HATTIE: Once you have good people and they know how to do a job, Marty Edelston’s techniques will work to keep people continuously improving.

MARTY EDELSTON: Well, I-Power is a simple suggestion system that’s sort of automated. It was something that Peter Drucker suggested, not with that name, but he said, ‘Make your meetings more interesting. Ask the people at your next meeting for two suggestions,’ which I did, and I was just knocked over by the suggestions. They were just so fantastic.

Unidentified Man #1: I have two ideas today. WE have many premiums in very small quantities that are still usable, but they’re just not being used. So my idea is, why not test a premium offer for bottom-line personal and money’s worth, in which we give a mystery gift of six different premiums, our choice. What it does is it utilizes dead inventory and conceivably may be a premium that improves response, so I think it’s testable.

MARTY: It’s just amazing, and it’s not just the suggestions; that’s the detail. It’s how we get people to think, and it brings a huge amount of cooperation.

Man #1: You can use premiums that are…

Unidentified Woman #1: Older, like two or three years…

Man #1: Yeah.

Unidentified Woman #2: Yeah, that’s a good idea.

Man #1: Or that, you know, relate to other books that these people might not have received.

MARTY: The I-Power meeting that you did attend, um, only hinted at it. But at some of these meetings you’ll come out with an idea and someone else will say, ‘but we could make it blue,’ and then someone will say, ‘Yes, but we can put yellow polka dots on it.’ And odiously, I’m saying it wrong. But it’s just so exciting when that building goes on.

HATTIE: The give-and-take and the back-and-forth between departments ad between units who would not normally talk to one another, and then maybe eventually jeopardize each other’s productivity, not on purpose, but just because they weren’t talking. But the I-Power gets them together to talk.

MARTY: And we’ve used it; once you become adept at it, you can use it in other ways. We’ve had differences between people here, some really unpleasant situations, where you’re gonna have in any business. We had it, too. And others have tried to solve it, and then I came in a couple of times. And I say, ’Hattie, would you please give me five reasons, five things you can do that would make Marty’s life better? And, Marty, would you please give me five things that you can do to make Hattie’s life better?’ ‘And also, Hattie, would you give me five things that Marty’s doing that steps all over your feet, and vice versa? But give it to me. Don’t exchange it. Give it to me. I’m in the middle.’ ‘And then I will edit it out and change the language so it’s acceptable.’ And it’s just incredible. It’s just like magic.