“I need to figure out how to motivate my employees.” When was the last time we thought that to ourselves? It could have been the other week when you noticed one of your direct reports dragging his feet on a project that’s critical to the company. Or, perhaps it was the other month when you felt frustrated that your team was not being proactive about addressing customer issues. We hear this sentiment of “how to motivate employees” frequently from managers we work with. We, as leaders, are not the only ones thinking this. Employees themselves admit that they do not feel as motivated at work as they would like. According to research, only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.
However,
this question of, “How to motivate my employees as a manager?” is a misguided
one. It implies that motivation is something we give another
person. That is patently false. Motivation is not a thing we give to
people — motivation is a thing people already have.
Employees inherently have energy, ideas, gifts, and talents that are worth
being shared with the world. We, as leaders, simply need to get out of their
way and create a space for that energy, ideas, gifts, and talents to
thrive. The question we should ask ourselves is not, “How can I
motivate my team?” but rather, “How can I create an environment for my
team members to motivate themselves?”
Here
are some things we can do as leaders to create the conditions for employees to
motivate themselves and doesn’t undermine intrinsic employee motivation
that they already have.
A) Immerse yourself
in discovery.
You can’t enable another person’s motivation to flourish if you don’t know what motivates them, to begin with. As a result, a key part of effectively creating the conditions for strong employee motivation in your team is to figure out what motivates them?
Hopefully, you’ve got a sense of this when you were hiring them — as the interview process is very much about understanding what drives a person. However, if it still remains fuzzy, here are some questions you’ll want to ask during your next one-on-one meeting to figure out, at their core, what your team member is motivated by:
1) When has it been a time when you have felt most motivated in the work that you were doing? Why? What project was it? Who were you working with?
2) What three events in your life would you say have had the biggest impact on you and why?
3) Who do you admire most in your life, and why?
4) What is the dream?
5) What would you want to say is true about your life five years from now for it to feel meaningful? Ten years from now?
6)
What would you say most deeply motivates you?
It is
also a good idea to share these questions ahead of time, thus giving them time
to think about the questions. You can say something like, “I’d love to discuss
broader, deeper life questions during our next one-on-one,” and you can also
share an agenda ahead of time. You will also want to continue to ask these
questions as you continue to work with this person over time. Discovery
of motivation is not a one-time, one-off occurrence — it is an ongoing,
consistent practice.
B) Personalize everything
where feasible.
Motivation is personal. What motivates one person might not motivate someone else. As a result, it is important to have nuance in the conditions you create for motivation to grow — you need to individualize those conditions as much as you can. This means specifically aligning projects, goals, and incentives with what the other person is motivated by, and no one else. This seems intuitive, yet we often unintentionally (or completely unknowingly) project our own preferences and proclivities onto another person. For example, because you find detail-oriented work very easy, you might assume the other person does as well, and you proceed to hand off a very data-focused, detail-oriented project to them. Then, you notice that they are not motivated on the project and seem to be struggling, you wonder, “Hmm why aren’t they really stepping into it?” When you consider the individual nature of motivation, the answer becomes obvious: It was a mismatch of aligning the project to what motivates that person the most.
However,
sometimes, there are projects that must get done and goals that have to get
met — and you cannot customize or individualize them.
C) Create flexibility/
choice.
While
you cannot always individualize and perfectly match someone’s project and goals
with what they are most motivated by, you can create positive conditions
for motivation by enabling choice in what people can do. In Edward
Deci’s seminal book on human motivation theory, Why We Do What We Do, he
describes how “meaningful choice engenders willingness” and results in a
higher quality of decisions, and greater motivation and commitment to the task.
For
example, while someone may not be able to choose their project, you can give
them a choice in how they want to approach the project. Or in another
situation, instead of assigning someone a set of goals, you can invite them to
participate in the formation of those goals and enable them to choose it. Studies
have shown that when people can actively choose their own goals, they are more
likely to follow through on them.
D) Discontinue surveillance.
What
damages the conditions for motivation the most? Surveillance has
been revealed in studies to negatively impact intrinsic motivation. Anytime
you catch yourself peeking over someone’s shoulder, making a mental note of
what time they log on or log off, or when they enter the office — you’re not
helping. You’re hurting. Additionally, consider how deadlines and imposed goals
undermine intrinsic motivation and negatively affect performance. Are you
arbitrarily setting targets to create an artificial sense of “urgency” or
“accountability”? Or are you trying to create a supportive environment
that is truly helpful for a person getting to where they need to be?
E) Acknowledge
constraints and feelings.
Sometimes
you cannot create a good environment for motivation. The company is tight on
resources, or there’s a toxic person who’s dragging the team down, but you
don’t have the authority to let that person go. When you know that prime
conditions for strong motivation are not there, recognize that. Share
with your team, “Here’s why I know that sucks” or “I so appreciate you bearing
with this” and you demonstrate how much you understand their point of view. This
sharing of the rationale behind why things are constraining or not feeling good
helps to minimize the pressure that detracts from performance. Acknowledging
the bad helps clear room for someone to try to do good.
F) Clarify
expectations.
On occasion, our team does not seem motivated because their behaviour
doesn’t match up with our own conception of what “highly motivated” looks like
in our heads. In short, we as leaders have not made clear what the real output
of strong motivation looks like in our team. Does it mean that people are
moving faster? Does it mean a higher quality of work? Once you have determined
what the product of “stronger motivation” looks like, then consider: How well
have you communicated this to your team? Do they know and are they
aware that is the output and product they should be creating?
As a
leader, when you’re trying to figure out how to motivate employees, what you’re
truly trying to do is create a context in which they can act.
You are creating an environment for your team to motivate themselves.
Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa
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