The Secret Motivation Tool No One Will Tell You

Recently discovered your blog and have been enjoying it very much.
This may fall under item 2 but I’ve always found employees having a thorough understanding of their job description an outcomes is critical too. People want to know what they’re going to be measured against.
Keep up the good work.

Paul, As usual, nice work. I do enjoy and almost always agree with your assessment of what’s going on in the wonderful world of corporate America. You do tell it like it is. Would be nice if corp execs understood this better.
Ley

It’s refreshing to see this type of advice coming up, consistently, when I read business-related blogs. As a teacher, I’ve heard lots of people talk about education reform using business models, and they always want to talk about cracking down on teachers, making them perform, getting them in line. In fact, I would suggest we need more of this kind of thinking. Get teachers involved in the solutions, and then equip us to do the job. To the extent that people want to criticize teachers as a whole for shortcomings in education, I would argue we haven’t been properly equipped to do the job.

Paul, I would suggest adding one additional step to you six-step outline: If possible, take time to strategically pick the members of your team and/or ensure existing team members can handle a steep learning curve.
For a recent MBA assignment, I watched the movie “Miracle,” looking for cues of organizational attitudes and behaviors. It struck me that the most important part of the coach’s system may have been in his selection of role players over all-star performers.
In my professional life, it seems like the fastest way to kill intrinsic motivation is to ask people to do jobs they weren’t hired for or aren’t capable of learning to do well. Moreover, when you ask a horse jockey to play center on your basketball team, that person is further unmotivated because they can’t even contribute to your Step 3 (discussing the best way to do the job).

I really agree with your post that there isn’t any special sauce to motivate people. I agree you can only help people catch the vision of what they need to do and they must take it from there. Some of the best motivators I have ever known have worked really hard to know their audience. Once they know their audience, they are able to tailor their message to them. I also have seen that when good employees are given decision making rights, they are able to do a great amount of good for the company/organization as a whole.
I appreciate that you took the time to explain it out so clearly.

Paul-
I really enjoy your posts and get smarter after reading them and the comment strings. One point you make that might get easily overlooked is the concept of “barrier management.” My best managers have explained goals, sought input, assigned responsibilities, and then cleared the way for team members to do the job. If a team is really going to drive results, it needs some “cover” from their boss within the organization. If they are doing their job right and really getting creative, they will ruffle some feathers.

This is a great article. It is so true people look for the secret to success and motivation but the people who spend so much time looking for the answer are forgetting the answer is within themselves. Even given a good enviroment if one does not want to be successful or motivated, no one will ever succeed at making you successful or motivated. I really liked how to you said step 1 was to assume everyone is adults, sadly many people surrounding us do not act like adults and leaders fall the their level when leading an entire group, therefore the ones who really are adults are not progessing. Overall all thank you for the article, it was a great read.

Thanks for stopping by Wally. “Incentive” companies take so much time talking about maximizing choice in their award portfolio they forget the real choice is whether the employee WANTS to align their talents and efforts with the company in first place. That is the choice we have to focus on. The rest falls in place.
Appreciate the comments.