talent.  The best leaders lead by asking questions and allow the team to own the answers and the ideas.  They realize dictation rarely secures buy-in.  They allow team members to arrive at the same conclusion that they’ve already arrived at.  This is such a difficult skill, but the most effective leaders are capable of leading their team to own their ideas.    You’d think a leader would have the best ideas and dictate every action their team members should make, but the opposite is true. 

3.  Effective leaders aren’t looking to be served, they are looking to serve.  They realize by enabling team members to succeed and removing roadblocks scales the business significantly.  Helping team members realize their own personal goals motivates them to do things beyond their potential.  Giving and serving are passionate drivers for the most successful CEO’s.  You’d think a leader would be looking to be served, but the opposite here is true as well. 

4.  Leaders let people go.  There are people that just aren’t a great fit, most leaders try to adjust, motivate, and invest in the poor performers or the unmotivated.  The best leaders adjust, motivate, and invest in the best performers realizing that companies scale on the backs of the best performers.  I have a tough time with this as I build human relationships - friendships - and it’s often difficult to make the move of letting them go.  More often than not, the poor performers will find relief that they are let go so that they can pursue something that is more meaningful or within their skill set.  The best leaders let go of poor performers quickly and invest the majority of their time on the best performers.  You’d think the best leaders are capable of turning around poor performers, when in reality, they are the best at getting the most out of their best performers.   

5.  Leaders are humble.  I love interacting with CEO’s that are always trying to learn, pushing themselves to improve personally and reinventing themselves.  I’m always thirsty to learn something new from a restaurant waiter to a first-time entrepreneur to a retired businessman.  The more I’m involved in businesses, the more I realize that I don’t know.  Meeting an entrepreneur in El Salvador who has no education, no strong upbringing, and leading a successful business is extremely humbling and inspirational.  The best leaders know they still have a lot to learn.  Knowing that you don’t know much is always a good place to be in becoming an effective leader.   You’d think a leader knows everything, in actuality, the best leaders realize they are always in need of more knowledge. 

I realize that there are successful leaders that do exactly the opposite of what I’ve described, but I’d argue the majority of successful entrepreneurs that I’ve had the privilege of meeting with have many of the traits that I’ve described above.  Do you agree?  What other traits do you see in successful leaders?

My definition of an “A” player in your company is someone who has serious talent and cares enough to put in the necessary time to win.  That’s it.  That’s my definition.  A large organization can survive with several non-A players and some do pretty well with very few A-players.  In the startup world, with limited resources and limited time, you can ill-afford to not have A-players.  The entrepreneurs that survive surround themselves with A-players.  How stacked is your team?

I believe that people are born with talent - some with numbers, some with sales, some with creativity, etc.  Every individual is unique and gifted in some way.  The goal of the entrepreneur is to put people in the right roles.  In the right roles, a seriously talented person will thrive.  Sometimes that means the rockstar developer stays a developer and does not become a manager even though they really want to.  Sometimes that means telling your salesperson that they probably aren’t cut out to be a salesperson and perhaps they should look into becoming an HR manger.  I’ve hired the wrong folks before thinking that they would thrive in a startup environment and they couldn’t do it - they couldn’t handle the ambiguity, they couldn’t handle the stress, they couldn’t handle the crazy goals, they couldn’t handle the extra hours.  That’s ok, you need to put people in a position that they can succeed.

Now, even if you do place them in a position where they can succeed - for example, a great salesperson - they can still turn out to be a non-A player or even a below average player.  These are the first round draft picks in the NFL that are filled with talent and promise, but totally flame out.  Why?

I’ve had salespeople that are satisfied with reaching their quota.  Once they reached their quota, they take a deep breath and hit the beach even though there are substantial rewards if they strive higher.  They don’t care about winning because their thirst was quenched and they thirst no more.  A well-paid developer can react the same way, extremely talented, but does the minimum to get their paycheck.  A great customer service person who assumes that the call at 4.55pm on Friday can wait until Monday may lead to a very important customer feeling frustrated until Monday.  These talented employees do little to challenge themselves, compete, and push the company to new levels.  They lack desire, direction, urgency, motivation, and most of all they pass this culture to other folks which can be extremely dangerous for startups.  These are the B and C players that you cannot have permeate your startup.  Sure you can’t have all A players, but too many of these B and C players you’ll find your A players suddenly playing B and C ball.

Here’s an A player.  They are always stretching goals that you set and they hate to lose.  They take personal responsibility for everything.  They push the people around them to set higher bars, to compete, to put in the necessary time.  Startups are not for the faint of heart and they are definitely not for the clock-watching employee.  The A-players thrive on startup energy, they love how fast things can get done, they hate bureaucracy, they expect excellence, and they want to make a real difference.  Ultimately, they care. How many A-players do you have?  How are you investing more time and resources into them?  How are you finding them?  

In poker and in business, it’s much easier than you think to go on tilt.  The most dangerous thing about being on tilt is when you don’t realize you are on tilt.  For those of you who don’t even know what tilt is - going on tilt in poker is an emotional state whereby you can no longer make good decisions.  Most often than not, this occurs in poker when you are expected to win a hand and someone gets lucky to beat you for a big payday.  It can also occur if you start winning quite a bit and you start thinking that you are unbeatable (not too dissimilar from Wall Street the past few years).  If you can’t recognize when you are on tilt, you are bound to lose everything you have and seriously regret your decisions when you get your normal state of mind back.  Recognizing when you are on tilt in poker and in business will not only save you dollars in the long-run, it will also keep you positive and sane when things aren’t working in your favor and keep you hungry and humble when things are working really well.

I don’t think I’m a strong enough to avoid going on tilt.  I’ve found the best way to address the issue is to realize when you are in it and have a game plan for addressing it before it happens.  Here are five things that I keep in mind:

1.  Have a spotter.  Someone who will call you out when you make poor or irrational decisions.  For me, just having someone appeal to my sensibilities at the poker table or in business is good enough for me to quickly react and get back on track.  Perhaps, that is your advisory board, a board member, or even a trusted friend.  Who is your spotter?  If you’re in Seattle, go to events like Twiistup and meet like-minded entrepreneurs (full disclosure: I’m an investor and big fan of Twiistup).  Be connected, be in community, be a spotter for others.

2.  When things are going badly and it seems the business can only get worse, get perspective quickly.  Things tend to work in cycles and getting through the negative cycles gets you closer to the positive cycles.  Things are never as bad as they seem, and you need to stay positive.  Be confident, make adjustments if necessary.

3.  Maintain a healthy dose of humility and hunger.  You should always celebrate successes, but don’t get comfortable with success.  There is always reason to be conscious of competitors you haven’t heard of, employees that are looking to leave, customers that are pushing for lower prices, etc.  Having humility and hunger forces you to always be learning, innovating, striving for excellence.

4.  Taking a break.  When you recognize that you are on tilt, walking away will help you make better decisions.  I’ve been in some long, arduous negotiations and sometimes it can make me go nuts and make poor decisions.  Taking some time to re-evaluate and catch my breath have helped me see things more clearly.

5.  Have fun.  I don’t mean to be flippant, but poker is a game, and business in certain respects should be looked at as a game as well.  I’ve seen it too many times that when things get tough, you stress out trying to get even only to dig yourself a bigger hole.  In business, things get tough, you get reclusive, spend more time on the business, and get further into the weeds and not having fun.  Even when things are tough and mentally draining, what are you doing today to get back into the game?  How are you having fun each day?  How are you turning it into a game rather than work?

Generally, I tend to err on the side of being more steady - not getting too high nor too low.  I think it helps me stay sane and positive.  I know of quite a few successful entrepreneurs that are not very steady and get very high and very low.  No matter which personality you are, I think everyone has the propensity to go on tilt - how do you recognize it and how do you address it?  Let me know in the comments below.

I was turned on to this innovative Seattle startup that focuses on improving the lives of extremely poor through the use of educational loans.  It is self-sustainable as 97% of the loans are paid back and can be used again to loan to more people in need.  Ideas like this can change the world.  I love it and that’s why I just placed my first loan in the program and started a group to compete in their March Madness Challenge - anything that ties in the sports world is very cool.  Having been to Central America several times, I chose to loan to Evalesthy Mercado in Nicaragua.  You can read about her story here.  It is refreshing to see entrepreneurs tackle the issue of extreme global poverty and we need to support them.  Whether it is Vitanna or another great Seattle-based organization like One Day’s Wages - if you have the means to give, please do.  Each dollar is directly given to those who need it most, meaning 100% of your donations go to those in need.  This is the new breed of non-profits and transparency at its best.  If you don’t have the means to give, talk about the issues and raise awareness amongst your peers - it’s what I call “social giving”.

Who are some of your favorite non-profits or for-profits that are doing innovative work in solving global poverty?  I’d love to hear about them!  Perhaps, you are ready to embark on a new journey starting your own?

Sounds like an oxymoron.  Probably is, but I’d argue that viewing adversity with the right perspective pays real dividends.  2009 was a tough year period.  The majority of the companies that I’ve invested in or have a relationship with have struggled in 2009 with the exception of the Cheezburger network.  Whether it was sales, raising capital, doing deals, HR issues, break-ins, litigation, it just seemed to be extraordinarily difficult in 2009 to meet/exceed goals and grow.  To their credit though, none have given up - maybe because I won’t let them.  In my day job, even though we grew signficantly in traffic and revenues, we didn’t meet our internal agressive goals.  In the spirit of being reflective, here are some of my thoughts on how to or why you and I should embrace adversity.   

1.  It forces you to prioritize what is most important.   If your revenues are down and you are not selling, why?  You should be picking up the phone and meeting with customers yesterday.  Stop focusing on website redesign or business card branding or what health care plan you should pick - plug the revenue hole or expense hole, and do it right away.  Adversity has a strange way of making it absolutely clear what you should prioritize - embrace it and do it. 

2.  Get back to the basics.  There is nothing wrong with going back to a successful plan and pushing the accelerator pedal on it - which means putting to death your latest and greatest ideas.  Imagine that you are the coach of a college basketball team and you have an 8-footer on your team, an absolute giant.  As a coach that is focused on winning, wouldn’t you keep going to the 8-footer everytime you had the ball?  You would keep doing it until a team proved that they could stop your guy from scoring, right?  I can’t tell you how many entrepeneurs (myself included) that I’ve met keep pursuing the shiny new idea when they are already sitting on success, they’ve proved the model and it’s time to scale!!  If you’ve had a successful model and got distracted with a shiny new idea, kill it and go back to the basics.

3) Forces you to have clarity on motivation and character.  Adversity is the badge of the entrepreneur, I’ve said it many times, it’s never easy being an entrepreneur, it’s hard and brutal and always takes longer than you want.  If your motivation was money and not passion/vision - lack of money will cause you to quit.  If you are an entrepreneur that enjoys the journey and not just the end outcome, these adverse events become badges of honor as it brings you closer to success.  You see things clearer in adversity and you appreciate the taste of success all that much more.  Don’t you think the taste of success is so much sweeter when you had to face adversity?  Use adversity to gain clarity on why you do what you do - get clearer on your vision - see that your character especially perserverance and faith grows each day. 

4) Determine who your friends are.  It’s in adversity that you learn who your real friends are and who you want to partner with in the future.  When things are good, everyone wants to do business with you, everyone is your friend.  Then when s*** hits the fan, who is working with you to help you succeed, who’s still in your corner when the accolades are few and far between?  It’s fascinating to me how short-sighted certain people are - they jump from ship to ship, your next business should be built from relationships that you know will stick with you thick and thin.  Banks, Angels, VC’s, Attorneys, business partners, employees, investors, customers, vendors.  Reward those that took risks with you and partnered with you when things were tough.  Remember them in your next deal.  Of course, it goes without saying, don’t hold a grudge against those who didn’t stick with you, but you might reconsider the relationship next time.  I still remember customers that bought from us even though our financials weren’t in great shape - guess who is going to get preferential service/pricing next time?

5)  Confidence.  Not arrogance, not ego, not unbridled optimism.  Just confidence.  Embracing adversity I’d argue gives you the ability to approach the unknown with no fear.    This might be a hard concept to get.  If you see adversity as an opportunity to get better, learn, grow, and ultimately get closer to success - you approach your job with absolute confidence.  This confidence exudes through the organization and people feed on it.  If you’re down and there’s negative energy around a missed quarter, it could easily go into a death spiral as other people feed on your negative energy, lose hope, and quit on you.  Embracing adversity should give you genuine confidence that is real - you know without a shadow of a doubt that these adverse times will make you a better person and a better leader. 

To sum it up, being an entrepreneur is not easy, adversity sucks, but embracing adversity instead of allowing it to break us will make us successful people.  How are you embracing adversity? Let me know below. Now onto 2010 and your success!

One of my hobbies is keeping tabs on the real estate industry. I’m not a big investor in real estate, but I definitely enjoy talking about the latest trends in real estate. I love ribbing my realtor friends that I think their jobs are becoming extinct and it’s time to rethink their value proposition soon or they may be going by the newspaper wayside. I’m a big fan of Redfin, estately, Zillow, and other real estate sites that are bringing more transparency to the real estate market. I’m tired of the industry driving profits through being opaque and keeping broken models in place in order to preserve their position. That being said, I’ve turned a bit more bullish on real estate as of late vs my very bearish position about 6-12 months ago. I’ve completed two transactions recently and thought I’d share about those transactions in more detail and my thought process.

One of my more popular blog posts was on my decision to walk away from Olive 8. I was ready to walk away, but did engage in a few interesting conversations with the folks there. Needless to say, we were able to come to an agreement to purchase property there. It’s far from clear that I bought at the bottom, nor was I trying to time the bottom. In fact, I’m probably early as only about 25% of the units are actually closed, there’s a lot of units still available. However, I approached the decision in a few different ways. First, the decision was a purchase decision first and an investment decision second.  Like I mentioned in past blog posts, when you buy a car, it’s a purchase decision, rarely is it an investment decision where you are trying to calculate your return on investment and equity gains after acquiring the car.  Because my wife and I really enjoyed the location of the property and the conveniences of the property - it fit us well for a purchase decision.  But, how about as an investment decision?

Once we decided it was a purchase decision first, we did want to make sure that we were not overpaying - in the car example, even if you decided that you wanted that Toyota doesn’t mean you should pay sticker. In real estate, you can always buy below market, but you can rarely sell above market. So, the lesson is to make sure you get in at the right price. For us, that meant that we don’t purchase more property than we can afford. If there was a lesson learned from the recent real estate debacle, it’s that real estate does not always go up and becoming overleveraged leaves you exposed to potentially horrible options. In fact, our decision was to downsize to a place that we wanted, reduce our exposure to leverage and stay well within our budget. There’s always the temptation to buy up and lever up and bet on the real estate market with your personal property, I enjoy risk and often take risk, but for less liquid assets like real estate and levering just seems like a bad risk-reward proposition. Remember, I’m just arguing for your personal property. For an investment property or buying undervalued properties, it might be different. Why overspend on your personal property when you can evaluate much better opportunities with professional investors that could bring better returns? My thesis is to keep your personal property to something that you like and equity returns are like icing on the cake and keep your investing decisions with strict criteria to secure the best returns. There are a lot of great asset classes out there, find the ones that best suit you.

So, about the price and the purchase decision. It’s pretty easy these days to look up recent comps on all the other units that closed in the building. For me, it’s just getting comfortable with the other comps in the building and getting the best “below-market” deal that I could. It took several months, but we were able to get a deal that worked well for the seller and for us. I’d even argue that developers are more willing to meet buyers to make the deal work than property owners - as a property owner myself, I admit that I get attached a bit to property and sometimes unable to make the rational market decision. The developer was more than reasonable to make something work which is really a welcome breath of fresh air.

The whole annoying part of the process was my conversations with real estate agents, I’ve had conversations with them multiple times and have blogged about this in the past. Not the sellers agents for Olive 8, but buyers agents. I’m absolutely convinced that as a buyer, you’ve got to control the process with your agents. The agents are there to close a deal, not to make sure you get the best available deal. Had I listened to my agents, I would have closed a terrible deal and I would have closed it quickly because the “market” was on its way back and for sure I was going to make my money back in a few years. Do your own work, control the process, and the buyer’s agents will make it happen because they want you to close. I think more experienced agents might be able to expand the conversation more, but at the end of the day, you should not allow yourself to be badgered into making a deal because you feel indebted to them. If you’ve done your homework, consider using Redfin or negotiate with your agent - I’m not being compensated by Redfin at all for this, I just love innovators that are changing the model.

On a macroeconomic level, take this with a grain of salt as I’m not an economist, but I think it makes a lot of logical sense. With the extraordinary amount of debt the US is taking these days, our dollar has quickly come down in value and will continue to go down in value. That means hard assets - gold, oil, commodities, and even real estate will go up in value relative to the dollar. In addition with interest rates at these unsustainable levels, there is a bit of a hedge play against the US dollar by buying real estate. That being said, rent prices have been coming down, so the rent/mortgage ratio still seems lower than it should. Take it for what it’s worth, but I’m buying a little gold, a little oil, and a little real estate these days.

My second real estate transaction was an investment property at Seabrook, a town near Pacific Beach in Washington. It’s a relatively new development with a great developer and friend of mine, Casey Roloff.  I’m in with a couple friends on this property, here’s how I thought about that investment.

I like to bet on people and Casey is a developer that is a visionary that makes things happen. I’ve been amazed what he’s been able to do, build a town literally out of nowhere and focus on building a bustling community with great thought on making it a walking town and family friendly. He’s a tremendous entrepreneur that has his sights set on building a large town where the community is first. I want to be a part of that.

It is a investment property that has cash flow with rental income. In fact, it’s a great washington coast beach town rental. The nice offset is that I will also be using the property as well so there is that individual usage value out of it. With the economy the way it is, vacationing has become more local and my bet is that more people will stay within 3 hours driving distance for vacations. It is situated between Seattle and Portland, two cities with great demographics for family vacations.

Similar to my argument above, I do believe this is also a hedge against the US dollar with solid individual usage returns and cash flow returns. Overall, I’m pretty bullish and excited with my bets. Even if they are wrong, I feel that worst case, I’ll drive them to the ground and enjoy the ride. What do you think? Do you think it’s time to start buying real estate or is it wiser to keep waiting?

As entrepreneurs, we are trained to react quickly - it’s actually a strength in most circumstances as large corporations can’t react as quickly as we can.  I don’t think we can or should slow down our reaction times significantly.  I think taking some time to get unplugged in the mornings or in the evenings whether it be 5 minutes or 60 minutes to just think will go a long way.  I want to process what happened in the day - what was the highlight, what was the lowlight?  If I can’t identify anything, perhaps I was just being a dumb reactive person the entire day not taking any risks or processing change that can spark the business or my personal relationships.  There is something to be said for leaders and entrepreneurs to start exercising their minds, processing more, understanding more, and having a bigger, better, long-term perspective on the daily grind.  How are you balancing your reflection time vs your reaction time?  Do you think it’s important to your success?

We all have limited budgets and we can only afford to hire against our limited cash.  We’re currently short about two developers.  In Seattle, to be competitive for an experienced engineer, you need to be in the range of $100K-$120K/year (obviously, it can be a little higher or a little lower).  We can hire an experienced engineer potentially at $80K-$90K that is not a US citizen, but would be excited to live in Seattle and work here.  We could hire three engineers, get more innovative, grow more quickly, and stay ahead of our competitors with three great hires.  Plus, we could find those engineers more quickly and get them up and running pretty quickly.  I understand that this may “supplant” two US-born engineers, but I’d argue that it does not.  First, for all of our current employees (especially engineers), this potentially would make our company more stable because we can get more accomplished per unit of cost (given that we’re working on the right stuff).  Secondly, if our margins continue to increase, we would continue investing in the business thus allowing us to promote from within those that are performing and bringing in new talent behind them.  Thirdly, many of these “new” employees are probably trained at universities locally and have built roots here as well leading to a more loyal, stable, and experienced workforce.  This, in effect, also benefits the ecosystem as these experienced engineers make it easier for more entrepreneurs to innnovate and create more opportunities - some may even become entrepreneurs themselves and hire more engineers both US-grown and foreign-born.  I’m a big skeptic of the zero-sum game that so many immigration-skeptics argue, the more talent we bring increases our output, innnovation, and the savings and investment character of the immigrants also lend to a more stable economy.

Long-term, having a more open immigration policy especially as it relates to high-tech will allow the US to compete more effectively in the global marketplace.  Already, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to compete with labor costs so high and similar companies offshoring or starting development offices abroad.  Taken to its end, our policy may make it extremely unattractive to start companies in the US, rather it becomes a competitive advantage to start elsewhere.  In fact, I’d argue by having a more broad immigration policy and allowing the best to compete for jobs in the US actually forces the US to innovate more.  Protectionism at its worst keeps our employees and workers doing work that is quickly becoming obsolete.  Having the best and brightest here keeps us innovating on what the next cutting frontier of the knowledge economy will be.

I admit that I’m not an immigration expert and I’d love to have those who have thought more and harder about this than I comment below, but as an entrepreneur this is one issue I believe we cannot let our guard down.  Our country was founded by immigrants and made great by immigrants, let’s keep them coming and I’m willing to bet that our economy and society is better because of it.  What do you think?  As an entrepreneur do you agree?  As an employee, what do you think?  Let’s have a healthy debate.

Being a Seattle sports fan is really tough these days, but I figure there are lessons learned even in lost seasons.  I’m generally the biggest optimist in the room when it comes to the Seahawks each year to make it to the Super Bowl, I’m now convinced it’s not going to happen.  However, even in the ugly win against one of the worst teams in NFL this past Sunday against Detroit, I thought there was a good lesson to be applied to our businesses.  The lesson is that there is nothing wrong with dinking away to success.  Let me explain.

Even if you don’t follow football, you should know being down 17-0 is a bad thing.  Seattle was down 17-0 almost immediately after the game started.  They tried running the ball to no avail and after being that far down, they had to change plans to pass their way to success.  And pass they did.  Over and over and over again.  They didn’t pass long with only 2 passes over 25 yards and 39 completions in a game, the most ever for a Seattle quarterback.  They eventually won the game 32-20.  The defense couldn’t stop the short passes and Seattle kept taking what was available to them all the way to victory.

I can’t help thinking that we should be running our businesses that way.  When we find something that is successful on a small scale, we should keep executing and take the small gains, it will add up to success if not a huge win.  I met with an entrepreneur last week that mentioned that he’s seeing success, but he wants to change the model and GO BIG.  I couldn’t help but wonder, you’re doing great right now and if you focused more and kept taking what is obviously successful, couldn’t you build a big business just executing what you know is working?  It’s a huge gamble to change what’s working and throw the long bomb, sure it can work and will pay off handsomely, but your percentage chance of success is significantly lower than taking the dink pass high percentage move.  This is not a rant against taking chances, but continue taking what’s there.  You can still test new models without betting the farm and if it works slowly shift your model.

I’d argue that finding a successful model is not easy, if it were easy we’d see a lot more entrepreneurs.  Once you find the model that works, keep at it and the pennies will add to dollars and it will keep rolling.  For me, it’s taken at least 1-2 years to get a model that’s barely working and then a few more years to really refine it.  I’m constantly battling all the new ideas that can be HUGE, but have to temper it with what is working now and taking the 5-10 yard gains every play rather than try to get the touchdown in 1 play.  In football terminology, it’s a field position game, keep good position, keep the ball moving and stay in the game - that’s how upsets and wins happen.  I’m convinced it’s being disciplined and focused, staying true to a plan that requires patience, hard work, and consistency that leads to success.  What do you think?  Do you fight the same battle?  Or, do you want to keep tossing the long bombs hoping for that big reception?

Now, if the Seahawks can just win the next game… just maybe, we can still make it!

This thought provoking video highlights how we’ve been using the wrong techniques to motivate others and it talks about the science of motivation.  Studies have shown that our most used method of motivation using the carrot-stick method (i.e. reward performance and punish poor performance) does not yield the results we are looking for, in fact it probably is hurting the performance of your business.  Given my capitalistic attitudes, this would require some real proof.  After watching the video, it resonated with me and I’m working on bringing some of these ideas to life.  These key motivational points are really good to keep in mind:

1.  Autonomy:  The urge to direct our own lives.  This is great motivation for the entrepreneur, however for the employee it is really important to give them the ability to feel autonomous.  Provide some guardrails and allow your employee to find their way to the outcome, the creativity may surprise you.

2. Mastery: The desire to get better and better at something that matters.  We want to excel at something, provide opportunities for your employees to grow through training, practice, and time.  It is a tremendous motivator.

3. Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.  Define and communicate a big vision that is impactful - it is a powerful motivator.  In one of my companies, our vision is to make life a little more happy and fun everyday by bringing entertainment closer to you.

Are you going to re-think your management style?  What do you think about moving away from the carrot stick management style?  What do you think about rethinking management entirely?

How about motivation?  How are you motivated?  Do you think your motivation is enhancing your chance of success or detracting from it?  Ultimately, I’m a big believer in doing something that is larger than ourselves and in doing so, we are well on our way towards a successful journey.

Hat tip to Russell for sending me this video.