Things ran smoothly, we stayed on budget, the work got done.

People liked working for me, or so I thought.

Tom! Hi! Hello Carol! How ya making out with that revised budget?

Done...and here are next year's projections. Carol, what would I do without you?

Well, there is another thing I wanted to talk to you about.

Oh yeah, what's that?

An opportunity opened up for me recently and...

I gave it a lot of thought... and I've decided to take advantage of it.

What, what kind of opportunity? A position in another department.

She was the top person my entire department,

and the third employees to leave that year. Not good.

I later found out that she took that new job not for more money or more responsibility,

Ah-uh. She took it because it was a chance to work with Elliot.

Here's the info you wanted. Thanks.

Elliott ran the most productive group in the whole organization.

He was doing something differently than I was. I was basically cheerleading.

Go team go! Let's score some performance numbers!

Elliott on the other hand, seemed to be motivating people by simply explaining

why their work was valuable, somehow to somebody.

And, he was very down to earth about it. No lofty speeches.

Just a real-world example that people could feel good about.