Page 126 - The Bible On Leadership

112 THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP

and rolls if they could beat the previous week’s mark. He was increasing
the goals gradually while consistently offering more rewards. The fol-
lowing week, he offered the employees a double bonus: not just coffee
and rolls, but pizza and beer. Moreover, these would be served in
Stack’s own home. The employees exceeded their previous benchmark,
and Stack served 200 people pizza and beer in his home. ‘‘It was the
first time that anyone in management had ever . . . actually told them
how they were really being evaluated,’’ muses Stack. But goals do not
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always have to be set low and increased gradually to be motivating.
When Charles Heimbold, CEO of Bristol-Meyers Squibb, had his first
meeting with his managers in 1994, the company was doing reasonably
well. Whereas Stack’s biggest danger at Springfield Re was desperation,
Heimbold’s was complacency. ‘‘I brought everyone together and said,
‘We’re going to have a doubling of our sales and our earnings per share
by the end of the year 2000,’ ’’ he reminisces. This was a much higher
growth rate than had ever been achieved before. ‘‘When you repeat
these expectations frequently enough, you can get people to understand
and buy in. People start to say, ‘Yeah, maybe we can do that.’ That’s
the feeling I wanted to create. I wanted our people to believe.’’ 2
Both the early Hebrews and Christians were struggling sects who
were fighting to maintain their very existence. Numerical gains in the
membership were small. But both groups motivated themselves with
longer-term goals. The Hebrews believed in God’s promise that they
would some day be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. The apostles
believed that some day their tiny ‘‘sect’’ would have more adherents
than any religion in the world. The constant repetition of these expec-
tations by a succession of strong leaders explains their long-term success.
But even in the Bible (and certainly corporate America), intrinsic,
spiritual rewards are not always enough to motivate for performance.
David was a courageous man and great leader, but he was also offered
material and other incentives for killing Goliath. ‘‘The king will give
great wealth to the man who kills him (Goliath). He will also give him
his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father’s family from taxes
in Israel.’’ (1 Sam. 17:25)
The heads of modern corporations do not give away their daughters