The Positive Runs Out

This afternoon, I recorded a webinar on employee motivation techniques. During the webinar, I discussed a model of human behavior that helps to explain why people do what they do. The main learning point from this model is that people generally do what they do because of what they expect to happen after they do it. After the webinar, I was speaking with my friend and colleague Kevin Eikenberry. We discussed the webinar, and, as we spoke, I remembered an event from a training class I lead on this... [Read more]

How To Get People To Do What You Want

This week, I have lead two-days of Bud To Boss training and participated on two expert panel discussions at a major trade show. All week, I have been sharing my thoughts and insights on communication skills, motivation theory, leadership, team-building, and persuasion. The thought behind much (not all) of what I was asked in my role as seminar leader and expert panelist basically reduced to this: How do I get people to do what I want them to do. My short answer: you don’t. People do what they... [Read more]

Getting What You Want With Gentle Persistence

My brother and I have pretty well mastered the art of getting what we want from the humans we adopted. They’re pretty nice people, but they don’t always understand us immediately. So, we have learned to sit patiently at the back door and look at them until they realize that we want to come in the house. We Got What We Wanted We have found that this approach works much better that making lots of noise and insisting that they let us inside. In fact, when we make too much noise, they generally... [Read more]