Most of us would not disagree that the main asset of almost any company is people. But the important question is: "How do you make this asset beneficial for the people themselves and the organization to which they belong?" This is a great challenge that has caused many a CEO to lose his or her footing. Carlos Ghosn feels that the first important step is to get the people motivated. They should dream of adventure, the vision thing, the destination and all that they want to realize with their lives. When speaking, Ghosn likes to quote the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French pilot and poet who once wrote: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." It is, after all, the workers who must build the ship and the employees who must carry out the necessary changes within an organization to make it profitable. And how do you do it? You do it through motivation. The people must be motivated. They must perceive clearly their visions of what they want to realize for their family, town, company or country. They need to know what they should do today and tomorrow to make their dreams a reality. But motivation, like trust, is not something you can command. It is a very personal response that people offer ... or don't. If people are motivated, everything else will follow: wealth, sales, profits and loyalty. If they are not motivated, then you lose everything. An organization can have the most brilliant strategy but if its employees are unable or unwilling to understand the strategy, then can we say the strategy is good?
In practice, how does one motivate a large workforce? People need to have a sense of participation. Like the stonecutters, if they
feel that they are doing enough to get by, then you have not motivated them. During the Nissan Revival Plan, motivating the entire workforce involved sharing the vision, building credibility, listening and showing trust. Most importantly, management could not falter or compromise. Ghosn knows that you must lead by example, no matter how difficult the decisions you must make. He knows that words are cheap, and though people may listen politely to what you say, what counts is what you do. Perhaps more than any other corporate leader today, Ghosn has seen that one can accomplish many things that are difficult or that people say cannot be done, as long as one holds the minds and hearts of people to inspire them to go the extra mile.
But motivation works both ways. Ghosn has always given credit for past successes to the employees of the companies where he has worked. He may have been the leader but he never would have been as successful as he has been without having been supported, helped and motivated by his employees.
Ghosn believes that management's first priority is to establish a clear vision and a common long-term plan for the organization. A clear vision will determine strategies, guide action plans, direct performance and boost the motivation of all the people involved. Focused performance will produce measurable, positive results, which, in turn, encourage motivation, confirm unity of purpose, and prompt better performance.
Here are three ideas that Ghosn likes to remind himself and the people who work with him.
• When people are motivated to perform, they can achieve remarkable things.
• Great people are just ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of determination.
• When ordinary people are determined to overcome their difficulties and prove what they can do, the results can indeed be great.
"There is no secret formula for corporate revival, but
there is one common denominator, the motivation of
the people."
