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One more time how do we motivate people?

Article Overview: How to motivate people? The hoary old chestnut that never seems to be resolved and on which is written so much I am wary of contributing to the confusions and misinformation. It is not really possible to ‘motivate’ someone rather you offer them reasons why they could or should motivate themselves. It does sound a little obvious since each person has select and very exclusive to their own mind and feelings. The term ‘motivation’ in business often means something like: Get people performing better than they are now. That may or may not involve ‘motivation’, but it is surprising the discussions that occur around the issue of ‘how to get them going?’

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One more time how do we motivate people?

Aiming for some degree of safety, I first offer a summary of the issues surrounding motivation which are non-controversial.
o There are only two psychological parameters you want people to manage, their feelings and their thoughts.
o If someone is not clear about what to do, or how to do it then they will not do it well.
o Everyone one brings feelings and thoughts to work from outside work and these can erode work performance.
o People are more committed and motivated on projects of most interest to them than to the company or team leader or company goals (even if they did agree and sign to them?
o People do not like unpleasantness or abuse or to be constantly told they are no good or lazy or ineffective.
o People prefer pleasant surroundings.
o People will leave a job if they can go to a similar job, with similar circumstances and conditions, and get more money.
o Performance pay on its own does not work very well in gaining increased performance’ performance pay is no substitute for effective leadership which needs to be in place if performance pay is to pay off.
There could be other issues, but this list provides a good base and enables creation of a definite plan for ‘motivating’ the team.
Step 1 Get clarity: Gaining real clarity is harder than it sounds. Do not accept anything but complete clarity which can be tested. Clarity is ensuring that people know and accept the goals as achievable, and are very clear on those goals. Second, knowing the goals is not enough; people also need to be very clear on how to achieve the goals, not in broad or general terms but the quite precise actions needed. Adopt the rule: If someone cannot tell you exactly what they need to do to achieve some particular goals then they cannot and will not do it, or do it with much less effectiveness than you think.
Step 2 Establish people emotional comfortable with what they must do: Once people clear then you need check if they comfortable with doing what they need do. For example, a sales person may know and agree to need to prospect by phoning database after hours, but when put to comfort test, they are not emotional comfortable with doing it and most likely they will not do it, or only do it to some small degree, or do it poorly as fits their emotional predisposition. If you do not take time to explore their emotional response, you may ‘discuss’ telephone prospecting with team, and think they are all onside and agree and then find it does not happen.
There is no simple solution, suggestions include following:
1. Provide training in self-management and managing emotional responses to actions essential and agreed to.
2. Review with person other ways of achieving number of opportunities that do not involve after hours phoning.
3. Use the team members good at phoning to ‘buddy’ with those who are not.
Step 4 Establish that at work the focus needs to be on the actions needed to succeed. Discuss and agree with the team that the focus at work is work, and in particular to adopt those actions essential to achieve the goals agreed to and that many of the home or private issues and concerns are not relevant at work and there needs to be a deliberate effort to leave them at home.
Step 5 Guide people to focus on their own work success. Get people to agree they want to be successful in their job, show them how to be successful, encourage and reward the actions that will make them successful, and expect them to get on with it.
Step 6 Provide guidance on performance and how to do it better. Any actions acted out regularly can and will become rote, therefore it is important people are guided to reflect and review the actions needed to be successful and to keep them sharp and effective.
Step 7 Ensure the business processes that underpin staff performance are clear, simple, and effective. Business processes are the responsibility of management. If the business processes are ineffective, and if people feel they are compensating for weak business processes, then they will become apathetic toward their performance.
Step 8 Provide positive recognition of good performance and reprimand poor performance. A simple carrot and stick approach, it still has its place for providing and setting definite lines of demarcation.
Step 9 Provide a reasonable working environment. We are getting down the list of factors in order of priority, but it is still important.
Step 10 Treat people with respect. It is simple, treat people as you would expect a friend to treat you.
Step 11 Ensure competitive salaries and wages. If you keep losing good people to the opposition, then you need review your wages and salary policy.
Step 12 Use money wisely. Performance pay works, but the performance pay policy needs to be well constructed, operated independent of the management, and have the respect of the staff expected to respond.
There is no one thing to do, people are more complicated than that. Now it may be possible to tweak and adjust this list, but it sensibly and fairly charts the sort of factors that need to be in any comprehensive strategic program for enabling best possible staff performance against the profit and loss.

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Article Tags: circumstances, clarity, company goals, definite plan, effective leadership, feelings, job, money, motivation, psychological parameters, surroundings, team leader, work performance

About the Author: Graham Little
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Dr Graham Little is founder of OPD International specialising in applying his SHRM model in small and large organisation. He has written nine books on leadership, numerous articles and coaching workbooks. His speciality is human behavior and development in authority systems and he has been a consultant to large and small organisations for thirty years. He has also researched social science for thirty years and has his own web site at www.grlphilosophy.co.nz. He is an Associate Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management, Member of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, Member of the Human Resource Institute of New Zealand and Member of the Institute of Directors. He can be contacted via info@opdcoach.com. OPD International (www.opdcoach.com) is a web based system for achieving improved alignment between business strategy and goals and staff behaviour that will guide team leaders: (1) to better identify the ideal actions that enable the best possible result; (2) to engage staff minds with the ideals; (3) to increase staff professionalism so that the ideals are acted out more often, more precisely and with greater intensity. The result is improved performance.

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