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Are You Sending Mixed Motivation Messages?

Guest post by: Howard Shore

Article Overview: It is so easy to send mixed messages to an employee. The best way to discuss this is to share a real live example where a client hired me to coach a partner. Then my client unwittingly made several decisions that totally demotivated his employee.

Are You Sending Mixed Motivation Messages?

It is so easy to send mixed messages to an employee. The best way to discuss this is to share a real live example where a client hired me to coach a partner. Then my client unwittingly made several decisions that totally demotivated his employee. In my initial meeting with the Managing Partner he indicated that he had a person leading one of his practices that used to produce double the revenue compared to today. He could not understand why, as she seemed to be working hard, had proven capable of producing, and he thought she could produce more. He assured me he was totally committed to helping her succeed, acknowledged some personal style issues he would like to see her change, but it was imperative she get back on track.

After meeting with the coaching candidate ("Sarah") I concluded that she does have a lot of potential and desire, so I took the assignment. After 3 months, I found that I had a lot more than a partner to coach. In the first 30 days we made tremendous progress. As is usual with a willing, able and motivated person we see immediate results. The first thing we focus on is time management. We allocate specific time to business development, collections, billings and how to remove unproductive time. In the first month, billings for her and her staff were up, collections were amazing (it was year-end), and the pipeline for new business had started to form.

So just when I was thinking, "We are going to do great," the "Firm" kicks in and begins to send the mixed messages. Strike one happened when they took away 1 of her staff of 2 without discussing it with her. When she tried to discuss this issue, the answer was that the firm needed to make cuts, and she was was overstaffed for what she was producing. The lesson here was not whether the personnel cut was wrong or right, but how the firm should have handled this decision relative to the partner's sensibilities and what it did to motivation. Through her eyes, it made her look bad with her team because she did not know what was happening, showed a lack of confidence that her production would get to the needed levels, and did not make her feel like she was running her own practice. In the end, not including her in making the business decision knocked the motivation out of her.

Through my continued coaching, "Sarah" realized there was no point to fighting futile battles, She moved away from the distraction management had thrown at her and worked on securing a quiet deal with another partner in the firm to have part-time access to the person she lost, should she need it. However, there was a lot of productivity lost while all of this was going on.

No sooner did we get done with this distraction when the Managing Partner made another move without talking to Sarah. He hired another partner to work in "her" practice. His thought process was that creating a little competition would "get her going." The message from Sarah's perspective was that the Managing Partner obviously had no confidence in her and that she was no longer running this practice. You can imagine the work it took for me to help her get motivated again, to get undistracted, and to get back to working at 100% again. It took 2 weeks before she calmed down, just in time for her to take her 10-day vacation.

At this point, 90 days had past since I was hired, and the Managing Partner was to review how we had done and whether we should continue coaching this person. His initial impression was that he was not sure that he was seeing enough results. By the way, despite all of this nonsense, we were still able to increase her billing run rate (with taking a 10-day vacation) by about 20%. The real question is what would the numbers have been without the distractions and real thoughtful commitment to this Partner's motivation?

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Article Tags: decisions, Managing Partner, mixed messages, motivation



Related Forum Posts
Re: How To Stay Motivated In Your Business - Motivation spurs people into actions every time. When there is no motivation the reason to move forward seems lost. Thanks so much for this post Evan
Re: Tell a friend - Thanks for the update Evan! I guess worse case scenario we can always just "cut and past" useful links to send to our friends. But in truth that might actually work better since our friends/business associates will actually take the time to open and read the messages we send them, since it's from a trusted source (e.g. Messages sent by the "Tell a friend" feature might get deleted by recipients who have never heard of the EvanCarmichael.com brand, even if it says it was sent by someone they know).
Re: Cash up front ... or Royalties? - It depends, especially since the question did not include many specifics. Take the following as an example: Sometimes a product is exclusively bought/licensed by a larger company for the sole purpose of keeping it off the market. Your decision has several options: Options: 1) all cash up front 2) all royalties 3) mixed up-front cash and royalties So, in this scenario, you would most likely go with primarily cash up front since there won't be sales to generate royalties. That is one example including a little bit of criteria for making the decision. Mixed is most common. I am not learned/experienced enough at this point to have criteria for calculating the mix. I do think I have seen equations in my reading that provide guidance here. So, it definitely depends on the situation, and probably more on the business situation than than the situation of your personal life. If you are fortunate enough to encounter this dilemma, be sure to hire a professional with demonstrated experience to help aid in negotiation. Inventors tend to get greedy when they face this opportunity. Don't be greedy. Listen to your professionals. More than one person has lost it all because of greed in this stage.
And Commitment From Above... - In my experience in larger organizations, there is often a conflict between the training the sharp-end employees receive and that of the more senior managers. That sometimes means the employees feel 'done to', and don't have the belief that their bosses will be on board too. That means they feel pretty disgruntled about the organization too and higher leaving/absence rates can be the more obvious symptoms, with deeper resistance, even sabotage being quite possible too. For example, sending a bunch of employees on a gung-ho selling skills programme (with a fancy lunch included), is incongruous with not getting their pay check right or management not building good relationships with their people. The key here is understanding what training will help employees deliver the needs of the business as well as ensurinjg it is of value and in context for the individuals too. If it's not a win-win (in the bigger picture of their workplace experience too), it's just not going to fly. Sending someone on a training courtse is not a 'fix-it' for all that ails an organization.
Re: Finding AND Keeping Good People - Employee retention or as you mention “Keeping the Good People” is one of the biggest challenges for any growing business. It takes a huge effort from the entrepreneur’s end. I can come up with the following when it comes to KEEPing the good people- 1. Motivation of the employees 2. Recognition of the needs of the employees 3. Activities to make the employees feel valuable towards the organization 4. Make benefits more accessible 5. Offer profit sharing incentives 6. Create clear career paths at the company 7. Consider telecommuting, job sharing and other flexible working arrangements 8. Incentives are essential and they don't have to be huge 9. Have other managers praise an employee's work 10. Be sensitive to the balance between work and private life


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