By Michael Gidlewski

I’ll never forget when I was promoted to Vice President of Sales in the wholesale distribution business. I was given a short course on managing people by my boss.

The essence of that very short course was to make sure your employees leave their personal problems at home, so when they come to work, they can focus on sales and only sales. I was young and clueless about understanding people’s motivation, so I tried the advice and needless to say it did not work out very well.

Nobody leaves their personal life at home, and likewise, nobody leaves their business life at work, even if we would like to. If you want to build a culture of highly engaged people, you must get personal. You need to find out what motivates your employees, what gets them out of bed in the morning, what contribution they want to make to work, community, and the world.

Management is not “one size fits all.” All people are great in their own unique and wonderful way and need to be managed that way to bring out the best in themselves. Winners in life and in business come from all different backgrounds, different conditioning, and different personality styles and therefore have to be treated differently.

The hardest lesson I learned in those early days about motivating my employees, especially the salespeople, was the importance of understanding different motivations for different individuals. I continued to throw more money and incentives at my people and wondered why it wasn’t working. Then, I learned that long-term management success comes from caring for the total person, a concept I learned from Paul J. Meyer, the founder of Success Motivation Institute. That changed my life and those of the people I lead forever.

Paul taught me that our lives are built on the foundation of these six major areas of the wheel of life:

• Family & Home
• Financial & Career
• Mental & Educational
• Physical & Health
• Social & Cultural
• Spiritual & Ethical

These areas are the foundation, the pillars upon which you will build a totally integrated life. You will only unlock the total untapped leadership potential, engage your employees, and achieve maximum business success if you get personal with your people and care about their integrated life as a total person. Each individual has uniquely different wants and needs, and when we help them achieve their goals, we achieve greater alignment and engagement.

Ultimately, we all want to be part of something that really matters. The best cultures embrace the total person and help them become the best version of themselves for their family, work, community, and world. I challenge you to get to know your people (and their goals and their wants and needs) to help them achieve their most important goals in life. Only when we relate to the total person can an employee’s full potential and engagement be unlocked and thus create a win-win for everyone involved.

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Michael Gidlewski is President of West Chester-based Achievement Unlimited, Inc., as well as a growth catalyst and motivational speaker. He works with motivated business owners and entrepreneurs to clearly define the elements of what they dearly want their businesses and lives to look like, then helps them connect all the moving parts that make up those visions to consistent action and habits. Michael can be reached at 610-793-6609 or via e-mail at michael@achievable.com.

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