The young man was proud of his abilities as a newly certified mechanic when he confidently walked into the repair shop to apply for an opening.

The shop’s manager asked just a few questions.

“Can you tip your head, roll your hat down your arm and flip it back to the top of your head in one motion?”

“Well, yes, I can do that,” said the applicant someone puzzled by the question.

“Can you juggle a wrench, screwdriver, and oil filter at the same time?”

“Never tried it, but I am sure I can learn how to,” answered the obviously proud new mechanic.

“Final question: When you use your wrench in a swordfight are you able to disarm your opponent in under 30 seconds?” asked the manager.

“Yes, we did that during breaks at school. I was the champ!” the applicant said boastfully.

"Then never mind, we cannot use you,” said the boss.

Why? Click here.

Very discouraging numbers have been issued by pollster Randstad about the motivational talent of today’s leaders. They found a measly 22 percent of employees feel motivated by their current supervisor.

Leaders are also failing to act as mentors. Only 19 percent of participating employees said their boss is a role model or mentor.

Too many leaders are disconnected with their people. They have forgotten, or never knew, that the primary purpose of a leader is NOT to lead.

The primary purpose of a leader is to create more leaders. To do that they need to inspire, motivate, and mentor tomorrow’s leaders.

Larry’s wife saw the frustration in her husband’s demeanor. Gone were his deep-belly laughter, smiling, and ability to get a good night’s rest.

After nearly a decade as his company’s leading salesman Larry was now a joyless Sales Vice-President. Neither Larry nor his wife was happy with the way things had worked out.

His wife pointed out an ad for an Advanced Leadership Certificate program at the local Community College. After a little encouraging they decided that he should take a few classes to see if they could help him.

As instructor of the class I saw Larry sitting in his seat the first night. The burden of his worries was evident in every aspect of his body language. At the end of the first class Larry lagged behind and shared his story with me. Not only was he struggling with the weight of discouragement from being in a position for which he had not been trained he was having difficulty dealing with being the only vice-president not related to the owner.

Larry and I agreed he would benefit from some one-on-one coaching with me. I asked him to take a quick online assessment so I would know his personal weaknesses, strengths, motivational factors, and career interests. When I read the results of his questions there was only one logical conclusion -- Larry was in the job of his dreams!

Why dream jobs can be torturous

Now many will wonder how someone can have the perfect job and not find happiness. Life has taught me this is often true. Dream jobs are usually aligned with someone's interests are not always aligned with motivational factors and exposed talents.

Take for example the person who loves to make sandwiches. They decide to open a sandwich shop. Things generally run well at first but soon they will struggle with the other aspects of running a sandwich shop. Taxes, payroll, procurement, maintenance, and other business requirements for which they were not trained nor had the motivational interest will overcome the joy of making sandwiches. The focus will turn from creating beautiful sandwich masterpieces to total frustration at making challenges for 48 hours a week.

Larry’s mistake

Larry's main problem was that he loved sales too much. During those times when he should have been coaching the salespeople he was taking over the sales call completely. The salespeople were becoming frustrated because they wanted to sell themselves and saw his intervention as a lack of confidence in their abilities. They dreaded hearing that he would be joining them on one of their sales calls. Instead of learning from the best salesperson the company had ever had they were so filled with negativity they learned nothing but resentment.

Larry’s change

Larry began to concentrate his listening skills on the salesperson's approach to a prospect. He fought the urge to jump down during a sales call preferring to work with the salesperson after the call helping the salesperson to realize what the customer wanted and what the company had available to meet those needs.

Over the course of our coaching experience Larry saw how to make the Transformation from the talents of the salesperson to the talents needed by the sales vice president.

Six months later he completed the coaching program saying the fire is back in his belly and he "looks forward to work every day". His peers commented that there was a “new” Larry -- one that was fun to work with side-by-side.

The following season Larry’s company experienced a double digit sales increase, almost reaching their capacity to deliver product. This was in spite of the beginning stages of an economic downturn.

One important subculture is height. Seldom do we discuss the stature cultures but anybody that has had to ask for help getting something off the top shelf at a grocery store or did not have enough leg room on an airplane understands that people of different statures handle things differently.

Surprisingly we have learned height has an apparent impact on pay.

Employees standing six feet tall earn $5,525 more than employees measuring 5’ 5” according to a poll by Greg Mankiw.

It is unclear why the difference occurs but could be the same reason men, who are generally taller than women, also earn more than their gender culture counterpart.

A cuss-tomer is someone that cusses us out after they have either spent money with us or tried to spend money with us. They are the person to whom we have fallen short of meeting expectations. They are so mad at us they want to cuss us out. Many actually do.

Only 9% of those we service poorly will tell us. The other 91 percent will probably never give us another chance to earn their business.

Word of mouth advertising is also prevalent among cuss-tomers. They will tell nine or ten of their friends, relatives, or co-workers. One in eleven will tell twenty others!

If you do not think you have cuss-tomers you are being naive. Even the best run customer-oriented organizations will fail from time to time. Improve your customer service techniques and you will reduce the number of cuss-tomers.

Remember: even if you have just one cuss-tomer a month they will tell ten people you aren’t worth doing business with. That’s 120 people a year more likely to go to your competitor!