Hundred Percenters
Challenge Your Employees To Give Their All and They'll Give You Even More
by Mark Murphy
A happy employee is a motivated employee. You hear that idea so often that
it's practically dogma. But what if it's wrong? A new book by Leadership
IQ CEO and founder Mark Murphy exposes just that. Companies across the nation are collectively spending billions of dollars trying to satisfy and engage their employees in order to get greater performance. And yet, 72 % of employees admit they're still not giving their best effort at work.
In "Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give it Their All, and They'll Give you Even More" (McGraw-Hill November, 2009), Murphy reveals new research from more than 500,000 employees and leaders about why the "happy employee" philosophy has failed. Culled from the same research, he introduces exciting new techniques to stop making people happy and start making them great. Readers will learn a leadership style that inspires employees to passionately give 100% every day (i.e. to become Hundred-Percenters).
If you talked to the employees responsible for today's great innovations (the iPod, the Amazon Kindle, Google, the Human Genome Project, etc), you likely wouldn't hear, "I was inspired by a boss who coddles me and always makes me happy." Instead you'd probably hear, "My boss challenges me, pushes me past my limits and teaches me to aim higher than I ever thought possible." And these people aren't flukes or the rare genius. Most workplaces are brimming with untapped talent. Only it's suppressed by goal setting that discourages big ideas and leaders who focus on happiness rather than greatness.
People become Hundred Percenters not because they had it easy, but because a leader cared enough to push them to new heights.
Here are just a few of the big ideas in "Hundred Percenters":
- More than 70% of employees would rather work for a leader that challenges them with difficult goals and requires them to learn new skills
- If leaders assign really difficult goals, employees perform better and have more self-confidence
- SMART Goals can be dumb, and actually keep employees from pushing themselves and developing new skills
- Many leaders unknowingly discourage employees from becoming Hundred Percenters through insufficient recognition and tolerating slackers
- Hundred Percenters want lots of constructive feedback, but you should never deliver it with a Compliment Sandwich
- If you're going to assess your employees with a survey, never ask if they're satisfied (and never use a 5-point scale)
- You cannot build an organization of Hundred Percenters if you tolerate Talented Terrors (people with 100% skills but 0% attitude)
"Hundred Percenters" debunks management fads that don't apply to today's workplace and provides best practices readers can instantly validate with their own workplace experiences.
Employees cannot be bribed into giving 100%. Nor can they be coddled into greatness. The truth is finally out: the most successful leaders push employees to discover and maximize their unrealized potential, while leaving them beaming with hard-won pride and fulfillment.
Whether you are a world leader, supply chain manager at a small startup, Fortune 500 executive, or nurse manager at a small hospital, you've got no shortage of great challenges. "Hundred Percenters" provides a concrete path to bringing the best out in your workforce.
About the Author
Mark Murphy is Founder and CEP of Leadership IQ, a top-rated provider of leadership training. He has personally trainer personnel at Microsoft, IBM, GE, MasterCard, Merck, and other major companies. Murphy has been featured in such publications as Fortune, Forbes, Businessweek, The Washington Post, and many others.
