Why It's Important To Bring Out The Little Kid In Your Employees

Jennifer Dulski, the president and chief operating officer of social change web platform Change.org, got her start in a teaching program.

After graduating college, Dulski tells the New York Times she started and taught at Summerbridge Pittsburgh, a program designed to help motivated middle-school students become the first member of their families to attend college. She says the experience taught her a lot about how to motivate people, support them, and help them achieve.

When she eventually moved on to work at Yahoo, Google, and now Change.org, Dulski said she still found herself drawing on lessons she learned from that early teaching experience. To energize her team, she would set clear priorities and then create rewards for reaching goals, which "made it fun."

During one particular quarter, Dulski told her employees that if they reached all three they'd go to the horse races. When they did, she gave everyone $50 to bet and says "they had so much fun."

"I learned as a teacher that everybody has a little kid inside them, and people really love these fun, silly things," she explains. "They may not admit they love them, but they do."

Want your business advice featured in Instant MBA? Submit your tips to tipoftheday@businessinsider.com. Be sure to include your name, your job title, and a photo of yourself in your email.