The People Pill: Will This Book Work For You?

This book has been designed as a practical, simple guide book for new leaders, established leaders and aspiring leaders. It is based on techniques time tested and proven to produce excellent results over twenty-five years of leadership by Ken. It is grounded in the basic element of success with people – being an authentic leader, and combines intellect from the head with wisdom from the heart to produce an engaged workforce who deliver exceptional results. Ken’s business successes were measured by exceptional results, highly motivated team members and customer and staff satisfaction in the high 90 percentile range.

Many leaders have purchased the book, loved it, and then bought copies for all their team. A number of them are having their team read a chapter and discuss this at their next meeting.

Some feedback from readers:

“LOVE IT! Your book has had a PROFOUND impact on me. I agree with everything you say and can’t wait to start using these hints and tips. I have to share it too, so I want to buy 24 for my leadership team.”
Star Director, Silpada Designs

“What an excellent guide book to leadership! My team all have copies and we are working through prescription by prescription and we discuss the ideas and initiatives at our weekly team meetings. Engagement is lifting dramatically”
State Manager, Westpac Wealth Management

“ Ken’s experience in the business world provides excellent examples for you and your team to put into practice engaging your people. Create an environment where people enjoy coming to work and your company will realize its potential. I have referred back to the book often for guidance”
Senior V.P. and C.O.O. Cotton States Insurance

“WOW! What an excellent leadership tool. We are devouring the ideas to engage our people and customers with awesome results. Confidence is soaring, morale is high and results are excellent in tough market conditions. This book is worth more than its weight in Gold!
C.E.O. Advance Finance

How Engaged are Your People?

The People Pill is the perfect prescription to cure your “people problems,” make extraordinary leaders, and help you achieve unbounded success.

Ask yourself these simple questions:

• Do people trust and respect your leadership?
• Are you and your leaders perceived as enthusiastic, passionate and caring?
• Are you achieving amazing results by engaging people?
• Do you know how to turn “problem people” into motivated, engaged, contributing team members?

The People Pill will teach established leaders, new leaders and aspiring leaders ways to engage their team and customers. The book offers simple hints and tips solidly backed by cutting-edge managerial research, case studies and pointed calls to action. The following are a few examples of case studies from the book:

Preview of What You Will See Inside

Motivation in Special Cases

Every leader has had an employee situation that appeared hopeless.

Motivating some individuals can seem like a daunting task. But few cases are beyond rehabilitation. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Case Study : Bill

Bill is a long-standing, respected employee who is very popular within the team. He has eighteen months until retirement and knows that he has reached the ceiling regarding promotion and income levels. Achievement in his current role is not a motivator because he feels he has achieved plenty and appears to be coasting to retirement. You cannot dismiss Bill due to non-performance, as he is doing just enough to retain his position. And due to his popularity, if you tried to force him out on performance issues, others would see this as getting rid of someone who has given loyal service for many years.

Meet with Bill over coffee and let him know how you feel about his loyal service. Tell him you would like to work with him to design a role that would take advantage of his immense experience and skills across a wide range of roles in the organization. A win-win situation could be one of the following:

• Time-bound special projects that will show a short-term result. It is important that Bill sees that his efforts are clearly measurable and that results will occur before he leaves.
• Put him in a mentoring role so he can teach new employees. It is critical to let him know the importance of this role in helping new people start with passion and a positive attitude as he passes on his invaluable experience. Structure rewards for him based on the success of the new employees.

Case Study : Mary

Mary, a trusted administrator with ten years of service, is finding it increasingly difficult to juggle her home life and work commitments due to a recent change in residence that increases her round-trip commute to almost two hours. You see the writing on the wall that Mary is likely to leave, but she is a valuable member of your team and you would hate to see her go. There are a few steps you can take to motivate Mary to stay. Approach Mary about flexible work hours that will enable her to avoid peak traffic and reduce commute times by half. Consider setting up a home office and change Mary’s work to incorporate duties that can be completed off-site, even if only part-time.

Extreme Customer Service

Pure Inspiration: The Wedding Story

This is a very compelling story Of “Extreme Customer Service.” I’ve told this story many times, and you may find the retelling meaningful for your people to emphasize what can come from going the extra mile to please a customer.

A German man contacted a financial planner, let’s call her Diane, at my bank to discuss the possibility of Australian investments. The meeting went very well, resulting in a $500,000 investment. Several weeks later, Diane received a call from this same client, now back in Germany. He told her he wanted to get married the next month. She first laughed and remarked on the suddenness of the proposal. The German gentleman quickly clarified that he and his intended bride wanted to have their wedding in Sydney around Christmastime. The man asked Diane if she could arrange a marriage celebrant, find a place for the ceremony overlooking the harbor, and book a quiet restaurant with a harbor view for lunch for eight people.

What a request! Diane told her client she would make the effort and get back to him, marvelling at the improbability of fulfilling all aspects of this request. Her first success was when she phoned the prospective marriage celebrant. Not only did the woman agree to perform the ceremony, her husband also remarked, “If you’re treating customers this well, I’m going to look into bringing my investments back to your bank.” It had turned out that the celebrant and her husband were former customers of this particular bank and branch.

Diane was also successful booking a space for the wedding in the beautiful Sydney Botanical Gardens, overlooking the spectacular Sydney Opera House and the harbor. But, as she had feared, it appeared impossible to book a quiet, appropriate restaurant with a few weeks’ notice at that time of year. Here, I was able to contribute to Diane’s delivery of the wow factor. She spoke to me, and I arranged for the wedding lunch to be held in our corporate dining room, a magnificent setting on the twenty-eighth floor overlooking the harbor, Sydney Harbor Bridge, and the opera house. We topped it all off with a wedding cake made by the bank chef, and the best Australian wine from our cellar.

This couple became loyal bank clients and advocates, investing a further $2 million and more and referring numerous other clients from Germany to our bank. And the marriage celebrant and her husband returned their more modest investments to the bank as well.

Every company and every person has the opportunity to deliver amazing service that earns customer loyalty and referrals, builds the reputation and success of the company, and reflects well on the employee. Focusing employees on delivering this type of service is one of the most important things a leader can do. It just takes some attention to the tone and culture of the organization and some effort in developing and engaging employees.

Recruiting Dad Style

This story relates to an employee that my Father recruited and gave a chance despite being told by a number of sources that this man will let you down…big time.

This man, Peter, was 25 years old, with a wife of 24 months and a new baby just 6 months old and had been sacked from his last two jobs. The latest was from a role as a storeman at the local newspaper, my father, a butcher, came in contact with him there when he purchased his butchers paper from the newspaper. He had been in this position for 18 months and was dismissed for what his manager described as lack of respect and general tardiness.

Being desperate for a job to support his family he reached out to my father for a position in the butchers shop. Dad had liked his personality, and dry humor in the times that they had met and said he would consider his application to train as a butcher. When doing the reference checking his previous boss advised dad strongly not to hire him, citing no respect for authority and refusing to do allotted tasks. On checking with his boss in his previous job there was a current of the same thing including absenteeism and a punctuality problem.

Dad being open, honest and forthright confronted Peter and he denied the lack of respect saying that his manager was demanding, overbearing and had forced Peter to do tasks that he felt were not in his job description. Peter admitted that in the role prior to that he went through a wild time and had taken a few sickies and been late on a number of occasions. Dad then went to see the previous boss and he stated that Peter was a “bad egg” very difficult to control, impossible to motivate, bad manners and lacked respect of his superiors.

After due consideration he got Peter in again, three times over the next week, once abnormally early, once in the evening and once specifically for 10 minutes at 10.20am. He did this to check punctuality and desire as he had to ride his bike over 30 minutes to attend the interviews. Peter passed this test and Dad went over with him the things raised by his previous manager, Dad listened intently, without judging as Peter blamed the managers style without taking responsibility himself. He said no-one respected the manager, he was regarded as extremely tough to please and a hard task master.

At these meetings Dad explored Peter’s dreams and if given the role obtained his commitment to work under Dad to improve not only his work skills but his life skills as well. It was explained to Peter that this would be tough, the training would be three times a week for an hour prior to commencing work.

After weighing things up and without offer of a job Dad stated that we wanted Peter to work for two weeks, on no pay to assess his suitability for the job. Peter agreed without even thinking about it as he said he felt that Dad would teach him to be a great butcher and more importantly to be a great husband and father. This was the key that Dad had been looking for, Peter taking some responsibility for developing himself and he offered him the role there and then.

Over the next year there were some rough times when Peter felt that Dad was too demanding of him and they had a few heart to heart discussions. In these discussions Peter quickly realized that Dad was linking back to Peter’s dreams uncovered at their first meeting. Dad was being tough keeping Peter on track to develop the skills and attributes to be successful in business and life.

Peter worked for Dad for 10 years before opening his own butchers shop….that was his dream! He described Dad as tough, unrelenting but with a huge heart and the one person in his life that he looked up to as he brought the best out in him.

Peter told me this story at my father’s funeral.

The moral of this story is you do not have to be soft as a leader to gain respect, you have to be authentic, provide honest feedback and work with people to achieve their dreams.

These stories are a sample of the many real life examples within “The People Pill” that show you how magic occurs when you combine the wisdom from your heart with the knowledge in your head and engage people to achieve outstanding results.

People Pill Wins Gold

The People Pill has won the gold medal from Axiom USA Business Book Awards. Significantly, it beat Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin (silver) and The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Organization by Peter F. Drucker (bronze).

Jim Barnes, editor and awards director, says of The People Pill, “This book’s clever title and concept lead to a real prescription and cure for the disease that infects most every business – uninspired employees. Author Ken Wright spells out plainly how to gain respect from your people and motivate them to believe in themselves and their product. It’s not as easy as taking a pill, but following Wright’s easy-to-swallow formula for success will dramatically improve anyone’s leadership skills and employee performance.”

To that end, Ken has written a uniquely personal business book offering a myriad of simple hints and tips solidly backed by cutting edge managerial research, case studies, and pointed calls-to-action. These practical insights teach established as well as new and aspiring leaders the authentic way to truly connect with their people and generate extraordinary results.

These business lessons, learned over a lifetime of leading teams to excellent results, are delivered in bite-sized chunks readers can begin using today, and the accolades are pouring in.

Dr. Denis Waitley, best-selling author of Seeds of Greatness, says “The People Pill was easy for me to swallow and digest because it is simply the best book I have read in over a decade on the most critical aspect of business and personal life: relationships with other people.”

Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the number one best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul and co-author of Cracking the Millionaire Code and The One Minute Millionaire, concurs: “The People Pill is the leadership book that teaches you in a simple way how to be a visionary leader who engenders trust and respect. This produces the productivity and the future that you and your team want and the world desperately needs, now!”

How engaged are your people?……CLICK HERE……to find out about our Engagement Audit.