GROW THE LEADER

Participant Manual

MODULE 1
Linking Paycheck to Purpose
The Power of a Vital Destiny and Compelling Cause

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Linking Paycheck to Purpose
Linking Paycheck to Purpose
MODULE 1 CONTENT
!

The Human Hunger for Meaning and Purpose and how these sustain elite
performance at work

The value of a Compelling Cause and a tightly articulated vision

Experiential exercises around creating and championing a powerful cause

Commitment to Actions

Nearly everyone takes the limits of their own vision for the limits of the world.
A few do not. Join them.
ARTHUR SHOPENHAUER

The unhappiness, unease and unrest in the world today

are caused by people living far below their capacity.
ABRAHAM MASLOW

No matter how insignificant the thing you have to do,

do it as well as you can, give it as much of your care
and attention as you would give to the thing you regard as most important.
For it will be by those small things that you shall be judged.
MAHATMA GANDHI

Everybody, soon and late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Whos been a success in life who hasnt failed?

RICHARD BRANSON

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The Circle of Connection
The purpose of this experiential exercise is to open yourself up to the members of the class with
whom you will be sharing this transformational leadership/peak performance process. The Grow
TM
The Leader program is your opportunity to go deep within who you are as a human being so
that you can move through your blocks and present your best leadership capacities at work (and
TM
within your personal life). The Grow The Leader environment is a platform for you to open up
to who you truly are, have authentic conversations with other like-minded people, discover what
the best performers and organizations do and confront your fears. It is essential that you
embrace this opportunity by being completely honest with not only the other participants but with
yourself. It is also imperative that you give your very best to each of these experiential exercises
TM
and to the process in general. The more you give to the Grow The Leader process over these
8 modules, the more you will receive.
Before we go around the Circle of Connection, please answer the following questions:
Family History
! Describe how/where you grew up.
! Talk about the values you learned from your parents.
Childhood memory that stands out for you.
! An experience that comes to mind that you wish to share.
Cross-road story
! Recall a point in your life where you had a critical choice to make which impacted
who you are today.

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Grow The Leader

TM

Invocation

The time has arrived to play your biggest game as a human being
The time has arrived for you to know the authentic leader within you
The time has arrived for you to confront your fears and visit the places that scare you
The time has arrived for you to raise your standards, discover your highest gifts and then to share
this brilliance in a way that enriches the world
The time has arrived for you to realize your main aim, your vital destiny
and your compelling cause
The time has arrived for you to be the elite performer,
the light and the human being that you are destined to be
The time, is indeed, Now. And if not now, then when?
Robin Sharma
Personal Goals
TM

Record your learning goals for the Grow The Leader program.
How do you hope to grow?

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Highlights from the Robin Sharma DVD

!

Record your top three to five highlights from the DVD.

Write down specific ideas on the value of having a Meaningful Purpose at work as
well as ideas that will help you articulate a Meaningful Purpose.

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Core Principles of the Grow The Leader

TM

8 Module Process

Principle 1:

No human being needs to improve. Everything you have always wanted to be,
you currently are. Most people have simply lost the connection with the fullness
of their potential. Professional and personal transformation, then, does not
involve self-improvement. It involves self-remembering. When we were very
young children, we had all the traits of elite performers: a propensity to dream,
fearlessness, human connectedness, a curiosity and love of change and
authenticity. We simply must reclaim that original state.

Principle 2:

The primary human power is the power to choose. Each of us can play victim or
victor. In every organization, some are resisting change while others are
embracing change. At every organization, some are blaming the competition, the
current state of the marketplace or their teammates while others are viewing the
changed business landscape as their opportunity to get better. Professional and
personal transformation begins when a human being stops blaming and takes
personal responsibility for the way they think, feel and behave. Your best
professional and personal life begins when you accept Absolute Personal
Responsibility (APR) for the way your life looks.

Principle 3:

Most training programs do not lead to sustained and measurable results because
they are delivered primarily at cognitive level. They appeal to our intellectual side
TM
but fail to engage the learner at an emotional level. Grow The Leader blends
cutting-edge cognitive learning with powerful experiential-emotional engagement.
TM
This makes Grow The Leader extraordinarily sticky and remarkably effective
for the learner.

Principle 4:

Elite performers understand that leadership begins within. Self awareness is the
starting point of change. You will never be able to eliminate a weakness you do
not even know about and when you know better, you can do better. Elite
performers are committed to personal progress and self discovery. With better
awareness you will make better choices. And when you make better choices,
you are certain to see better results.

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Principle 5:

Elite performers are not of a special breed. They are ordinary women and men
who are devoted to daily continuous improvement (small daily acts of greatness:
SDAG). They operate under The Slight Edge Principle, understanding that a one
percent increase in personal effectiveness on a daily basis generates massive
advantages (and momentum) over a period of time. 1% Wins in each of the
core areas of your business and personal life each day will revolutionize the
way you show up.

Principle 6:

The best of the best are relationship-centric performers. Business is a

conversation and people love doing business with people that they have
emotional and human bonds with. Elite performers are all about building deep
relationships and creating real value for the people they work with and serve.

Principle 7:

Elite performers are different. By definition, a leader is someone who does not
follow the crowd. Elite performers are originals and passionate revolutionaries
who are open to new ideas and working with a sense of boldness. They are
Merchants of WOW.

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The Concept of Emotion-Centric Leadership (ECL)

The mind is a limiter. The emotions are the liberator. Emotional engagement drives business
results. A leaders job is to inspire, champion and capture the hearts of the people they have the
privilege to lead. Managers are all about metrics and administrative. But when you step into your
leadership role, what is most important is uplifting people. Make them feel better about
themselves. Inspire them to be more and shine brightly. And most importantly, Starbucks, Jet
Blue, Virgin, Magna, Apple, Southwest Airlines have emotionally engaged employees. Great
leaders find an access point to the emotions of their followers. When you connect with your
teammates and your customers at an emotional level, you get their trust and their loyalty.
In the space provided, record how the behaviors of a leader you admire and how that person was
able to connect to your emotions and to your heart (versus simply engaging with you at an
intellectual or cognitive level).
Behaviours of a leader you admire

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Developing an Emotional Architecture within your Organization
Within most organizations, there is a massive gap between vision and results. The positional
leaders of the organization (i.e., the CEO) articulate a tightly-focused mission and then attempt to
communicate it to all stakeholders. However, most missions fail because of two primary factors:
poor employee buy-in and flawed execution. The truth of the matter is that most employees have
little emotional connection, at a root level, to the organizations vision/mission. And because of
this, the vision/mission is never realized.
So how does an organization get the buy-in of all individuals involved? The answer may be
stated simply: Engage the emotions and connect the hearts of all the members of your team to a
Compelling Cause. Articulate some kind of a Main Aim or Reason for being that speaks to the
best and most noble aspects of your people. Big Idea: In todays business world, more than ever,
employees are on a search for meaning. Money and prestige is nice but these things are not as
important as they once were as compared to the need of employees to feel good about the work
they are doing. Employees want to feel that their work is adding value to others and even in
some small way making the world a better place. The secret of passionate, engaged
TM
employees is purpose. So Link Paycheck with Purpose .
According to the latest behavioral research into elite performance, the primary driver of human
motivation does not exist at a cognitive level it exists at the emotional level (3 Brain Theory). As
stated earlier, emotions are the primary drivers of human motivation.
What this means is this: to get the best from your team, to have passionate employees and to
create a workplace where people are deeply engaged in the mission the organization is
advancing, it is essential that the emotions of everyone involved are opened up.
Within most organizations, teammates understand the vision and mission at a cognitive or mind
level. They read the words on the paper and listen to the CEO speak at the all-employee forum.
But because the vision and mission do not speak to them at an emotional level and touch their
hearts the employee makes no deep commitment to advancing the dream of the CEO. But
when the vision and mission moves and touches the individual, real and sustainable change
begins to take place. When the employee feels passion, joy, happiness, and other such emotions
around the mission and vision, the gap between the tightly-articulated dream of the positional
leader and the actions taking place on a daily basis begins to close quickly. For your organization
to be great, you must define an emotionally Compelling Cause and create a culture where people
feel like they are on a Crusade. Then work stops being just work but it takes on a transcendent
quality.

Business is not first and foremost about making money or products, or offering services.
Business, as commerce, is above all a vehicle for achieving personal and organizational
greatness. It is for accomplishing something worthy and noble. Business is an institution that
can enable you to make significant contributions to society. It is important that you connect your
work with your personal depth. In fact, you must learn to value the pain of growing. And the
significance of your job is not that it offers you security but that it demands from you personal
growth.
Peter Koestenbaum

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Great Leaders Move Followers
The greatest leaders who have ever walked the planet before us (whether these leaders were
within the realm of business, politics, military or religion) were all able to create a Compelling
Cause the engaged the emotions (and the hearts) of their followers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
once said that: If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not
fit to live. These words speak to the fact that the deeper a Cause can strike at the emotions with
the members of your team, the more they will begin to present their best selves at work. Again,
the secret of passion within a workplace may then be stated quite simply: Purpose. And,
unfortunately, in this age of unrelenting change, most organizations have failed to articulate a
purpose or a Cause (also known as a Vital Destiny or a Main Aim) that touches its employees at
a deep emotional level.
The real key is to link the paychecks of your people to some kind of a Higher Purpose. Every
human being wants to make a difference. When you, as a leader, connect the work they do to
the lives they touch, energy is released and highest potential is awakened. When you
communicate to your team how the products and services of your organization add value to other
human beings and make their lives better, their emotions (and heart) get engaged. Passion
increases. Commitment deepens. People feel important. Barriers and obstacles no longer seem
insurmountable. As Da Vinci said: When you fix your course upon a star, you will be able to
navigate any storm.
The Leader as a Psychologist
According to famed psychologist Abraham Maslow, the deepest of all human hungers is the need
for self-transcendence. Maslow, one of the worlds most respected scientists and visionaries,
deeply believed that this need of human beings to live for something more important than
themselves was actually written into our DNA. Therefore, when we put ourselves first, we
actually sabotage ourselves. When we fail to focus our work on adding value to other people, we
actually betray ourselves and deny our very genetic makeup. This is why we are happiest as
people when we feel we are serving, giving and making a difference. Every human being has a
deep need to feel that they are contributing (Maslow actually believed that noble values were
inserted into our genetic wiring). When we do, our life works. The evolved and effective leader
understands this. He/she understands how human beings are hardwired and ensures their work
meets their core needs. This allows him/her to retain top talent and attract superb employees.
This is why, within organizations that have a Compelling Cause that adds value to human lives,
the culture is one where people are passionate about their work and they feel great about whom
they are as people (high self-respect). At the end of our lives, when we are on our deathbeds
and reflecting on the lives we have lived, what will be most important will not be the titles we have
assumed or the money we have in our bank accounts. What will be most important at that final
point of our lives is how many people we have helped and how many lives we have touched. We
all have a deep seated need to know that we have not walked the planet in vain and done
something great in the world through the work we have performed. This is a natural law of
leadership. Never neglect it. (It is beautiful to think that you can help human beings fulfill the
deepest hunger of their hearts and spirit by presenting them with work that matters).

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Southwest Airlines
Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, is an excellent example of an Emotion Centric
Leader who invokes the emotion of his followers by linking their paychecks to a higher,
compelling purpose. On page 62 of Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
(HarperCollins), the following is stated:
Southwest Airlines has consistently been one of the most successful major airlines (the
only airline profitable every quarter post 9/11). Herb Kelleher, its feisty and innovative
leader, could have easily defined the purpose of the company in terms of being a great
airline or in terms of levels of profit or customer satisfaction. But he didnt. He had the
wisdom to understand that by rallying his people around an emotionally compelling
cause, southwest would become a great airline, make huge profits and generate an army
of satisfied customers. So he defined his companies work and its reality in a way that
truly connected with people.
He explained that Southwest was a very special airline run by very special people. He
showed his teams how the low fares the company advertised allowed people who could
previously never afford air travel the opportunity to fly on a regular basis. This meant that
grandparents could start visiting their grandchildren more frequently and that smallbusiness people could explore markets they never could have penetrated before. He
showed his people how their work was really about helping others fulfill their dreams and
live better lives. He understood that one of the key tasks of the visionary leader is to
engage hearts.
And once he did everything else he hoped for followed. So find a way for you and your
managers to show your people that their work, directly or indirectly, touches peoples
lives. Show them that they are needed and important, and satisfy their basic human
hunger to make a difference. This is what the first ritual of visionary leaders is all about.
Because when you link paycheck to purpose, you connect people to a cause higher than
themselves. Your people will start to feel good about what they are doing. And when
your people feel good about the work they do, they will begin to feel good about
themselves as people. Thats when real breakthroughs start to happen. Because people
who feel good about themselves do great work.
Nike
Just look at the mission for the Nike brand: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in
the world (and if you have a body, you are an athlete). It is rich with passion and inspires Nike
employees to play their best and give more.

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Additional Examples
Another example of an emotion-centric leader who understood the power of linking paycheck to a
purpose so that his followers would get emotionally engaged around his vision comes from World
War II. The workers on the assembly lines making parachutes for the Allied Forces were very
unproductive given the monotonous nature of their jobs. They had no central purpose that moved
them. They felt their work was boring. And they did not believe that what they did made a
difference. Then one day, the leader of these workers sat them down for what today would be
called a town hall meeting. He reminded his team in the most passionate of terms that their
work was meaningful and had great value to human lives. He reminded them that the next
parachute they made might save the life of their own father or son or brother or someone who
lived down the street from them. He reminded them that their work saved many lives. And by
TM
reconnecting them to the big picture (and Linking Paycheck to Purpose ), productivity soared in
the months after that powerful meeting. This is the very job of a leader: to keep having
conversations and voicing how the organizations products and services contribute to the building
of a new and better world. This, in turn, creates a culture of people who care about the Crusade.
Walt Disney said his mission was not to create amusement parks but to create unforgettable
memories for children.
Doris Christopher, founder of The Pampered Chef, stated that she was not in the business of
selling kitchen utensils but helping build stronger families through shared meals. Bill Gates,
founder of Microsoft, said that his mission was to create an organization that inspired people to
go to work every day and be a part of a dream (that would see a computer on every desk in every
home). Linking Paycheck to Purpose is not some esoteric philosophy. It is a powerful and
practical business technology that will help you build a high-performance organization that leads
the field. Elite performers give their teammates a meaningful context to their work that promotes
employee engagement and boosts a sense of pride. At great companies like Microsoft or
Amazon.com or Apple Computer or Starbucks, employees are proud of their work and what the
company stands for.

When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when
you die, the world will cry while you rejoice.
Sanskrit saying

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EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE: Articulating Your Compelling Cause

In the space provided, draft a Compelling Cause Statement that links your paycheck with some
kind of a meaningful purpose for the work that you do. Think about how the products and
services of your organization make a difference in peoples lives. Reframe your work to find an
emotionally engaging aspect to it. Reflect on how the work you are doing within your organization
helps your teammates grow into their best selves. Think about how many lives you will positively
impact if you are more inspirational and positive as a leader.
Perhaps the way you will Link Paycheck to Purpose is by re-dedicating yourself to being the
kind of person (and leader) who is a positive influence at work, who encourages people to be
their highest and who genuinely cares for the people on their team by being a leader who focuses
on creating a workplace where its safe to be human again is a wonderful mission.

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Surfacing your Resistances

In the space provided, articulate any resistances that came up in defining a Compelling Cause
and to the whole concept of Emotion-Centric Leadership (ECL). The best way to transcend
fears and resistances is to talk about (put voice to) your fears. Awareness precedes change and
the more you can become aware of the mental chatter that surfaces when you are doing these
experiential exercises, the more you will be able to trace them back to their source beliefs. Then
you can evaluate whether these old beliefs are serving you and make new choices if necessary.
And remember, new choices are what create new results. Once you start to get to know your
source beliefs and the thought patterns that are limiting you, you will be able to catch yourself
when they come up and move to a much more effective and authentic way of thinking (and
leading).

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Engage the Emotions of Your People:

What things could you do to engage the emotions of the people on your team/department on
a daily basis that align with your Compelling Cause and support your organizations Purpose?
(Be Specific)
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

The greatest privilege of leadership is the chance to elevate lives.

Robin Sharma

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Commitments to Action
The action that I will take at a personal level to bring this Ritual alive for me is:

The action that I will take to apply this ritual to move our Purpose/Mission forward in my
team/department/or organization is:

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