Hundred Percenters

Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All, and Theyll Give You Even More

by Mark Murphy
McGraw-Hill 2009
240 pages

Focus Take-Aways
Leadership & Management Most employees do not give 100% at work. To improve, they need leaders who
Strategy both challenge them and connect with them: 100% Leaders.
Sales & Marketing
These leaders are more effective than the usual avoiders, intimidators and appeasers.
Finance
Human Resources Most people fear challenges and prefer the status quo. This stasis is bad for business.
IT, Production & Logistics
Set HARD heartfelt, animated, required, difficult goals that push your people.
Career Development
Small Business
When employees make mistakes, invite them to partner, disarm yourself, eliminate
blame, affirm their control, list correct feedback [and] synchronize your understanding.
Economics & Politics
Industries Never place blame. Dont use weapons of communication, like anger and shouting.
Intercultural Management
Identify peoples tugs, or motivators, and their shoves, the demotivators that
Concepts & Trends
might shove them out the door.
Tell talented staffers with bad attitudes to fix their frame of mind or leave, even if
theyre great in every other way.
To foster a culture of Hundred Percenters, promote, praise and reward excellence.
Dont wait until the situation is perfect for change. Choose a meaningful step
surveying employees, training leaders, setting new goals and start now.

Rating (10 is best)

Overall Applicability Innovation Style

8 9 7 8

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 Relevance

What You Will Learn

In this Abstract, you will learn: 1) What capabilities distinguish 100% Leaders; 2) Why
you must give employees challenging goals; 3) How to help people overcome mistakes;
4) What motivates and demotivates employees; 5) Why you dont want employees with
bad attitudes, no matter how talented they are and 6) How to turn Fifty Percenters into
Hundred Percenters.

Recommendation
Some business books are obvious, trite and unexceptional. You can learn more reading a
soup can label. On first blush, Mark Murphys book might seem just that ordinary, with
its covers exhortations to challenge your employees to give it their all, and theyll give
you even more. Warning: Do not roll your eyes. Murphy is a leadership expert and his
thoroughly researched book is actually brimming with discernment and acute analysis.
Using imaginative language that will hold your attention, he presents a multistep program
for turning average achievers into exceptional performers, or, in his words, Hundred
Percenters. getAbstract recommends Murphys solid counsel. Read his book if you
supervise people and want to motivate their best performance every day.

Abstract

Should Leaders Inspire Fear or Love?

If theres one According to surveys of more than a half million working people and their leaders, 72%
hallmark of 100% of employees acknowledge that they do not give 100% to their jobs. Day after day, they
Leaders, its just get by. And 77% of the leaders surveyed know their employees arent making a real
pragmatismThey
find out exactly
effort. Clearly, Hundred Percenters, that is, dedicated, diligent workers, are hard to
what their best find and nurture. To reach their potential, they need 100% Leaders who connect with
people want, and them and challenge them to be great.
if its practical
and possible, they Based on 360-degree assessments of approximately 17,000 managers and executives,
make it happen. ineffective leaders tend to be avoiders, intimidators or appeasers. Avoiders never
connect with employees or challenge them to beat their limits. Intimidators challenge their
employees but dont connect with them personally. Appeasers have no trouble connecting
with employees, but they seldom challenge them. Hundred-percent leaders both challenge
their employees and connect with them. Thus, the old question about whether good
leaders are the ones their employees love or the ones employees fear is off the mark. Real
leadership does not come from coddling employees or relentlessly browbeating them.
Disappointingly
Instead, 100% leaders ask people they obviously care about to push beyond their limits.
small minorities
[of employees] are These leaders succeed in financial management, staff retention and innovativeness.
coming in every
day saying, Lets Setting HARD Goals
push the envelope, Most employees are afraid to challenge themselves, and their leaders are just as scared
lets be great, lets
to challenge them. Such fearfulness can undo companies. Wal-Mart breezed past Sears,
do what nobody
thought could which was stuck in the past. Kodak could not keep up with competitive challenges. The
be done. Big Three U.S. carmakers have embraced the status quo. Many employees are gripped
by inertia. Doing something new is difficult, because it requires companies to leave their
comfort zones. Few employees will make such changes by themselves. To be a 100%
Hundred Percenters Copyright 2010 getAbstract 2 of 5
 leader, you must challenge your people with ambitious goals that force them to stretch.
Set HARD goals that are:
Heartfelt Money is a good motivator, but achieving something you believe in,
The harder the something transcendent, is even better. Set goals that fit the NOBLE formula:
goals you set,
the better your
Name a party Other than ourselves who will Benefit from this goal Like customers
employees will or End users.
perform. Animated Most corporate goals are dull. Make your goals inspiring by
graphically, vividly describing the results. Avoid percentages, which dont excite
anyone. Use absolute numbers. Dieters dont set out to drop 5% of their weight, but
to lose 10 or 15 pounds. Numbers count; percentages do not.
Required Explain why attaining your challenging goals is necessary. Survey your
employees to confirm that they agree that the goal youve set is crucial. If 70% say yes,
you are in good shape; if fewer people concur, keep explaining and convincing.
Difficult As goals become tougher, performance goes up. When supervisors
assign jobs that require staffers to stretch to their limits, the employees will eventually
Push employees like their supervisors and their companies even more than they previously did. Theyll
to their full
feel more fulfilled and satisfied about who they are and what they do. Set goals that
potential with
tough love are challenging, but not absurd. Be specific and concrete. A goal is difficult if it
leadership. makes people learn new skills and if it seems scary. Believe it or not, slightly
constraining resources can generate better results. People become too comfortable
when they have everything they need to accomplish a job, and comfortable people
dont push themselves.

The IDEALS Script

Your employees are not perfect. When they push themselves to reach tough goals, theyll
make mistakes. As their leader, you must use constructive feedback to discuss their errors
in a direct way, so they dont repeat the same mistakes. The IDEALS script enables you
Before you can to explain how to avoid future mistakes while having a nonthreatening, nonjudgmental
start motivating conversation. This helps employees take responsibility and hold themselves accountable,
Hundred without provoking denial, blame, excuses and anxiety. The acronym IDEALS stands
Percenters, you
for this statement about working with employees to address errors:
have to stop
demotivating Invite them to partner Bring the problem up gracefully by asking, Would you
them.
be willing to have a conversation with me about [whatever went wrong]? Opening a
dialogue demonstrates your willingness to listen, so the person also will listen to you.
Disarm yourself From the beginning of the conversation, convey the message
that you will not use any weapons of communication, such as anger, shouting,
tantrums, and so on. Signal that your conversation will be reciprocal, not one-way.
Eliminate blame The employee probably already feels terrible about his or her
mistake. Placing blame isnt helpful.
Affirm their control People become defensive if they feel they have no control
over their situation. During your meeting, periodically ask, Does that sound OK?
When 100%
Leaders deliver to show that you value the employees thoughts and feelings. This also lets you check
constructive that youre getting through to the person in the way that you hope you are. If someone
feedback, they says, No, that doesnt sound OK to me, you know you have to keep explaining.
take nothing
List correct feedback Make sure that your constructive feedback is logical,
for granted.
sensible and understandable. Provide sufficient information to educate the
employee about how to avoid the mistake in the future. To avoid micromanaging,
follow this rule to identify constructive content: If something is not optional and
Hundred Percenters Copyright 2010 getAbstract 3 of 5
 if you will hold the employees accountable if they dont do it, you must give clear
and logical feedback.
Synchronize your understanding End the conversation by making this open-
Talented Terrors ended statement: Tell me how you think we can work together to build on this and
people with make things even more effective next time. This approach is much better than asking,
great skills and Do you understand my feedback? This is not the time for a close-ended question that
a bad attitude
can destroy your
requires only a yes-or-no response. Such questions constitute a poor litmus test for
company culture. ensuring that the employee fully understands what you have tried to communicate.

The Momentum of Motivation

Survey research indicates that employees learn more about their jobs, and about how
their companies handle things, from their fellow workers than from their supervisors.
This does not support your effort to convert Fifty Percenters to hundred percenters.
Fifty percenters might not want to work as hard as they see hundred percenters working.
Since 100% employees always give their full effort, everyone turns to them when extra
There is no such work looms, like weekend and late-night projects. Fifty percenters see that the 100%
thing as a high
performer with a people receive loads of additional work, so why would anyone want to become a 100%
bad attitude. staffer who isnt already one? Change this perception by proving that being a 100%
employee is worthwhile. Showcase your hundred percenters at every turn and spotlight
them as company heroes. Provide positive and very public reinforcement when they do
something productive and praiseworthy. Convey this message in all their performance
appraisals. Signal that the 100% staffers will receive ample rewards.

The Downer of Demotivation

All employees require motivation, either external or internal, to work at the 100% level.
Attitude, not skill,
is often the primary
Unfortunately, many leaders and organizations sometimes inadvertently demotivate
differentiator of employees, who then work at a level below what they are capable of achieving.
Hundred-Percenter Common wisdom to the contrary, money is not always the primary demotivating factor
performance. for employees. Any number of negative factors can discourage an employee: lack of
opportunity for career advancement, inflexible hours, dull work projects, and the like.
To find out what motivates and demotivates your employees, engage in a shoves and
tugs conversation with them. Find out what their individual shoves are, that is, what
elements of their work distress them and could tend over time to shove them out the
door. Then identify their tugs, the characteristics of their work environment that tug
at them to keep striving. Hold informal, individual shove-and-tug conversations with
Positive your employees at least once a quarter. Ask specifically when they felt demotivated at
reinforcement is
work during the past month or two, and why. Also ask about what motivated them.
not praise, and
its not warm Once you have each persons input, do everything you can to get rid of the shoves and
and fuzzy. Its increase the tugs. This wont always be easy, but moving in this direction will help keep
a teaching tool your hundred percenters working at their peak and will encourage your fifty percenters
that addresses a to climb to a higher level of performance.
well-documented
psychological
principle that says The Attitude Adjustment
that desirable Some people are bright, imaginative, knowledgeable and resourceful, yet they will
behavior when never be 100% employees because they have terrible attitudes. Despite their exceptional
reinforced gets capabilities, these Talented Terrors bring down other team members. They make it
repeated.
tough for leaders to be effective; in fact, they can cost leaders their jobs. Dont even
try to adopt a therapeutic approach to mitigate talented terrors bad attitudes. Even
psychologists are reluctant to attempt restructuring peoples personalities, so dont think
Hundred Percenters Copyright 2010 getAbstract 4 of 5
 that youre equipped to do that. Instead, speak to a talented terror about his or her bad
attitude. Be calm, candid and specific. Explain that a change in attitude is necessary and
that the result of not changing may be termination.

Demanding more 10 Lessons for Creating a 100% Culture

of ourselves and To spur all employees to become hundred percenters, follow these 10 steps:
one another is
scary in an era 1. Make every goal HARD Nothing you can do to develop a 100% corporate
where happiology culture is more important than giving everyone challenging goals.
is our planetary
2. Integrate HARD goals into performance management If you dont, employees
religion.
will not take their objectives seriously.
3. Measure whether you have a Hundred-Percenter culture Use well-designed
employee surveys to assess your culture. Bad surveys can have a destructive effect on
morale. Do not use five-point scales that grade responses from strongly disagree
to strongly agree. Within organizations, they provide skewed results. Instead, use
seven-point scale surveys with response terms ranging from never to always.
This scales broader parameters will record your employees thoughts and feelings
more accurately. Ask your people if they believe they are giving 100% daily, and if
The iPod, the X-
their supervisors are pushing them to achieve top performance.
Box, the Amazon
Kindle, Google, the 4. Measure whether you have 100% Leaders Are your executives 100% leaders or
Human Genome appeasers, intimidators and avoiders? Find out by conducting 360-degree leadership
Projectwere assessments. Share your findings with your leaders to give them the self-knowledge
created by to improve if necessary.
Hundred
Percenters. 5. Train your leaders to be 100% Leaders Doctors, lawyers and engineers do
not develop knowledge and skills intuitively. They undergo years of challenging
education, followed by extensive systematic training. Why should your leaders be
any different? Provide comprehensive training, continuing education and routine
professional development.
6. Learn everyones shoves and tugs Get rid of the shoves. Track and record the
tugs that work best. They are your greatest motivators for building a 100% culture.
7. Reach for higher states of accountability Give all employees regular feedback.
Hundred
Most staffers receive feedback on their work only twice weekly, and some only
Percenters get twice monthly. Like professional athletes, who constantly hear from their coaches,
better results, employees need routine feedback so they can improve and grow.
feel more deeply 8. Turn your Hundred Percenters into heroes Showcase them at every turn,
fulfilled and are
including at board meetings and executive team meetings (let them sit in). Display
the key to every
great corporate hundred percenters throughout your organization. Talk about them. Make them
and cultural role models.
achievement. 9. Improve or remove your Talented Terrors They are a weight around your neck
and everyone elses, including your hundred percenters. If they cant change, fire them.
10. Start wherever you can Dont wait until the situation is perfect for change.
Become active right away. Choose an important activity surveying employees,
providing leadership training, setting new goals and get right to work.

About the Author

Mark Murphy is founder and CEO of Leadership IQ, a consulting and training firm in
Atlanta, Georgia. Fortune, BusinessWeek, Forbes and the Washington Post have written
about his work.
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