My guest today is Chester Elton, the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Carrot Principle, which has sold over 1.5 million copies to date. He has been described by the Toronto Globe and Mail as "an apostle of appreciation," a moniker which he has whole-heartedly embraced.

Coming from an athletic and competitively-minded family, Chester has always seen value in recognizing individual accomplishments. While selling televisions in New York City Chester was given the opportunity to work as a recognition program salesman to pharmaceutical companies, a service he felt was not only necessary in the corporate world, but noble.

Chester soon approached his boss about a potential way to increase sales: write a book. If their company could be seen as a "thought-leader," clients would come to them, hopefully in droves. His boss was very excited about the idea, but there was a catch: he wanted Chester to write the book.

"He goes, 'I love that idea.' He says, 'Write the book.' And I said, 'Kent, you give me these crushing quotas every year. I'm a sales guy, I'm not a writer.' And then he said something that really changed my life forever. He said, 'You know what, Chester, you're a smart guy. Figure it out.'"

Chester has certainly "figured it out." He and his co-author, Adrian Gostick, have written over ten books on the importance of recognition (or "carrots") in the workforce, and they're not showing any signs of slowing down. Their latest book, The Best Team Wins, examines the new disciplines of high performance teams and the differentiators in the workforce that have sprung up in the past twenty years.

"You know, we're doing all this stuff…to create a customer experience that has them…not just loyal customers. They're raving fans of your products and services, and those are our five disciplines."

Join us as we discuss the power of recognition, the five disciplines of high performance teams, and how the prodigal son ended up in Chester's family coat of arms. Listen on iTunes or in the player below, and if you enjoy the show, please make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode.

Takeaways and links from the episode at http://whitneyjohnson.com/chester-elton