Larry Weidel describes how Art Williams gave him a 'Flash in the Pan' T-shirt at a 1979 company convention as a playful challenge. The symbolic jab motivated him to prove it wrong, and six months later he became the company's #1 performer.
Let's talk about coaching and a story will help us with this. I'm going to tell you why Art Williams who was president of the company, all of that stuff. Art gave me the flash in the pan T shirt. So here's the story. I've been in the company for four years. Company was exploding. A lot of people were moving up fast. I guess I got started in actually I know when I started 9-9-99-9 of 75. And of course like many people I floundered around for many years and eventually in November 11th of 78 moved to. So that's when I started in 11 of 78. I moved to North Carolina. Expansion up there for the company, self finance I might add. And it's going to pioneer a new area. Well, we were hand to mouth existence for quite a while but in the second year and so like 79 was our first full year but we really got things going in 1980. So by 1980 we were cooking second full year and by the summer we really exploded in 70, let's say 79. We recruited 56 people and by the summer, I guess June of 1980 we had recruited 56. Actually by May of 1980 we had 56 in a month. And so 56 in a year. Five months later we did it in a month. Then we were up to 58, 147. And at this point I got promoted to regional vice president and this was July. Alright. Now we continued and I've just given you recruiting numbers, not production numbers. We're up to 205 recruits. And so in September Art Williams came up. We had 700 people out to a meeting and that was 700 people out to a meeting that I've been there like 18 months. During that month we were in process of recruiting up to 350 or so people. 330, 350. And so this is September now I've been a month. I've been at this point I've been a regional vice president for not quite two months. September, August. But we were like skyrocketing our growth. Impressive and very exciting. Everybody was talking about us. Incredible. So in the month of September we go to Montreal and that was our convention. So we go to Montreal, we have a company convention and at this thing ARC passes out awards. Now he was really blown away that we had 700 people there. This really gave him a bolt of adrenaline and excitement. It really vindicated everything that he thought we were starting the company for. And that was really going to work. It really built his. And he talked about this in the book coach. But so what did art do? See at the awards ceremony there? So we have an award ceremony now. What many of us would do at that time is take Larry Wydell and big trophy, you know, pat in the back. Unbelievable. Now I wasn't, you know, I was one of many at that point and I was just getting started in terms of really putting big numbers up. But it was very exciting. Everybody was talking about it. It was incredible. We were keynote speakers and bada, badda, bada. We were celebrities inside the company there. And so what happened at this awards, the Montreal awards ceremony, you think there would be a moment of spotlighting this super new group out of North Carolina? Well, he did pass out trophies. We didn't get any. What did we get? We got the T shirt. And on the T shirt it said flash in the pan. I got a T shirt. Didn't get an eight foot trophy, six foot trophy, big plaque. My reward for all of this was a flash in the pan T shirt. Now we're talking about coaching here. See, coaching is individual. Coaching is not just patting people on the back. Coaching is challenging people. You know, you want to challenge, you want to stretch, you want to push. Now you can't do that with everybody because you know, you push them too hard, they'll break. And you have to have a feel for where people are in their career. Maybe if you had done this a year earlier, it might have crushed me. Actually, a year earlier he gave me the in August. My big award was in 1980. August, yeah, was turkey of the month. That was my big recognition. But so Art was always full of wonderfully encouraging recognitions. Actually he did occasionally. But why was this a good move to give young Larry the flash and the pan T shirt? Let me tell you why, because that sent a notice. First of all, by bringing me up front of the group, he let me know that he was noticing it, that he paid attention to it by having some fun with. Everybody knew it was a joke. So you know, there was a good humor about it. It wasn't rubbing my face, but it sent me a strong message. And you know, that message was don't get, you know, that T shirt said don't get ahead of yourself. Don't think one or two months is a career. Don't let this be start taking success for granted. See, by giving me that T shirt, he essentially put me on notice, put the spotlight of the entire company on me to see if I was going to be somebody who was a one shot wonder or somebody who I could build a sustained career. And by making that, putting that T shirt in there on me, it took. You know, it gave me the recognition. We had some fun. Everybody knew who I was, but it's. It also put me in a point of accountability where I had to prove I was not going to be a flash in the pant. Now, for somebody else, that might have been a wrong move, but Art knew that was exactly what we needed. And what was the result of this? The result was six months later, the result was we continued to grow like gangbusters. We kept our focus. We did not take success for granted. We didn't get ahead of ourselves. We. We kept relentlessly doing the things that got us here. We kept compounding. And six months later, we were number one in the entire company. We'd exploded all the way to the top. And who knows if that would have happened if Art hadn't given me that flash in the pan T shirt? I don't know, but I know it was in the back of my mind. And I also know he gave me a great technique or an idea that I used over and over and over, down through the years, at the right time, of course, with different ones of my people who were at that same point in their career. Folks, that's a little coaching lesson. Little. Little part of my background, but it shows how the leader can make a difference. The leader can stretch, the leader can provoke and do it without yelling. All the dead gum time and ranting and raving and making it unpleasant, and even you sting them a little bit, but still have fun with it. So go out and see what you could do to provoke your people to greatness. That's what Art and Bob Turley did with me.
