[MUSIC]
I'm going to give you a totally counterintuitive tool
to help people change behavior. This is called using
small amounts of money to create large changes in
behavior. Tiny little amounts of money to create large changes
in behavior. Over the years, would you guess most
of those big fancy people I've been coaching, you think
they've been mostly women or perhaps men? Yeah, that
would be mostly men. Mostly younger or a tad older?
Yep, a little bit older. And mostly poor people or would they
be rich people? Yes, mostly the rich. Let's tell the truth --
over the years, who's most of the people I've been coaching? A
bunch of rich old men. I was teaching a class at Dartmouth and
a woman raised her hand, she goes, Any single ones? [LAUGH] Well,
they're mostly a bunch of rich old men. Now there's a common misperception
about rich old men -- what is it? A lot of people
believe rich old men would not mind losing tiny little amounts of money.
That would be wrong. Rich old men hate
losing any money. Watch them play golf. They just
can't stand losing. It is shocking how well
this technique works, and I'm going to give you
examples. The first one, it's called destructive comments.
Those unnecessary, nasty little comments about our co-workers. Destructive
comments! How many of you have ever heard a
sermon that sounds like this before? We want to
create an environment where people reach out across the company,
reach out. We want to build positive, synergistic win-win relationships with
our colleagues. Why do we like those silos? No, we
must tear down those bad silos. Every company preaches this. What
happens to all this corporate happy talk when we stab
our colleagues in the back? Does it make things better or
a little worse? This is a bad, bad, bad habit.
Now I don't want to sound like I'm preaching at you,
I also get feedback. And if you read my bio, you
read all those fancy awards I've won, well, I'm going to
help you. None of those fancy awards came from my staff.
And none of those awards came from my family. I'll never
forget when my daughter Kelly was 14, she goes, Wall Street
Journal, top ten consulted in the world! She said, Daddy, I
want to be in your field! I said, Kelly, that makes
Daddy proud! Why do you want to be in my field?
She said, The standards are low! [LAUGH] Well,
I'll never forget the first time I got feedback
about myself from my own staff. One item
was called, avoids destructive comments about other people. What
score did I make? Eight percentile, eight. 92% of the people in the world did better
than me, and I wrote the test. I go back to my staff and say, Staff, overall I'm
proud of my feedback. I feel good about this, and this, and this.
There's something I want to do better. With that business about not bum-rapping
people. I teach everybody else not to do that, and I said have
been one of the worst offenders. Then I got all gung ho. I said
if you ever hear me make another destructive comment about a person or
group, bring it to my attention. I'm going to pay you ten bucks
because I'm going to break this terrible habit. Again, the pep talk because
I thought they'd be embarrassed to ask for the money. Pep talk wasn't needed.
They tricked me into making nasty comments so they could pick up ten
bucks. I no more give them this pep talk, then one of our
clients called, he said we need this and this and this. I said
he wants something, he don't want to pay, he's cheap. Ten bucks. My
partner Tim called. I said, That fool, how'd he get a PhD? He
doesn't know anything. Ten bucks, an hour later, ten bucks. By noon I've
lost 50 bucks, locked myself in the office and refused to speak to
anyone for the rest of the day. First day it cost me 50 bucks.
Second day it cost me 30 bucks. Third day
it cost me ten bucks. Still cost me money? Yep.
What score did I make on that one last time?
4.8 out of 5. What is this show? You spend
a few thousand bucks, you start getting better. Well, as
simple as this technique sounds, it works. One woman went
to my class and she said, You know what, my
teenagers are so negative. I'm going to implement this with
my kids when I go home. They are so
negative. $1 every time they make a bad comment, and
$10 for Mommy and Daddy. She sent me an
email about six months later. The email said, You know
what? I'm amazed at how much more positive my
children have become. And then she said, I'm ashamed at
how much money I have lost. She said, It
became painfully obvious to me where were my children picking
this up. She said, I was very good about hearing this destructive
comment in my kids. Not nearly so good at hearing it in myself.
[MUSIC]