Motivation 2009
Is today so different?
We still need our survival needs met, but today,
most of these needs are met with a job and a salary.
Once these needs are taken care of, we want to protect
our standard of living. To do this, we want health
insurance, disability insurance, 401K and the whole
range of benefits that guarantee our life style
will not lose out even if we are not able to continue
working.
Talent Retention through Friends and Fairness
After we protect our livelihood, we seek those
social connections again. According to Gallup and
Hewitt, we tend to prefer work environments where
we have friends and a fair boss. After all, many
of us are spending 50, 60, 70 hours a week at work.
Is it no wonder that we desire an environment that
is friendly, and supportive?
Those high tech companies who provide more than
just a water cooler are on to something. Turns out
spring water, popcorn, beer and pizza increase employee
motivation. And increased motivation increases productivity
by a significant margin. Top talent tends to stay
put when they have social support. Since retaining
top talent is a concern for most CEOs according
to recent surveys by The Conference Board and by
Business Week, this would seem to be worth paying
attention to.
In today's environment, organizations, especially
those facing bankruptcy or government regulation,
seem to be looking for every possible place to cut
costs. There have been reports of some companies
even taking out the water cooler, to their own detriment.
When simple things like good drinking water are
removed, the message sent to all employees is that
they do not matter. They get the message quickly
and soon are only giving what is required. This
lack of motivation hurts the bottom line and makes
it that much harder for companies hit hard by the
recession to come out of it whole.
Is Social Networking Motivational?
And talk about motivation and social connections,
what about social networking?
Facebook, U-Tube, Linked-In and Twitter ... Who
would have thought that I would want to put video
of my cat or the organizational team building up
so all my "friends" could keep up with me? Who would
have thought that my contrarian opinions on healthcare
would be read by many and commented on for all to
share?
Or who would have predicted that "Blackberry Thumb"
would be the next big occupational disability? It
turns out, Generation X for whom technology is second
nature and Generation Y, who grew up surrounded
by technology … both of these generational groups
are highly motivated by the flexibility and freedom
to use social networking at work, and to have appropriate
devices that they can integrate both work and play
in the social networking realm. Gen X and Y are
pressuring the organizations they work for to use/allow
the devices they are comfortable with and love (like
Macs and I-phones, for example). Many directors
of IT and CIOs report they have more Macs in their
campuses and the motivational hit they gain among
younger workers is huge.
Diversity, Power and Values
So we move on to elements of achievement, and
power. In a multi-ethnic world, where fat and sexual
orientation remain the only legal forms of discrimination,
achievement remains a motivational draw. But how
to recognize that achievement is not so easy. In
some cultures (think India or Mormon faith) being
recognized with a speech on center stage may carry
stigma. While in other cultures (think Sales and
Marketing or USA) the speech on center stage is
a huge honor! While we know achievement can be highly
motivating, savvy managers not only set measurable
goals, so we can recognize achievement when it occurs,
they also talk with their employees to learn what
is motivating for them.
Power is a motivator for many and corporate politics
turns out to be a two-sided sword. On the one hand,
wise managers understand the political landscape,
yet they navigate it carefully, to build trust with
their employees and staff.
And can an employee be self actualized on their
job? When staff values line up with corporate values,
employees tend to be more motivated. When the big
picture vision lines up with what employees are
passionate about, it is a motivational win-win that
does not quit. Ever wonder why Ben and Jerry's ice
cream was so successful? Passion, ice cream and
corporate profits all on the same path! A corporate
culture that values profits and ice cream? Let me
have some of THAT!
The Great Controversy: Internal or External
The more things change, it would seem the more
they remain the same, when it comes to motivation
anyway. Yet when we speak of motivation, there is
this controversy not addressed by Maslow, or for
that matter Herzberg, McClelland or others that
followed.
There is one branch of organizational psychology
that contends that motivation is externally driven.
You need to offer a carrot or a stick, so to speak,
to get the behavior you want. Using this strategy,
managers are advised to have contests, give tokens
of appreciation, have appropriate "touchy-feely"
environment, and use fear, uncertainty and doubt
to control negative behaviors.
The other branch of psychology suggests none of
this is relevant because motivation is internally
driven. People do not pay attention to these external
tokens, they only pay attention to their own voice
in their heads, and that is what we need to appeal
to. Appealing to an internal voice is harder than
creating external props and awards. Appealing to
an internal voice requires deep relationship building,
creating an environment of empathy and trust, and
the ability to influence the unconscious of your
staff and workers, not just working with them on
a conscious level.
The highly validated personality instrument the
Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) suggests that
one of the scales we explore in looking at personality
(and resulting management and communication styles)
would be that of introversion and extroversion.
MBTI defines introverts as those who gain their
energy internally, while it defines extroverts as
those who are energized by external events and circumstances.
If one believes the MBTI premise, then this controversy
is not really a controversy at all. It is style
and personality driven. Extroverts need external
clues and props to be motivated. Introverts need
the empathetic environment where they can be trusted
to do their best. It is not either/ or, it is BOTH
/ AND. Add a little 2009 neuroscience and we know
that the ancient parts of our brains, responsible
for survival and our fight or flight instincts tend
to work much faster than our rational reasoning
parts of our brains.
Respect: Both/And
So what is a savvy manager who wants to motivate
his team to do? They make sure that they include
cues for the ancient brain's emotion, the introvert's
relationships and the extrovert's external scanning.
Motivation can be enhanced if we are respectful
of our workers and that respect resonates with Gen
X, Gen Y, different ethnicities, religions, genders.
Wise managers are flexible and find ways to respect
even different sexual orientations and thin and
fat alike. Maybe the most important thing a manager
who wants to motivate their staff can do is to listen
very carefully.
How do you keep your staff motivated in challenging
times? The same way you do in less challenging times.
As Maslow says:
