IS THERE SUCH A THING AS MOTIVATION?
SOME MANAGERS’ DEFINITION OF MOTIVATION IS “do what I want you to do, with a minimum of trouble.” That is authority, pure and simple. It is definitely not motivation. It is using your positional power to get people to do things not because they want to but because they have no choice.
Motivation is getting people to want to do what needs to be done, willingly and not by force. The best managers spend time finding out what motivates their employees, blend those motivations with the needs of the organization, then create an environment in which their employees can be successful. There are many ways to find out what motivates your employees. You can observe their behavior, get to know them after a few months, or have them fill out a survey or questionnaire. There is one other method: Ask them!
SELF-MOTIVATION
The only motivation that really works is self-motivation. While your people may genuinely want to see the organization succeed, they are primarily motivated by their own interests. The most successful managers artfully align the self-interests of their team members with the goals of the organization.
When you do a job because it aligns with your self-interest, your motivation is self-perpetuating. You don’t have to be forced into doing it. One of the primary responsibilities of a manager is to change the feelings of team members from “have to” to “want to.”
Also, a good manager gets the job done by finding out how different people respond. If they are self-motivated, then they might be self-motivated either to get the job done or to just get by. They react in different ways, and you need to understand them well enough to know how they react and to what.
Some people are self-motivated by the possibility of a promotion. As soon as they see a relationship between their current performance and a promotion, they’ll strive to perform at the top of their ability. Others seek their manager’s approval. Since satisfactory performance is how they receive approval, they follow that path. Still others like to compete in a friendly way with their peers. This type of person wants to be the best performer in the area and so will work hard at achieving that objective.
Many people are working simply for the dollar, and the way to get more dollars is to perform well to maximize the next salary increase. Many others take great personal pride in doing whatever they do well. Depending on the condition of the labor market, a number of people will be working hard to keep from being unemployed.
Some team members bring their feelings for family into their attitude toward the job, but that is often tied into one of the other reasons mentioned—pursuing the dollar. They want to be able to provide more for their family, which requires more dollars.
You can increase the likelihood that your team members will tap into their self-motivation by making sure you provide them with the goal clarity discussed in Chapter 9. When they have a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished and are allowed, within the boundaries you provide, to proceed as they see fit they are likely to be more engaged.
THE APPEAL OF A BARN RAISING
Most of us are motivated, whether we realize it or not, by the opportunity to be part of something greater than ourselves. It is likely that some of your most joyous memories involved working with others to achieve something you could not have done by yourself.
Think of an old-fashioned barn raising in which many members of a community joined forces for a few days to build a barn for a neighbor. The important element is that they worked together to do something none of them could do on their own, at least not in the same amount of time. Similar experiences for you could be a community fundraiser for a family in significant need, a team that created an app or worked on a new piece of software, a project team that developed a new product, serving in a military role where joint effort was critical, or a sporting team that did particularly well when each team member’s talents were effectively applied.
When you create a setting where your people see that their efforts are contributing to a positive outcome well beyond what they could achieve individually, they will be more motivated and find greater meaning in what they do.
THE MANAGER’S ROLE
Learning how to maximize the performance of staff is a vital and permanent part of your daily work life. You’ll have varying levels of turnover, which brings in new people. You need to get to know and understand them. Your obligation in this matter deserves particular emphasis. Employees want to be understood. They want to feel that their tasks lead to meaningful outcomes. They want to feel important as people, not as pieces of production to get the job done. Your genuine concern for them will shine through in all you do. To understand and appreciate them doesn’t mean you need to be a parental figure. Nor do you need to compromise your principles as far as quality of work is concerned.
Concern for and understanding of your staff are signs of management strength, not weakness. The so-called tough, autocratic boss may achieve satisfactory results for a while, but over the long haul, this strategy will work against him. The performance he receives is driven in large part by fear, and his people will be inclined to give only the minimum they can get away with.
Many managers believe that if you are fair, concerned, and understanding, you can’t be tough when the situation demands or requires it. Nothing is further from the truth. It actually makes the show of authority much more effective because it is rarely displayed.
There is one area in particular that you must handle with skill and diplomacy. Remember that some of your staff might be self-motivated in order to provide for their families. Of this group, some employees will respond favorably to your interest in their families, but others will consider personal inquiries an invasion of their privacy. So how does a manager handle these contradictory positions? If an employee on her own offers information about her family, you can then inquire about the family. In conversation, you’ll learn about spouse, children, hobbies, and other interests. With this type of employee, you can make an inquiry such as, “How did Jeff and his team do in Little League last night?” This is a prime example of getting to know your employees—with their permission—and it fits into the concept that everyone is not motivated by the same things.
On the other hand, if you have an employee who never volunteers anything about her personal life, leave it alone and don’t violate the obvious preference for privacy. In getting to know your employees, there is a tendency to work with the new people and ignore the seasoned employees who do an outstanding job. Of course, it’s important to bring the new people up to speed, but you must never take the outstanding employees for granted. The outstanding achievers need to know how much their quality performance is noticed and appreciated.
DOVETAILING
If you are familiar with carpentry, you know what a dovetail joint is. It is one of the strongest ways to join two pieces of wood, for example for the corner of a drawer. The name comes from the shape of the interlocking “teeth” in the joint that get wider as they get longer, similar to the shape of a dove’s tail. In this joint two different pieces of wood are joined together to create a strong connection.
There is a powerful management technique that takes this same approach, joining two different elements to create a strong connection. The two elements are the aspirations of your individual team members and the needs of your organization. When you can align the professional and personal goals of a team member with the needs of your organization, you have a committed and engaged employee.
Dovetailing involves two simple steps. First, get to know the members of your team. Let them tell you about their professional and personal goals and interests. This is not something that can be rushed. You will need to build some healthy and deserved trust with team members before you ask them about these types of interests. Often you will be able to discern them by just being a good listener. As your rapport develops, employees will often tell you about their non-work activities. Be attentive to what they share.
A good question to get this kind of discussion started is, “What are your professional goals? What do you want to be doing three years from now?” Most employees will be pleased that you are interested. Be fully open about why you are asking, to help put them at ease. Tell them that you are always looking for ways to blend the interests and aspirations of your team members with the needs of the organization.
The second step is to be attentive for opportunities to align these personal aspirations with what your organization needs to accomplish. This concept is illustrated in Figure 21-1.
FIGURE 21-1
DOVETAILING: Aligning a team member’s professional and personal goals with the needs of your organization
For example, let’s say you learn that one of your employees is learning to speak and write Spanish. A few weeks later, you are sitting in a staff meeting led by your boss when she mentions that the company is close to creating a formal strategic alliance with a company in Central America. Perfect. There may be a way to get your team member involved with that initiative to everyone’s benefit. Your team member will be able to improve and utilize his Spanish. The company will have an improved ability to communicate with the strategic partner. And you will be a part of an exciting new initiative.
Or let’s say you are running a marketing operation and one of your team members who does market data collection and analysis tells you that she hopes to transition into information technology someday. When there is a need for staff-level interaction with the information technology department, that employee is the obvious choice. She is excited about the exposure to an area of interest and you get an employee who will be extra engaged. Will you lose her ultimately to an IT role? Probably. But you would lose her anyway sooner or later and in the meantime you have a team member who is involved and enthusiastic.
The more you can employ dovetailing, the more dedicated your team will be. You will also be addressing one of your primary responsibilities as a manager and a leader—developing your people.
THE ROLE PLAYED BY TITLES
The value of titles is underestimated in far too many organizations.
Titles don’t cost a company anything, so you ought to be liberal in using them as long as you maintain equity within the organization. For example, you can’t have one department that’s liberal in the use of titles and another that is conservative.
The banking industry is well known for this practice, and although some executives in other businesses put them down for it, I think the banks know exactly what they’re doing. A customer of a bank dealing with the vice president of consumer loans will feel much more gratified than dealing with a loan clerk. The spouse of the vice president of consumer loans is surely a greater booster of the bank than the spouse of the loan clerk. The bank’s standing in the community is elevated by its liberal use of titles. The vice president in this instance may have the same duties as a loan clerk, but which one has the more positive self-image and the stronger self-motivation? The answer is obvious.
As you move up the corporate ladder, you may have an opportunity to influence your company’s policy regarding the use of titles. There must be an orderly manner in their use. You don’t start a new employee with a super title for a routine clerical position. An impressive title should serve as recognition for superior performance.
A company’s morale can be increased dramatically by a more enlightened use of titles. Titles can go a long way toward giving an employee a sense of self-esteem and of being appreciated. The next time your company has a salary freeze, consider giving a key employee a new title. You may be surprised by the positive response. If you would like to give her a raise but can’t due to the freeze acknowledge as much. Be clear that you realize that a new title is not a substitute for a raise but for now it is all you have the ability to do. She already knows she won’t be getting a raise, but the new title shows that you appreciate her work.
We all want to feel important, and so do our employees. You will be well served by helping them experience that feeling.
THE STATUS SYMBOL
Another matter that falls in the motivation area is the status symbol. Obviously, status symbols work or they wouldn’t find such widespread application in the business world.
The key to the executive washroom has almost become a joke, but it is still an effective perk. The size of an office or workspace, the quality of furniture, preferred parking, company-paid club memberships, company-leased automobiles for executive use, corporate aircraft—the proliferation of status symbols is limited only by the human imagination.
All could be considered as attempts to inspire people to raise their aspirations. These things are not important in themselves, but indicate that the employee is recognized as having arrived at a certain level in the organization. They’re a lot more important to those who don’t have them than to those who do. There is an old saying that goes: “Why is it that most of the people who say money isn’t important are the ones who have plenty of it?” The same goes for status symbols.
A company should not become overly concerned about status symbols, but if it makes them available to its employees, it should not then criticize those same employees for longing after these methods of “keeping score.” Actually, for most people, it’s not the acquisition of the symbols that is important; it’s what they signify to other people. Many status symbols would fall by the wayside if no one else knew you had achieved them. It’s fine for you to want to attain certain status symbols, but it’s important that you keep them in proper perspective. Don’t let them become so critical to you that it’ll tear you up if you don’t attain them as quickly as you think you should.
You cannot substitute status symbols for a satisfactory salary program or a good management approach. Unfortunately, some managers and even some companies think otherwise. They treat people badly or pay them below the competition and then figure they can make up for it with status symbols. This attitude is an insult to the intelligence of their employees.
Status symbols are the icing on the cake; they are not the cake itself. When used with intelligence and some insight into human behavior, status symbols can be a valuable tool.
NEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT
Some employees have a need for achievement. Usually, they are employees whose needs for security, salary, working conditions, status, rewards, and so forth have been met. Employees who have this need usually want to be involved in decisionmaking, want to further develop their skills and talents, find new projects and tasks challenging, and want to advance in the organization. If you can satisfy these needs, you will not only have a self-motivated employee working with you but a highly productive one as well.
SUBJECTIVITY OF MOTIVATION
Many new managers are highly motivated, and that’s great. But they make the mistake of believing that their employees will be motivated by what motivates the manager. That is likely not the case. Keep in mind that very different things may motivate your direct reports. This is not a problem—just be sure not to impose your beliefs or value system onto others. Also remember what motivates someone today may not motivate the same person in a few months. For example, today you may be motivated by achievement. Next month, you go out and buy a new house with a bigger mortgage. Now having job security—a steady job with a good salary—will motivate you. Try not to make assumptions about what motivates your team members. You need to find out and then act upon it.