Motivating Staff

Motivating Staff

In a respected psychology paper published in 1943 and titled "A Theory of Human Motivation" Abraham Maslow defined his hierarchy of human needs.  It is described in summary in this pyramid diagram with the most basic human needs at the bottom.

Employment by itself provides part of the basic needs but engagement and motivation play a bigger role in supporting the higher level needs.

In more recent research Dr Gerald Graham conducted studies into levels of employee motivation and found that money was not the biggest motivator for people. (This may be different if there is a big discrepancy with market rates).  The top 3 motivators were:

• Personal thanks from their direct Manager.
• Written thanks from their manager.
• Promotion based upon merit/performance.

As can be seen these are within the reach of all managers and can be achieved without the expenditure of unreasonable amounts of time and effort.






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How Good Are Your Listening Skills?

A January 14 article in The Wall Street Journal shares that listening to employees is also a terrific way to motivate people when times are tough and/or when money is tight.

"You've got to think outside the money box when it comes to motivating your employees in this economic environment,” shares an executive in the article.

Listening is one of the “outside the box” tactics suggested.

When the co-owner of a debt management company, quoted in the article, encountered low morale among his staff, he began weekly meetings with 14 employees to share (and listen to) ideas and just chat. "I found the more I listened, the better they pepped up," said the company owner. "It takes time from me, but it's worth it. When they get it off their chests and realize I do care, it becomes my problem to solve. I can address it and they can go about their day being productive."

On a related note, do you realize that the popular concept of “Management by Walking Around,” set forth by such admired executives as Andy Grove of Intel, might actually be wrong? Researchers at Harvard studied 238 people on 26 teams in different companies and found that leaders can actually hurt employee perceptions of team leader support if these team leaders proactively monitor personnel effort and offer feedback BUT fail to show lack of sincere interest in employee work and ideas? Therefore, if a manager walks around and tries to be visible and appear involved…but fails to show genuine interest in the people doing the work…that leader is doing nothing more than wearing out his or her shoes. And what’s one of the best ways to show employees that you care…while walking around?
You can read the January 14 Wall Street Journal via this link

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Strategy

Strategy Delegation and Motivation

Barely half of senior managers are excited by their own business strategies.

Are your people skills weak? Are you out of touch with the needs and feelings of customers? Are you infuriated by dissent? According to an article in the Director magazine, if you answered, “yes” to these questions, congratulations, you’re a perfect candidate to craft business strategies in the world today.

“Business strategy is often conceived in an ivory tower by top executives and then handed down in tablets of stone for middle management to implement,” claims the article. “But, because the strategy is not grounded in the reality of the business and lacks ‘emotional edge,’ the rest of the organisation neither believes in it nor engages with it. So it's not surprising that only 19 per cent of corporate strategies achieve their objectives, according to new research among more than 1,600 top, senior and mid-level managers in public and private sector organizations.”

This article also points out the only 25 percent of executives themselves are excited or motivated by the strategies they create and just 28 percent of senior leaders are engaged by their strategies.

If this is the perception that senior executives have of their own business strategies, how can they expect middle management and employees to be motivated by them, embrace them or wholeheartedly implement them? Delegation of goals that are not fully “owned” is a recipe for mediocrity or failure.

Based on the statistics above, is it any wonder that 81 percent of strategies fail to achieve their objectives?

You can read it here

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Relevant topics: Strategy, Motivation, Delegation




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How to achieve a Work-Life Balance

Here's a great leadership tip for anyone in a management position who finds themselves working too hard.

A column appearing in the The Wall Street Journal makes a strong case that effective managers aren’t necessarily the people who work longer hours. In fact, the article argues that one of the tell-tale signs of effective management is that people might actually work less. Many managers and leaders are being swamped by an ever-increasing workload and the pressure to balance work and family commitments. The constant battle to achieve more with less can only be achieved by making some definitive decisions.

“New research suggests some have reached the point where a paradoxical truth applies: To get more done, we need to stop working so much,” claims this article.

Citing the results of a groundbreaking four-year study to be published in The Harvard Business Review, this column claims that scheduling purposeful time away from work responsibilities, “forced teams to communicate better, share more personal information and forge closer relationships.”

It’s important to note that two of the firms profiled in the study are top-performers Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and professional services firm KPMG. Originally, BCG executives virtually had to threaten employees in the study to take time off.  By the end of the study, the firm was so pleased with the performance improvement from this initiative that it is rolling out similar efforts in other groups. “It really changes how we do our work,” said a senior BCG partner.

“Amid layoffs and burgeoning workloads, it seems, working any time, all the time, has become a habit,” shares this Wall Street Journal article. “A survey of 605 U.S. workers by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 70% of employees work beyond scheduled time and on weekends; more than half blame ‘self-imposed pressure.’”

The article also introduces an interesting differentiator in workplace efficiency between “good intensity work” – that positive “buzz” you get from constant learning and involvement – and “bad intensity work” – which is the negative feeling you get from never having time away from your job, from foggy priorities or a lack of control over your life.

“Setting limits on work motivates people to work smarter,” claims the article.

Terms relevant to this article: Leadership tips, management skills, staff productivity, time management, prioritisation, prioritization GVHCAJGCMKFW

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