Tweet

Motivating With More Than Money

Guest post by: Gregg Gregory

Article Overview: The old adage still holds true - people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Motivating With More Than Money

Sheryl was good mortgage processor - mind you good, not great. Her performance evaluations showed just this. She got the job done with minimum error rates and in a timely manner. She was good.

In the mortgage banking industry it is not uncommon for the end of the month to become hectic especially when the market is good. November can prove to be particularly difficult. With Thanksgiving and Sheryl’s company closing both Thursday and Friday it was a four day weekend. Unfortunately the following Monday was only the 29th of the month and there was a lot to do by the end of the month. Most of the staff arrived in by 8:30 AM and were ready for a long day. After all, the majority were not new to the industry.

About 2:30 PM in the afternoon the office manager Patty went to the Vice President, Elliott, and said, “What should we do about Sheryl?” He looked perplexed and said, “It’s not her birthday, or company anniversary.” Patty then went on to tell him that Sheryl’s daughter was in her elementary school play that night. Elliott immediately said lets find a solution. In a matter of minutes they went out to the bull pen thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication. He then made the announcement, "We are in the midst of greatness. Among us today is a Stage Mother, Sheryl’s daughter Danielle is in her school play tonight and Mom needs to get home early so she can get ready and be front row in the audience."

Sheryl looked up and said, “I have discussed this with Danielle and she knows I have a lot of work to do today and will likely not be there tonight. It is not a big deal she has been in school plays in the past and this is not a big deal.” Everyone looked at Sheryl and said to go home that Elliott never gives anyone time off at the end of the month. She smiled and said she was staying.

After a very long day, Sheryl and Elliott were the last to leave and walked out together that evening at 10:45 PM. On the way home Elliott stopped by a 24 hour pharmacy and bought a thank you card. He went home and wrote out the card and mailed it early the next morning on his way into the office. This was another long day but not nearly as hectic.

As tough as Elliott is on employees at the end of the month, he's a little pussycat at the beginning of the month. Wednesday the workload was much lighter and that morning Elliott went to Sheryl and told her to take off about 1:00 PM for the rest of the day.

When Sheryl got home that afternoon Danielle was already home from school and came down the hall running hollering “Mommy, Mommy, I got a card from your boss.” Sheryl sat down and read the card that was sent to a nine year old little girl. The card read,

Dear Danielle,

Thanks for sharing your Mommy with us. We know how much she loves you and wanted to be with you Monday night at your school play. We love your Mommy very much and we love you too. Elliott and the staff at…

Elliott sent this card to a sweet nine year old little girl not because he was trying to motivate his employee but because it was the right thing to do. Over the next few months Sheryl’s quality of work improved dramatically. Her error ratio dropped by almost 5%. Her first time approvals increased by nearly 15%. Was this because she was better trained? She now realized she meant something to the entire team. The added motivation was nothing more than a by product of a great leader recognizing the important things in an employee’s life.

The old adage still holds true - people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Do you know the first names of each of your team member’s spouse partner or significant other? How about their children’s names? Now what about their pet’s name’s? These are the things that are critical to the success of any team regardless of the level or industry.

This is a classic example of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivators are those motivators that hit the heart, mind, and soul. They tend to be remembered for a long time. Extrinsic motivators work - they just do not have the staying power. The most common extrinsic motivator is money, and as Zig Ziglar says, “Money may not be the most important thing in the world, but it ranks up there close to oxygen.” When an employee is not making enough money to meet their basic survival needs then money is the only motivator. As long as they are meeting their basic survival needs, then money is not the most important motivator.

Think about this one. If you have an employee working significant overtime, think about sending a note home to his/her spouse. At least the spouse will know they were really working.

Related Articles
  Leadership Style and Motivating Employees
  Changing Your Ideas about Employee Motivation
  Rewards and Recognitions to Motivate Employees
  Advertising No Longer Has to Make the Sale
  I want them to want to be motivated to be on time!
  10 Reasons To Start An Internet Based Home Business
  Content Strategy: Your Online Site
  Learn How To Work At Home Using A Computer Now
  Motivating Employees in the Workplace
  Who’s Responsible for Increased Sales Anyway?
  Act On Your Idea To Start A Online Business And Start Making Money At Home
  The 5 Secrets of Motivating Your Sales Team
  Motivating Employees
  Today\'s \"un-rant\" - ATTITUDE
  Motivate Your Salespeople Like Richard Branson
  Employee Review Writer
  How to Make Your Business Truly All-About-Them
  Internet Marketing Specialist Can Help Your Business Grow
  What we Think About Sales Motivation is All Wrong
  Business Leadership - What it Takes to Differentiate Yourself in the 21st Century

Article Tags: business, management, motivation
Referred by: http://www.gci4training.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Which would you start: a Blog or Online Community? - It is a difficult decision to make. Lets start it this way - What are you more interested in? Money? or Friends? or Both? If its purely Money, then Blog might be an appropriate answer. But consider this - It will be people (visitors) that will bring traffic to your blog and then Money will follow. This will be possible after a time and during this time it will be your friends who will be the starters. If you are looking for friends only, then its true that not many will be interested in knowing how you have beaten them in the game or the other way round. So it will be preferable to have a Forum where they can share ideas with you and others. But you can share your insider knowledge with them and invite comments from your Blog. You can also put up information on what others (including your friends) don't know about Tennis. The blog you create can provide News, Inside Information and also Techniques that can be used by the new entrants in the world of Tennis.
Making Money in 2011 - Hello forum members! As we draw closer to the new year I thought it would be appropriate to change the title of our forum category "Making Money in 2010" to "Making Money in 2011" - I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions and wish everyone a prosperous New Year!
QuickBooks vs. Microsoft Money vs....? - I have always used Microsoft Money to run my business - accounting, invoicing, etc. It came with my computer when I got it and integrated well with my online banking system so everything is a breeze. It only takes 30-60 minutes every quarter to do the bookkeeping (keep in mind that I have a very simple business - no inventory, very little invoicing, I do all my payments by credit card, etc). Is QuickBooks or Money the best accounting tool for small business owners? Or is there something even better?
Re: What or Who Sparks Your Business Interest - It's interesting to see what the different motivations are by Age Category. I've noticed this around me: 20 to 29yr olds: Motivator: Money 30 to 39yr olds: Motivator: Success/Ambition 40 to 49yr olds: Motivator: Family comes first 50 to 59yr olds: Motivator: Leaving a legacy i've only gone that far in my analysis. Of course this is a braid generalization but I find that it helps direct my marketing to individuals in different age brackets. The product/service can be the same but the Marketing message (Benefit Statement) to a 20 year will revolve around "Money" vs. a 30-something would be on their "Self Image"
$$$ - Money making is a talent. If used properly it can achieve desired results.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Let's Skip the Offshore Horror Stories

Top 5 Qualities in an Outsourcing Company

How to Write Your Articles for Better SEO

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.