Cloutier on the Fear Factor

I see that George (Fire the nephews!) Cloutier, who makes his living by applying tough love to small and middlesized businesses, gets himself a whole boatload of free publicity from the New York Times. He's basically on the right track: most businesses could gain from soneone who kicks butt and takes names, and a lot of business talk is indeed sentimental caca. But I wonder if he is missing a point about employees. "You have to treat your people with respect," he says, but still "fear is the best motivator." He says:

Getting good people is 100 times more difficult than conventional wisdom says. The fact is, you're going to deal with a lot of mediocre people, no matter how hard you try. ... The concept that if you love your employees they'll perform is on the edge of insanity."

Of course he's right about "being liked." But has he ever stopped to ponder why he seems to come up against so many mediocre people? It might be that if he were a bit less of a bunghole, he could get a better class of employee to begin with.