Customer Reviews

Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up: Motivate Yourself and Your Team

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It doesn't matter what job specialty you are in, if you supervise people - or are an up-and-coming supervisor - you have to read this book.
The focus is on sales. But many of the principles outlined can be used no matter what you do. The basic principles even work with dealing with your own family - namely teenagers!
You learn that it's about your attitude and you taking responsibility for your actions. It's about knowing that PEOPLE are the most important asset there is. Take care of 'your' people and you will get results. Laziness and complacency will end your career in a hurry.
The book is a quick read and entertaining too. Frank does talk about himself quite a bit, and you may get the impression that he is 'stuck on himself'. I think that it is just that he has confidence in himself and his abilities.
Learn from this man. The book IS worth you time. Actually, I liked it so much that I bought a copy for each of the supervisors in my office.
Take a chance! The worst that could happen is that you will stay the way you are.

This is an interesting book that is laced with recommendations that you may be tempted to initially dismiss. Get up and get into the office early / spend 9-5 in front of the customer and do your paperwork outside of normal working hours. However the writing style is as if you are listening to the author tell his story. It is simle to read and relate to all of his examples concerning his work with the Xerox office that he took from worst to first.

Books like this that serve to reinforce the basics are invaluable - especially when they are an entertaining and interesting read. This book is both entertaining and interesting while also giving a healthy dose of solid advice.

When any of my friends get promoted to management, I give them a copy of this book. I like reading lots of different business books, but this is one I refer to over and over again. Sage advice that is a breeze to read through and will motivate you to do the right things with your business and your team.

Although written from the sales' manager's perspective, this book contains down-to-earth lessons that can be applied to any work group that needs to perform at a higher level. Pacetta provides some simple tools, which used effectively and consistently, can produce break-through performance. Get the most out of it by reading more than once, and then use it as a good reference tool for keeping yourself focused on the basics of performance leadership.

If you're a manager, pick this one up.

Finally, an author who applies common sense to management. The principles Pacetta outlines in this book to inspire employees to become better producers can be applied universally to any form of management--not just sales. Frank Pacetta believes in an active participation "hands-on" management style which is so refreshing in a world obsessed by paper shuffling, ISO 9000 management. He's proven his style works time and time again and realistically shows the reader how we can do the same whether we work for Xerox or a small 20-employee company.

As with a lot of books authored by salespeople, it contains hype but you still can't dismiss the information. The hype is necessary to instill motivation within employees but he seasons it with enough personal management mistakes that the book is still a digestible read.

Bottom line: 2 Thumbs (Fired) Up!

If you have been to business school, most of these pointers have been learned. Still books like this are a refreshing read on how to revive a business. Frank has ten pointers to learn, but most businessmen already know these. I can summarize some: work hard, start early, work as a team, recognize employees who perform, and before you leave for the day, make one final effort.
This is not brain surgery, but it is amazing the number of businesses that fail in even this.
If I had any critique of these principles, it it the author focusing on the sales side. These principles can be applied to any business. A simple, refreshing read.

Finally a book which gives you plenty of ideas that not only make sense, but are actually usable! The basic principles explained here are nothing new. But put together, they are a powerful reminder that the will to win, empowerment and a little imagination go a long way. Very american, but it does get you going!

This is a no frills approach to management. Pacetta doesn't let anyone off the hook & his results speak to his approach. Must read for managers!

This book is a hidden gem. It is not talked about as much as many others in its field, but Frank P. offers many real-life examples of what managers can do to improve their team. The author not only tells you how, but gives you specific examples of how he did it. And, it works...as evidenced by the great sales successes that came from his direction. Do yourself a favor, and read this!

As I read the book by Frank Pacetta entitled, Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up, I was mystified at parallelisms of success between award winning organizations that I've been a witness and party to while also seeing that the author was able to break down many of those perspectives into tangible chartable elements. His prose takes an awesome approach for change management in highly fluid corporate environments.

His most important perspective was creating an environment that had lost for so long, and changing that into a culture of winning. This was a difficult process even as the words fell off the page. Fear, resent, back-stabbing are all processes that make change difficult. His first step in that process was to reward the achievers and create an environment that lead with rewards and praise instead of fear and punishment. While there were consequences for actions, it seems that the subtleties between an attitude change were all that was needed. It was a bit more than semantics however, it was placing the achievers on a pedestal and providing incentives for the team (not the individual) to succeed. This culture allowed more people to succeed and what he created there was something unique and interesting.

Another interesting perspective that he had was setting the bar hi. This wasn't something that he was just throwing out but something very important to a successful organization. Rather than fire people and set a tone in the organization, he noted that he just elevated the bar to achieve and the people who didn't want to be a part of that process left the organization on their own. This was an amazing phenomenon. The hard work and sweat of people's labors was in itself self-correcting to the organization.

He practices a virtue that I've admired from great Marines that I've worked with. There is a virtue of leadership in the Marine Corps from many of the officers I've worked for and that is that they lead by example. While he was demanding greatness from his office, he was delivering on it himself as well and that kind of consistency was important to the team building process. While I was recruiting for the Navy, a Senior Chief name Dan Medlock was my regional manager or in the civilian world what they often call a DBM. He spent his days helping the weakest elements of a state-wide team. He assisted in the nurturing of new personnel and showed them ropes for building a successful team. It was neat to see that this character trait was present in the leadership and team building that was going on in Cleveland when the manager himself was making 4 sales calls a day. This process creates an interesting synergy that is unmistakable in its effects. When I train with my current CO, his leadership style is the same. He's extremely competitive and driven in his processes and when we hit the ground, he's at the forefront of the mission, leading. That kind of leadership is something the troops, the sales force deeply respects.

His ability to manage setbacks and failure is another important quality that I find best about great leadership. When he talked about his Fall of 1991, they had a horrible September sales and he thought it might be going down the drain. His ability to rebound from that set back and work towards turning it around even in the face of that kind of adversity, makes for an amazing character trait. Even his ability to recognize how success can challenge an organization because people have a natural tendency to rest on their laurels. When I recruited this was a difficult task at hand. After my first year in working for an organization that had missed its sales goal for 10 years, we had turned it around and won almost every national and regional award possible including station of the year, recruiter of the year and rookie of the year. Even more embarrassing to the other office managers, was that we secured most of the runner up awards as well in a small market. What made this a more amazing team thought and more powerful than a flash in the pan was that we repeated this process three years in a row and literally changed much of the perspectives of the way the recruiting process was working through out the entire Navy. It made history in the organization and when I read this tendency to coast, I remembered those times, when the calls were coming in and life seemed good... I was afraid though after reading a book, Who Moved My Cheese, that those sources would dry up and then I'd be up a creek. I continued to prospect and my chances to succeed multiplied! It was amazing and when I read this same principle in this book, it was interesting to note the parallels of how organizations like this that are consistently successful don't rest. The virtue there is that there is another hungry, younger, salesman around the corner who will get the contract if you don't. You have to be persistent, smart, engaging and working hard all the time. That's easy to do in a crisis but often difficult in an organization that is feing the benefits of its success.

The last and most interesting aspect of this team building exercise was how it became contagious in the entire organization. As the team he built became successful other individuals in the company and other top performers from other organizations wanted to be a part of it. This amazing phenomenon had interesting consequences. Some people wanted to join the organization to be a part of something big, thinking the good life was there, and not realizing how difficult and fragile that success was. The other was the amazing talent that did want to come on board and the management task of being able to distinguish between the two. The author described this as `drudgery'. Another parallel to my own experience in this fashion was the types of folks who would call out out of the blue to see what we were doing in Milwaukee. They accused us of cheating and bending the rules in some dark fashion. Those who were wise, replicated what we were doing in their own corner of the country and they realized their own success. The entire quality of the organization outside our own scope and area of operation and responsibility improved as a result of this and we couldn't even measure or see the results to their full extent. People were tired of hearing our names and hearing about Milwaukee so they went out an got some of their own. It was amazing.

As I read this book, it read like a textbook of experience from our own experiences in Milwaukee. Ever page fell out like I was reading a memoirs written by my good friend Dan Medlock. For managers that would be wanting to duplicate these successes, this is a great book for understanding that kind of process. You can have those individual superstars, however, it is the team that creates something extraordinary and more importantly its almost self-perpetuating. That kind of leadership is important and Frank Pacetta is definitely a pace setter and his processes of leadership should be duplicated in every organization.