\”Let\’s Get Ready to Rumble\”
Whether you are a seasoned corporate manager, director or a fresh entrepreneur, one of the largest managerial challenges is how to continually motivate your employees. Of course, you have outlined their responsibilities, clarified and tracked how their performance will be measured, provided rewards for great behavior and clarified the consequences for poor performance. But what about the day to day ‘corralling’?
Here are tips for motivating your employees from some of my favorite experts, Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, authors of ‘For Your Improvement’:
1) Follow the basic rules of INSPIRING OTHERS: Take an interest in your employees beyond their role with your company. Thank them. Provide autonomy in how they do their work. Surprise them with challenging assignments. Adopt a learning attitude towards mistakes. Celebrate successes.
2) KNOW & PLAY THE MOTIVATION ODDS: According to research by Rewick and Lawler, the top motivators at work are 1-Job Challenge; 2- Accomplishing something worthwhile; 3-Learning new things; 4-Personal Development; 5- Autonomy (Incidentally ‘Pay’ is #12). Provide challenges, paint pictures of why this is worthwhile, set up chances to learn and grow.
3) USE GOALS TO MOTIVATE: People try hardest when they have somewhere between ½ and a 2/3 chance of success and some control over how they go about it. People are even more motivated when they participate in setting the goals. So, set just out of reach challenges and tasks that will be ‘first time’ accomplishments for your staff.
4) To UNDERSTAND WHAT DRIVES YOUR PARTICULAR EMPLOYEES, pay attention to: What do they do first? What do they emphasize in their speech? What do they display emotion around? What values play out for them? Figuring out these drivers to inform ways that you can most effectively appeal to them.
5) DIAL DOWN YOUR JUDGEMENT. If your employees feel judged by you they are only going to further ‘check out’ from engagement with you. You don’t have to agree with them, you just have to understand why they are not motivated.
6) SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE. This way you will show respect for their way of thinking and learn more about what motivates them.
7) BRING THEM INTO YOUR WORLD. Help them understand your challenges, how you think and why, questions you ask, factors you are interested in. This way they will know how to deal with you more effectively.
8) MOTIVATING IS PERSONAL. Learn three non-work items about all your employees (their hobbies, their family life, etc). Chances are there is at least one thing you have in common which can bond the relationship and allow you to individualize how you motivate.
9) TURN A NEGAVITVE INTO A MOTIVATOR. If a person is touchy about something, they may respond to targeted held. If the person responds by clamming up, they may need your help in getting into the mainstream. If they are un-motivated, look for both personal and work causes.
10) GET THEM INVOLVED DEEPLY IN THE WORK THEY ARE DOING. Delegate and empower as much as you can. Involve them in their goal setting and determining the work process to get there. Solicit their opinions about decisions you need to make for your business. Have them appraise the work of your unit/department/business. Share the successes. Debrief failures together. Use their full skill set.
What else works for you when motivating your employees?
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Chances are there is at least one thing you have in common which can bond the relationship and allow you to individualize how you motivate.
Chances are there is at least one thing you have in common which can bond the relationship and allow you to individualize how you motivate.
Exactly!
If your employees feel judged by you they are only going to further ‘check out’ from engagement with you.
Absolutely, the most critical thing you can do for your clients is to praise them and then figure out their strengths and make sure they are in the right position in your company to exercise their strengths.
It can be difficult to get a quick and accurate answer to this question, however. Some workers may say that they want to work on a prestigious project, for example, only to discover once they have been assigned to the project that it isn’t what they expected.
Hello, thanks for your feedback. Yes, sometimes an acceleration of one’s responsibilities is not within the bandwidth of each employee. Do you have a process by which you evaluate when to increase your employee’s responsibilities and when to keep it as is? Something like this can make it all seem less personal and more objective, which is better for everyone.