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The motivation of people by external means does not work long term because it is dependent on ongoing input. An example of this is the classic job description which lists out the key tasks, has a set of assigned Key Performance Indicators and is then used for the person’s performance appraisal. This is very demotivating when the appraisal is carried out using a set of subjective measures of performance as they are someone else’s personal opinion of performance. They do not take into account how well the job description accurately reflects what the work the person is required to do throughout their working day.
How many times do you see the “and all other duties as required” phrase in the job description which clearly shows that the manager or Human Resource person do not understand the job properly. The other sad fact is people can only remember the most recent interactions they have had with a person so if they were negative then that will be a basis of the person’s performance appraisal.
All of this creates a classic master servant interaction which depowers the person and demotivates them even more.
A better way to motivate a person is to empower them with ownership of their role. To achieve this the job description needs to identify of the organisation’s key result areas and then the associated key tasks to each of them so that the person understands how their actions add value to the organisation as a whole. As well as an alignment between the person’s technical capabilities and the tasks they are required to complete there also needs to be an alignment of the role and the person’s conative capability which is their natural working style. A person’s natural working style can be identified by the Instinctive Drives profile which identifies a person’s capability to work with information, physicality, processes and be able to improvise. An example of the importance of this can be demonstrated when the employment role involves a lot of information which is completed by a person’s Instinctive Drive profile having a high score in information. There is then a good alignment and the person is stimulated and motivated by their work. Plus they will be better at self-management because they will now understand why they are drawn to do a certain task because it aligns with their natural working style and make them feel good. However, they need to be completing that other task which is not so attractive to them personally but will make them look good as it is important to the organisation’s key outcomes.
The next key step in motivating people is to remove subjectivity/personal opinions from the appraisal process and introduce an objective way of measuring what they work on/achieved. This is achieved very easily using Microsoft Outlook Calendar and/or Tasks. A person needs to use either or both to do their job better and then at their next appraisal they can print out a report of their Tasks and/or Appointments they have completed within the appraisal period. This is very objective and will reflect all of the appraisal period.
In my book “Revolutionise the way you work” I have written several chapters on how to write job descriptions that focus on an organisation’s Key Result Areas; helping people understand their natural working style/employment relationship; how to use MS Outlook Tasks and Calendar for personal effectiveness; and how to print out a Calendar or Task report for the job performance appraisal.
The most important part of motivation is recognition which can come in many forms such as awards, training, gifts and money. You have to be careful to use a method of recognition that motivates one identity without demotivating another within the organisation. Yes the sales people tend to be treated as the glamour people because they create the sales which affects the revenue/cash flow of the business. So when they are publically rewarded then that tells the other people within the organisation their effort is not as important. Wrong, as the sales people can only create the results they achieve as a result of the work and effort by the other workforce within the organisation. The worst way to motivate a sales force is to connect financial payments/bonuses to their sales results because that will create the wrong behaviours of short term gains within the sales force at the cost of long term strategic goals such as growing a client base.
The best reward system I have seen is an electrical contracting company where the staff after three years’ service were allowed to have a new white goods appliance every year of employment to the value of 10% of the company profit divided by the number of people eligible for the bonus. As a result the company had a very low turnover of staff and everyone was focussed on helping the business make a profit.
Spending money on the development of people is a good motivator as it is non-verbally telling them they are important. However the worst way to do this is to put the top performing staff into more training and leave the poor performers out, which will demotivate them even more.
The last part of motivating a person is to individualise the recognition. As in if the person is visual then they enjoy their recognition in a visual written form. When they are an audio person they prefer to hear the recognition. And a tactile person enjoys something tangible so buy them a Rolls Royce.
