It's Not What You Can Do

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From: Mark S. Chatterton [mark@chattertonworld.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 8:30 AM
To: ;
Subject: It's Not What You Can Do

It's Not What You Can Do for Your Employees, But What Your Employees Can Do for You
By Chris Musselwhite

Motivating employees is a perennial concern for managers at companies of all sizes. Fortunately, motivation in the workplace isn't about what you do for your employees; it's about the work you empower your employees to do for you. Realizing that motivation is more about an employee's relationship to their work than rewards given for doing the work is a great place to start thinking practically about how you can become better at truly motivating others.

You may assume that motivating employees means doing things for them, such as paying annual bonuses, awarding free travel, and giving time off. It might surprise you to learn that research actually shows that while these types of extrinsic rewards may cause a short-term burst of productivity, they also contain the seed for de-motivation in the long term.

Why? Because once they are awarded, they become expected. So when revenues dictate that bonuses are smaller and vacation days are fewer, people aren't just unmotivated, they actually become less satisfied with their jobs overall.

Real motivators include achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement, and growth.

Understand the difference between motivation and reward:
Real motivation comes from the work itself, not the rewards given for doing the work. Providing more money, less time at work, and better fringe benefits in the name of motivation only motivates people to expect them and ask for more.

When you are about to make a change intended to motivate, ask yourself: how will this contribute to the person's sense of achievement or recognition? Will it enable him or her to grow and be prepared to take on more responsibility? Does it make the work more meaningful to the person?

Recognize that people are natural problem-solvers:
People are natural problem-solvers. We like to figure things out and determine the way things are done -- especially when we are the ones doing the work.

When you give people the opportunity to express their opinion and provide input about the work process, you create buy-in and ownership of the work. When people feel ownership of their work, they are more likely to own the problems that occur and take on the daily task of finding solutions much more enthusiastically.

In order for people to provide meaningful input into the design of the work process however, they must first clearly understand the desired outcome and the parameters within which they must work to achieve it. People must then be given latitude to determine how they are going to achieve it. Recognizing this natural drive to be an integral part of the solution is a critical first step to motivating people to do their best.

Build trust: Take time to get to know your people:
Effective managers take time to get to know their people. When you make people feel like you care more about the work than you do about them, you make them feel insignificant. Conversely, when an employee feels that his or her manager is as concerned about their well being on the job as they are about the job itself, they are more likely to feel the sense of trust that is critical among high performing teams and organizations.

Taking the time to get to know your people will also provide invaluable insight into what motivates them. Different things motivate different people. While one person might be stoked to be designated as project manager, another might feel more achievement if they get to actually produce the desired product once it's determined how it will be done.

Make the transition from problem-solver to coach:
As a manager, your job is to mentor, coach, and develop people so they are adequately prepared and supported to do the work on their own. Turning off the impulse to simply provide answers when your employees come to you for help isn't easy, but you must learn to do it. When you always provide answers, you're doing long-term damage to the person, your company, and yourself.

First, you're reinforcing the person's lack of confidence in his or her own problem-solving ability. Second, you're missing an opportunity to teach your people to problem-solve. And finally, you're creating more work for yourself, teaching your people to continue to come to you for answers.

Instead of providing answers, ask questions to give people the opportunity to discover the answers for themselves, creating sustainable learning that will serve them much longer and better than any solution you simply give them.

Focus on what's working:
Managers who intervene only when there's a problem are often viewed negatively by their people, who begin to fear every conversation with them. If you only take time to talk to your employees when something's wrong, chances are they'll be defensive and withholding -- decreasing the opportunity you'll find out what you need to know about the job or the person.

You must instead intentionally make time to focus on what is working. One way to do this is to schedule regular meetings with your people where they are invited to report their successes.

And of course, in the process of learning what's working, you'll inevitably learn about what's not working. But because the interaction starts with attention on what the person is doing right, you've created an atmosphere where people are open to discussion and learning can definitely take place.

BONUS: When you create time for regular positive interactions between management and employees, you also further contribute to the sense of trust between you and your people.

Recognize people through responsibility and advancement:
Public recognition is also necessary to extend that achievement into a feeling of responsibility and accountability in the workplace. When people are publicly recognized for a job well done, they experience that sense of achievement all over again, which makes them eager to get back to work and tackle the next problem even more skillfully.

Appropriate recognition for good performance can and should include the awarding of more responsibility and advancement within the company. Using responsibility and advancement as recognition is good for the employee, the manager, and the whole organization. The timing of recognition is important too, so don't wait for the annual awards banquet.

Follow these tips to start boosting employee motivation and confidence today!