8. The Four P's of Greatness with Fred Meyers

Part 1 of 2

Fred Meyers, President & Founder of Queensboro.com joins the podcast and talks about what he's learned about leadership, innovation and culture across 4 decades of business.

In Part 1, Fred shares Queensboro's 4 P's of Greatness.

As Fred writes on the Queensboro website:
We will never be better than the people we have working here. If we want to be great, everyone working here has to be great.

Always do the right thing.Value relationships above all.Innovate and have fun!

And this list became Queensboro's Four P's of Greatness:

Productive
Do you have the basic skills and ability to do your job well? Attitude and hard work are important but they will never be a substitute for skills and ability. You don't have to be a superstar to be Productive, but you do have to be good at what you do. And this, of course, is often much easier said than done.Positive
A great teammate will actively lift up all those around him or her. As simple as it sounds, not everyone believes or is capable of doing this. Many feel if they are Productive, they shouldn't need to be Positive. And while being Positive is like breathing to some, it truly can be very difficult for others. But we believe it is central to greatness. No single thing has so significantly transformed Queensboro over the past two years than the implementation of the Positive P. And it is not like we were so negative before! This emphasis on Positivity, however, has given us a new energy that now accompanies everything we do, and it is this energy that fuels us in our quest for greatness. One more important point about Positive? Neutral is not positive. Only Positive is Positive. If you are not actively lifting people up, you are not being Positive.Principled
We all have our beliefs, but one thing we can all agree on is to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. When someone is principled, you know how he or she is going to act and you know they can be trusted. There can be no real communication without trust and without communication, nothing can get done. How do we want to be treated? This can also be a tricky thing some times. Some like the direct approach. Others prefer a little more subtlety and encouragement. What do we all want? Respect, feedback that is job focused and not personal, encouragement, and a little compassion.Proactive
OK. So someone is great at their job, and is positive and principled. That's a pretty good employee and teammate, right? No doubt about it. To be truly great, however, it is not quite enough. To be truly great you need that something "extra", and that quality we capture in our final P, Proactive. A proactive person doesn't just do his or her job and react to whatever is comes at them. By instinct and nature, they question, learn, push and strive. Proactivity is the special sauce of Greatness! Proactivity is what causes a person to stop and pick up a piece of trash instead of walking right over it, and it is what causes a boy scout to stop while rushing on the way to the ball field to help an old lady across the street. Proactivity is at the heart of our humanity and is ultimately where all innovation and positive change comes from.