Summary

Employee motivation does not occur as a result of something you do to, with, or about employees. Staff motivation occurs because of what you To do for employees.

The secret of motivation

Please read the following award very carefully. The motivation of the staff is a consequence. That reality is rarely mentioned. Motivation occurs as a result of something else. Issues like rewards and incentives, recognition, job satisfaction, inspirational leadership, and so on are details that reinforce consequences. These are important details: but details nonetheless.

A culture of staff contribution

To develop highly motivated staff, you need to create a particular culture: a culture of staff contribution and involvement. Only a manager can do this. Such a culture enables people to demonstrably contribute to business success.

Until you establish this culture, you will never have the freedom to manage successfully. You’ll always be doing the job your people should be doing.

When staff become successful contributors, they can use rewards and incentives and various other recognition devices to support their successful contribution. But these devices by themselves will not create a highly motivated workforce. You have to create the culture to make the most of them.

Once you establish the culture of contribution and participation, you can take the next step: establishing a culture of staff autonomy. A culture where staff are free to operate without supervision.

The famous Brazilian manager, Ricardo Semler, puts it this way. “As a leader my job is to motivate them to go home proud of their work.”

a new perspective

Do you want highly motivated employees? If so, what can you do to make them “proud of their work”? I mean “proud”: not boastful or conceited, but proud in the sense that they know that they have done well for themselves, their colleagues, and the business.

Forget “peer talk”

The staff does not need pep talks, speeches and “speed ups”. They need guidance, information, encouragement, support, autonomy, responsibility, clear goals, and freedom to achieve and contribute positively to the business.

Motivation of the study

Gurus and academics have been studying “motivation” for decades. A famous study was started in 1932 at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company. The results are still debated today.

Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg

In 1943 Abraham Maslow proposed the Hierarchy of Needs. He suggested that human needs ranged from survival needs, such as food and shelter as the basis, to “self-fulfillment” as the highest form. It has been widely applied in business motivation applications.

In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor of MIT’s Sloan School of Management proposed that employees react to how managers perceived them. It became known as Theory X, Theory Y.

Frederick Herzberg published “Once again, how to motivate employees?” in 1968. he suggested that people are influenced by what he called motivation factors and hygiene factors. It became known as the two factor theory. Herzberg became a very influential person in business management.

There are many other theories and approaches. The studies continue. Gurus make new recommendations frequently. The jury is still out.” But studying “employee motivation” isn’t new.

The problem is “how”

These studies and many like them suggest alternatives to the “for them” approach. The problem is “how”. Most attempts to motivate staff are based on behaviour. It’s one thing to talk about employee engagement, empowerment and involvement. Another is to determine “how” to create it.

The Motivational Mindset Question

Like so many other issues in management, motivation is a way of thinking. At the center of this mentality is the question. “What can I do for my staff so that they are proud of their work and their contribution to my business improvements? What can I do to ensure that they see themselves as the main contributors to business success?

“to give” v. “Doing by”

It is a simple process. It revolves around two simple questions. “What do I want from them?” “What do I need to give them to give me what I want?” There is no “should” here. Don’t say “they should be motivated by what I offer them.” That won’t motivate anyone.

Points in common with marketing

Steve Jobs is considered a prominent marketer. But he did not conduct customer surveys. He tried to anticipate what customers expected and provide it. Most people have forgotten that Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple to design a computer for the home. There was no demand for such a machine at that time. We all know where that got them… and the rest of the world “What can I provide?” is a very important question in both motivation and marketing.

fooled by maxims

You will never create highly motivated employees by reciting maxims like “Good training doesn’t cost, it pays”, “People are our most important asset”, “We can’t succeed without good people”, “Our people are our blood”. . These are no more than three slogans. They may or may not be true. They are not a substitute for achieving better business results through superior people management.

A central business problem

Motivation is a matter of business improvement and sustainability. Without “highly motivated” staff, you cannot have a truly successful business. But that means motivation is more than “just a people thing.” It is a core business issue.

Challenges to conventional wisdom

Tea To do for The approach challenges many conventional ideas about staff performance. Please – Remember…

• Unless you are a qualified psychologist, don’t try to “get into their heads” – seek to “engineer” performance rather than coerce and manipulate employees.
• Employees pay much more attention to what you do than to what you say: “showing” will always work much more effectively than “telling.”
• You need effective teams more than you need effective individuals.
• Employees don’t have to relate well to each other to work together effectively.
• Training, by itself, will not improve performance. Training is essential. But well-trained staff don’t automatically lead to high-performing staff.
• Staff must be well informed on business matters. Lack of information stifles enthusiasm for effective performance

The essential To do for

1. Have a clear business focus and a specific and limited target market. Employees need to know exactly what you are trying to sell and who you are trying to sell to.

2. Make it very clear to employees the precise performance goals you expect them to achieve and how you will measure their success.

3. Establish systems that virtually guarantee that staff will be able to meet performance goals. Give employees the authority and autonomy to modify systems to achieve objectives.

4. Provide the necessary resources to build effective systems.

5. Build effective feedback mechanisms into your systems so that employees can measure their own performance and provide you with the information you need for business management purposes.

6. Work toward an overall system that allows employees to operate the business effectively every day without your intervention, except in very unusual circumstances.

Rewards and incentives

Your reward and incentive systems cannot be effective unless they support your “Make Fors”. Tea “Make Fors” They form the basis on which to establish rewards and incentives. But without the systems, your rewards and incentives will be window dressing at best and demotivating at worst.

incentive motivation

A client consulted me about an incentive scheme that was not giving the expected positive results. It was a generous plan. I discovered that to earn the incentive, the workers in question had to work at such a frenetic pace that

• made high demands on the cooperation of their co-workers,
• they were forced to work in conditions so uncomfortable that it was painful to stand up at the end of the shift.

I see similar problems where the same salespeople repeatedly win sales awards, largely because their territory efficiently contains loyal, supportive, and long-standing customers.

The Contribution Culture Perspective

Tea To do for The approach makes a clear link between staff motivation and business results. The purpose of having highly motivated staff is to produce better business results. This connection must be clear to both managers and staff.

This means that as a manager you have to look at your business differently.

• Your staff are effectively your business partners
• Utilizing the skills, knowledge, experience and opinions of your people will create greater business success
• If you want to fully utilize the knowledge of your staff, you must keep them fully informed.
• You need systems that encourage staff to make suggestions, offer feedback, and develop appropriate skills and systems to take them into account.
• Their job is to determine the business approach and target market, set performance targets and standards, and let staff “get on with it” on meeting targets.
• You may need to change the organizational structure and responsibilities of your business to To do for tackle the job for you
• To do for it requires an ongoing commitment to less formal management control and more personal accountability and control. It is not a temporary measure to deal with an emergency.

The Employee Perspective

when you practice To do for motivation, will create a workforce that

• Easily offer your opinions and viewpoints
• expects to share the benefits of business success
• value their role for their greatest contribution
• requires greater freedom to act autonomously and independently
• have high expectations of the performance of their co-workers
• they may need some mentoring and advice as they learn to develop.

Above all, they will be much more committed to their own effectiveness and business success. They will be “highly motivated.”

Conclusion

Let me remind you of what Ricardo Semler said. “As a leader my job is to motivate them to go home proud of their work.” Semler is an extraordinarily successful business manager. We must take note of what he says.