instead, like Solomon and the building of the temple, he kept his eye
on the long-term goal, the development of Gore-Tex, and encouraged
continued progress toward its achievement.
ENCOURAGEMENT
The critical second stage of performance management is encourage-
ment. Many a lofty project has been launched with great enthusiasm,
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only to ‘‘peter out’’ for lack of ongoing encouragement. In Hebrews
3:13, the early Christians are urged to ‘‘encourage one another daily, as
long as it is called Today.’’ Paul made a point of reminding his followers
that ‘‘I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to
you.’’ (Acts 20:18) The more difficult the task, the more important
ongoing encouragement becomes. The wisest biblical leaders knew this
instinctively, and the best modern leaders are also masters at encourage-
ment, not just at periodic ‘‘rah-rah’’ sessions, but in their everyday ac-
tions.
Dennis Bakke and Roger Sant of AES realize that it would be impos-
sible for them to actually carry out, or even lead, all the tasks necessary to run a huge power company. Their major role? Says Bakke, ‘‘We’re
the chief encouragers. We celebrate AES people. We attend orientations
and plant openings. We give the speeches at five-year anniversary par-
ties.’’
Sant is quick to add that encouragement adds daily meaning to the
work. ‘‘People always say they don’t have time to celebrate because
they’re too busy, but stopping and remembering is really important.
What is work if you don’t see the meaning in it? You have to celebrate
the meaning in it.’’8
It’s one thing to encourage employees when things are going well. It
can take even more fortitude for a leader to encourage his people in the
face of physical and emotional adversity. When ice storms hit in Que-
bec, Charles Heimbold of Bristol-Meyers Squibb didn’t just cluck his
tongue from his comfortable office in the United States. Instead, he was
‘‘on the phone right away to find out what happened to our people,
and making sure we’re getting emergency supplies up there. They can
see that I am as committed to my coworkers and to our success as they
are.’’9 Heimbold was in essence saying to his employees, ‘‘You are in
need. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.’’ To manage others’ per-
formance, a leader has to perform reliably himself.
Barnabas, one of Jesus’ disciples, was originally called Joseph, but he
was given this new name, which meant ‘‘son of encouragement.’’ A
modern-day ‘‘daughter of encouragement’’ is Anita Roddick of The
Body Shop. Roddick encourages her employees not just to achieve
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their daily tasks, but to think in a larger perspective: ‘‘It’s got to do with the human spirit,’’ she says. ‘‘When anything comes from the heart—
any energy, any action—it comes with a passion that is unstoppable. My
staff does not go home dreaming of moisture creams. They go home
absolutely riveted when they come back from a project in Bosnia or
Kosovo. The experience has changed their values.’’10 Roddick’s refer-
ence to ‘‘the heart’’ is key here; the word encouragement actually comes from the Latin root for heart.
Moses encouraged the tribes of Israel by blessing them. Most of us
are encouraged when we are blessed and discouraged when we are pun-
ished or ignored. Moses’ blessing of the tribes was eloquent and genu-
ine. Rather than making the tribes complacent, it encouraged them to
achieve even higher goals than they had already: ‘‘About Joseph, he
said, ‘May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven
above and with the deep waters that lie below . . . with the best the sun
brings forth and the finest the moon can yield . . . with the choicest
gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting
hills . . .’ ’’ (Deut. 33:13–14)
Mary Kay Ash encouraged her employees at Mary Kay with a similar
attitude of celebration and blessing. She signed hundreds of birthday
cards offering free lunch and a free movie. She commemorated employ-
ees’ ‘‘blessed events’’ such as weddings and babies with personal gifts.
She put flowers and white tablecloths in the company cafeteria, and
perfume and makeup (Mary Kay brand, of course) in the rest rooms. A
sign outside her office read ‘‘Department of Sunshine and Rainbows.’’
Her credo was ‘‘Appreciation is the oil that makes things run.’’11 Ash
realized that constant verbal and physical demonstrations of encourage-
ment are necessary for the achievement of ambitious goals and to make
employees feel truly valued.
Moses knew the encouraging power of overarching goals. When the
desert sands seemed unending, when food became scarce, and when
internal dissidents threatened to undermine the organization’s purpose
(‘‘Let’s return to Egypt!’’), Moses reminded the Israelites of their goal,
a ‘‘land of milk and honey’’ that truly existed, even if they had never
seen it.
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THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP
Joe Liemandt, CEO of Trilogy, a technology firm in Austin, Texas,
is also a firm believer in the encouragement that an overarching goal
can provide: ‘‘So what keeps our people coming to work every day?
It’s our environment. Employees get energized around a goal—and that
energy is contagious.’’12 In the fast-moving world of high tech, where
goals can shift weekly, it’s important to maintain that energy. And the
option of ‘‘returning to Egypt’’ might as well not exist, since it’s a sure guarantee of technological obsolescence.
The book of Hebrews reminded biblical leaders to ‘‘encourage one
another daily’’ (Heb. 3:13) and exhorted the early Christians: ‘‘let us
encourage one another.’’ (Heb. 10:24) Gordon Bethune of Continental
Airlines also knows the value of encouragement. He took an ailing air-
line with one of the worst customer service and on-time records and
put it back near the top of its industry. He did this with words and deeds
of encouragement, both large and small, starting with a $65 bonus in
each employee’s paycheck for better on-time performance.
This was just the first in a long string of encouraging words and
deeds. After the successful turnaround, Bethune wrote, ‘‘The biggest
single criterion for success as a leader is to recognize and openly appreciate your subordinates. They’ll kill for you if you do that.’’13 If you have any doubts about that, ask the troops who killed for David and Joshua
as they pursued their missions.
Another company that realizes the importance of daily encourage-
ment is Weyerhauser. Steve Hill, senior vice president of human re-
sources, notes that it’s often the maximum use and encouragement of
the human resources of a company that yield the most competitive ad-
vantage. ‘‘There isn’t a lot of difference between our two-by-fours and
Georgia Pacific’s,’’ he notes. ‘‘So we need to be cost conscious and
create a great working environment and really encourage people.’’14
King David’s men and Joshua’s army did not go confidently into
battle because they knew they had ‘‘superior’’ weapons. They had con-
fidence because they were better led and more frequently encouraged
than the opposition.
Soup would seem like a rather prosaic product that would not inspire
employees to knock down walls or cross raging rivers. But at Campbell
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119
Soup, CEO David Johnson has turned encouragement into a religion.
Posted throughout company headquarters are scoreboards that compare
the company’s net profit increases to those of other food companies.
And Johnson constantly reminds his executives and employees of the
company’s ‘‘20–20–20’’ goal: 20 percent earnings growth, 20 percent
return on equity, and 20 percent return on invested cash.
These are ambitious goals, and when achieved, they are not taken for
granted. When a major target is hit, Johnson hires a brass band and
holds a celebration that would rival the celebration after Solomon’s
building of the temple.
But in monitoring performance, negative results have to be acknowl-
edged and corrected as well. The Bible instructs us that the best way to
correct is: ‘‘if someone is caught in a sin, you . . . should restore him
gently.’’ (Gal. 6:1) Charles Wang, chairman of Computer Associates,
believes that a leader who does not correct people is squandering a
precious resource.
‘‘I think one of the things leaders forget is that people look to us to tell them the truth in terms of how they are doing.’’ He acknowledges the
difficulty of doing this gently and positively, but adds that if correction is not given, ‘‘you’re worse off because you don’t know where you stand
. . . As management, we must tell people what we expect. And if they
don’t meet expectations, we have to tell them, and tell them why, so
they can improve . . . If managers don’t do it, they are not really taking
ownership.’’15
Carol Bartz, CEO of Autodesk, a producer of CAD/CAM software,
also believes in the power of gentle correction. ‘‘I frequently say, ‘what
you don’t inspect, they don’t respect,’ ’’ observes Bartz. So she does a
lot of inspecting. ‘‘I do that with my daughter’s homework and I do it