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Well-dressed, slick, and suave, they ooze charm from every pore as they oil their way across the floor. Attend the seminar, buy the books, the CDs, the DVDs and, voila, you're on the fast track to being a winner.
And they have been joined on the self-improvement circuit
by what's been dubbed the "overcome all odds" speakers. People who have beaten addiction, overcome a loss of limbs and other life-threatening obstacles. Their underlying message: "so what's holding you back?"
Each and every one can be inspiring while we are in their orbit - but does the feeling last? Do we deflate the instant we are released from their magnetic field?
Certainly, Forbes.com columnist Jack Trout has no time for what he calls the "happiness hucksters".
The advertising and marketing consultant advises businesses wanting to inspire their staff to start by improving the basics.
"Take an honest look at your workforce. Chances are, you've got people who don't read well, don't speak well, can't compose a coherent memo or are either nervous about computers or use them too much. That's where to start the training."
After that, work on building skills appropriate to the business, he advises.
Closer to home, Otago University professor of management Steven Grover, who has conducted well-received leadership courses for 250 senior members of the police over four years as well as for commercial organisations, is sceptical but not dismissive of such gurus as his fellow American, the lantern-jawed Tony Robbins.
"Obviously, it is a show and they use all the theatrical techniques to connect to people's emotions," says Grover.
"The techniques are like evangelists so that they make people feel good, feel comfortable, [and] they present a positive image. Tony Robbins or others who do that have to be attractive, be wearing nice clothes, which is really what charisma is.
"My impression of what they are doing is putting people in a positive, emotional space and then getting them to think about something."
Does it work? Quite possibly, says Grover, if you already want to change.
"My opinion is that things like that are probably powerful for people who are at a certain point in their lives, who are susceptible to or ready for change. If you are ready for some change in your life then you go to one of those things and that can inspire you to engage in those changes."
Want to achieve something? Then set some goals.
"It is one of the only things we know in organisational behaviour for sure - that you are more likely to get something done if you set it as a goal than if you don't set it as a goal."
Do you need a highly paid guru to inspire the troops? Is there a cheaper way?
The feelgood factor the gurus engender is much more likely to get people engaged in the message than if they are criticised or dryly lectured.
But a trip to the local book shop's self-help shelves may do just as well - or, as Grover recommends, check the same books out from the neighbourhood library.
What about the second tier of motivational speaker - the overcome all odds brigade? Does their story inspire more than admiration?
No studies have been done on the effectiveness of the gurus or the overcomers but Grover is also sceptical of odds-beaters. Growing up with a father handicapped by polio probably does that to you, he thinks.
For him, seeing someone succeed in life with a disability was an accepted fact of life.
Feeling lucky by comparison to others may be motivational for some, he grants, but that's probably more to do with the random way motivation strikes.
"Any of these things may work. For some people it might be just watching the infomercial, for some people it's going to the seminar, some people like to read a book."
Grover doesn't even claim total responsibility for the effects of Otago University's own leadership courses. Feedback from supervisors and employers of people who have done the course has been great, he says.
"But it's not really what we did; it's just that they were ready for a career change at a certain point of their life. It's inspirational in the sense that they just needed something to click."
At Forbes.com, Trout emphasises the back-to-basics approach and quotes retired Navy commander Richard Marcinko, who now heads a private security firm.
"People have to be trained for exactly what they really do," says Marcinko.
"For example, the training of the FedEx workforce focuses on the single, primary vision that created the company in the first place: overnight delivery.
FedEx has trained its workers to ship and track packages so efficiently that the US Army, in designing the supply system for the Gulf War, copied the training techniques of FedEx."
Grover's less keen on basics, preferring to focus on identifying the core reason for being in a job, and the more exciting the reason the better. A fashion store will aim to have the coolest fashions; the police aim to make the community safer.
That can be inspiring, he says, and suggests looking for the best, coolest, greatest example of your business type and emulating as much of the model as financial constraints will allow. Can't afford all the bells and whistles? Then go for fantastic service, friendly, smiling people who are well dressed and build from there.
And if staff nail it what is the role for rewards?
Marc Anderson, Waikato Management School senior lecturer in strategy and human resource management, says widely supported expectancy theory maintains that people will be most motivated to put in a high performance if they value the rewards they are working for and feel they are attainable.
And rewards do not have to be monetary; prestige is good, he says, citing the Nobel prize at the upper end of the scale and, in one company, a golden banana, which was on another scale altogether but whose value arose from local events.
Employers may think a suitable reward for everyone may be a little light relief from every day doings. Could a day out on the rally cars or the obstacle course be a last-gasp win/win by being fun and motivational?
Physical or mental challenges as motivation has been researched, says Grover, but the findings are not, well, inspirational.
"When it's done safely and co-operatively, it can bring a newly-formed team together as long as it is not too threatening. There is a positive thing from learning teamwork skills on the problem-oriented tasks."
But there are pitfalls, not least being when someone beats the boss who really, really wanted to win. And it does no good for individual self esteem or team building if someone is embarrassed by lack of ability at wall climbing or leapfrogging. Grover suggests staying away from the extreme challenges.
