How to Lead Now

Motivated by his challenge, the employees become newly engaged, working in problem-solving teams with managers to tackle quality-control problems and reduce costs. "Be the Best!" became a rallying cry to embarrass GM's top brass. It was printed on posters throughout the plant and sewn onto jackets given to employees. More important, union leaders and managers worked together more closely than ever to come up with ideas to improve quality and lower costs. Harding kept everyone informed of the plant's weekly progress on quality and costs. And the families of employees were invited to the plant for a luncheon in the spring and for a picnic in the summer. "When your family is engaged, it makes you feel good about what you do," says Harvey G. Thomas, the plant's current manager.

Within two years, the workers made the factory the lowest-cost producer in GM, with the lowest warranty costs as well. Car dealers began specifically requesting the Chevy Corsica and Berretta models, which were made by the Wilmington plant. The employees succeeded in making the corporation's decision look foolish -- and GM reversed itself in 1996 and kept the plant open.

"There was no financial reward," recalls Thomas. "It was their sense of self-esteem more than anything else. Nobody wants to walk out of a closed plant."

Thomas, a towering man who learned how to raise bonsai at a Zen monastery in Kyoto, knows the awful sadness that comes with the shuttering of a factory. During his quarter-of-a-century career with GM, he was head of the chassis department in the company's Clark Street plant in Detroit when it shut down in the late 1980s. "It's a devastating thing," he says. "This assembly plant is like a little town of friends and neighbors. They know each other extremely well. A plant closure is like the breakup of a family."

Whenever this same plant and this same family are facing another difficult challenge, Thomas now trots out the videotape showing the executive visit, along with Harding's defiant retort. One tough assignment came in 1999, when employees were asked to build the new midsize Saturn model. "It was a very difficult launch, because the car was complicated to build, and morale was down because we weren't successful early on," says Thomas. "We broke out the tape, and groups of 40 to 50 people would see it. By the time each meeting was over, the energy level changed immediately. People said, 'Yes, we can do this.' They remembered that feeling of being successful, of facing a difficult challenge and succeeding."

The payoff from pride building is becoming so clear that GM is now trying to institutionalize the process. Based on an internal study of pride builders at 20 of its factories, General Motors is putting together training and development programs to spread the concept. "I believe it's a teachable skill," says Jay C. Wilber, executive director of the UAW/GM quality network. "Pride building isn't a way to manipulate people to get results. It's a way to work with people to get the most from them."

Even the new leadership team at struggling fast-food giant McDonald's believes that pride is essential to its comeback. "Our founder, Ray Kroc, said, 'Happiness is a by-product of achievement,' " says Mats Lederhausen, president of the company's business-development group. "I believe that pride, happiness, and feeling good come from being part of the winning team. Pride is hugely important. We have obviously lost some of that because we haven't been as successful in recent years."

Sometimes even the simplest gesture can get great results. Consultant Nelson recalls how a Westinghouse manager in charge of a sales office with 16 staffers agreed to pay for and cook lunch for all of his direct reports if they met their sales quotas. They subsequently outdid their goals in 18 out of 19 months, a performance so impressive that it attracted attention from headquarters. Corporate higher-ups volunteered to foot the bill for the luncheons, but the manager steadfastly refused the offer. The incentive worked, he said, because he personally went to the supermarket to buy the steaks with his own money and because employees got a kick out of seeing the boss become a cook and a waiter. "You're going to kill this thing if you pick up the bill," he told his bosses.

At service provider Aramark, pride building took a different shape. Roy Pelaez, 42, leads a workforce of 426 people that cleans airplanes for Delta Airlines and Southwest Airlines in New York, Boston, and Manchester, New Hampshire. The Bronx-born son of a concrete laborer, Pelaez first got the job at JFK airport in 1996, when turnover of the low-paid staff of largely immigrant employees exceeded 100% a year. Morale was low, and wallets and other valuable items that passengers left on planes had a funny way of disappearing.