A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

HOW TO MOTIVATE THE KNOWLEDGE WORKER ■ 219
One of the first questions that I asked my corporate students was:
“Why are people motivated to do things for you or for your organization?”
Then I answered my own question: “The truth is there is no one single factor
which motivates all of your people all of the time. Also, different people
are motivated by different things at any one point in time.”
I did not have the following example when I first put my motivational
program together. But it fit so well that I have included it ever since I discovered
it.
Treat Your People Individually
While rummaging through old bookstores, Jim Toth, a professor at the
Industrial College of the Armed Forces, found a little ninety-nine-page
book written after World War I by Captain Adolf von Schell, a German
officer who was attending a course in the United States as an exchange
officer. Von Schell was highly experienced. He had served throughout
World War I, first in command of an infantry platoon and later in command
of a company. He wrote the book Battle Leadership while attending
the Advanced <strong>Class</strong> of the U.S. Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Georgia
from 1930 to 1931.
The book related von Schell’s observations on leadership from the vantage
point of a junior officer in the Imperial German Army. Toth realized
the collection of lessons from von Schell was as valuable in the present as
on the day von Schell first recorded it. Toth contacted the Marine Corps
Association, which agreed to reprint the book. In a preface, Marine Corps
Major General D. M. Twomey said that the book “should be required
reading for all combat leaders.” 3 Captain von Schell’s lessons show the
age-old importance of knowing and understanding your workers and
managers and treating each individually, as he or she prefers to be treated.
This is just as <strong>Drucker</strong> taught in the classroom.
In his book, von Schell cited a classic example of this art as practiced
by a German brigade commander in the year 1917:
This general said, “Each of our three regimental commanders must
be handled differently. Colonel A does not want an order. He wants
to do everything himself, and he always does well. Colonel B executes
every order, but he has no initiative. Colonel C opposes everything
he is told to do and wants to do the contrary.”