Motivating Your Team
Monday, November 25, 2013
Your people may have all the expertise in the world, but if they're not motivated, it's unlikely that they'll achieve their true potential.
On the other hand, when people are motivated, work seems easy.
Motivated people have a positive outlook, they're excited about what they're doing, and they know that they're investing their time in something that's truly worthwhile. In short, motivated people enjoy their jobs and perform well.
All effective leaders want their organizations to be filled with people in this state of mind. That's why it's vital that you, as a leader and manager, keep your team feeling motivated and inspired. But of course, this can be easier said than done!
In this article we'll go over the key theories, strategies, and tools that you can use to help your people stay enthusiastic about their work.
Types of Motivation
Although there are literally hundreds of tactics that you can use to motivate your team, it's important to realize that there are only two main types of motivation – extrinsic and intrinsic.
Extrinsic motivation is when you use external factors to encourage your team to do what you want. Pay raises, time off, bonus checks, and, on the negative side, the threat of job loss, are all examples of extrinsic motivators. As a leader, you have significant control over these external motivators.
Intrinsic motivation is internal. It's about having a personal desire to overcome a challenge, produce high quality work, or be on a team with people you like and trust. People who are intrinsically motivated by their work get a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment from what they're doing.
Although you can't directly control someone's interest in their job, you can create an environment that helps your people become more intrinsically motivated.
The trick to motivating people successfully is to find a good mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The following steps and strategies help you do this.
Step 1: Check Your Assumptions
Did you know that your management style is strongly influenced by what you believe about your people?
For instance, do you think the members of your team inherently dislike working, and need continuous supervision? Or, do you believe that they're basically happy to do their jobs, and would enjoy being given greater responsibility and freedom?
These two basic mindsets form the backbone of Theory X and Theory Y , a theory about team member motivation.
Theory X is authoritarian. Managers who follow Theory X assume that people need to be supervised constantly, that they don't want or need any responsibility, and that they can only be enticed to produce results using extrinsic motivators.
Theory Y is participative. Managers following Theory Y believe that team members want more responsibility and should be involved in the decision-making process. They assume that everyone on the team has something of value to offer the group.
In short, what you believe about your team's motivation affects the way you behave towards them. This is why it's important to think carefully about how you look at your team, and to explore what you believe truly motivates them.
(You'll have more success motivating professional people, in particular, if you adopt a Theory Y management style. Just think about it from your own perspective – would you prefer your boss to use Theory X or Theory Y management with you?)
Step 2: Eliminate Dissatisfaction and Create Satisfaction
As part of his Motivation-Hygiene Theory , psychologist Fredrick Herzberg determined that if you want to motivate your team, you have to first eliminate job dissatisfaction, and, only then, create the conditions for job satisfaction.
Often, causes of dissatisfaction arise from irritating company policies, intrusive supervision, and lack of job security. If these factors are not addressed, people won't have job satisfaction; and motivating them will be difficult, if not impossible.
Once you've got rid of job dissatisfaction, you can look at providing job satisfaction. Sources of job satisfaction include clear opportunities for achievement, an increased sense of responsibility, ongoing training and development programs, or simply a feeling of working with purpose .
It can be very effective to use Herzberg's theory to motivate your team, because it helps you overcome the common assumption that most people are entirely motivated by money. When you deal with the issues that are causing your team annoyance and dissatisfaction, you effectively "clear the decks," and create space for them to experience job satisfaction.
Step 3: Tailor Your Motivational Approach to Each Individual
Never forget that your team is made up of individuals, each of whom has his or her own unique circumstances. Consequently, each person may be driven by different motivating factors. Getting to know every person on your team is a crucial part of keeping them motivated.
For instance, imagine that you've been offering one team member, Gian, a financial bonus for every percentage point that he grows his sales. But then you discover that he's frustrated by working in a noisy office, and would love to spend more time at home to be near his kids. For Gian, a financial bonus probably means little when compared to the "bonus" of getting to work from home two days each week. He'd be far more motivated if you offered him this kind of incentive!
There are several tools and strategies you can use to tailor your approach to motivation:
Sirota's Three-Factor Theory is based on the principle that there are three crucial factors involved in helping your people to be enthusiastic and motivated. These are Equity/Fairness, Achievement , and Camaraderie . This theory is useful if you suspect one of your team members has low motivation because they lack one or more of these factors in their work.
McClelland's Human Motivation Theory helps you think about what truly drives individuals within your team. McClelland believed that we all have three different drivers: the needs for Achievement, Affiliation and Power , but each of us has one dominant driver. As a leader, if you structure your motivators and leadership style around someone's dominant driver, your efforts will be far more effective.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs identifies the five needs we all have, from the most basic to the most complex. These are: physiological/bodily needs, safety needs, love/belonging needs, self-esteem , and self-actualization . These needs are usually represented in the form of a pyramid, with basic needs at the bottom, because these are the needs that must be met before any of the other "higher" needs can be addressed.
Understanding this theory is useful, because it points out that certain motivators, like raises and bonuses, only satisfy basic needs, since the assumption is that they're generally spent on food and shelter. However, you can satisfy other needs by providing a safe working environment, building a community with your workers, encouraging team bonding, and praising your team for a job well done. Addressing all of the factors in Maslow's Hierarchy can help your team be more motivated.
Alderfer's ERG Theory takes Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs a step further. Psychologist Clayton Alderfer developed the ERG Theory because he believed that people can experience more than one of Maslow's needs simultaneously. For instance, you can be hungry for food and need acceptance at the same time. This led him to reclassify Maslow's needs into just three categories: Existence, Relatedness , and Growth .
Alderfer's theory is useful for understanding motivation, because it means that, as a leader, you don't have to focus on satisfying just one need at a time. It also shows us that the needs of your team will likely change over time: people will need different things as their life and expectations change.
Of course, money does matter, and Understanding Strategic Compensation can help you better structure your team's extrinsic rewards. Whether you reward people with increases in base pay, performance pay, or group-based performance pay, understanding the differences, and their inherent benefits, can help you better structure their financial compensation.
Tip:
If your team includes lower level managers, make sure that you train them in how to motivate their own people effectively.
Key Points
As a leader, it's your job to keep the members of your team motivated and enthusiastic about their work. It's important to try to strike a balance between extrinsic motivators, like pay raises and changes to working conditions, and intrinsic motivators, like assigning tasks that people truly enjoy.
First, check your own assumptions about your team. You'll likely get a more positive response from your people if you use a participatory style of management, where your staff have responsibility, and can take their own decisions.
Next, use Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors to eliminate causes of dissatisfaction and create satisfaction among your team members.
Last, tailor the motivational approach you use to the individual people on your team. There are many different strategies and tools that you can use with them, but the more you know and understand the individual people involved, the more effective your efforts will be.
Tags:
Skills, Team Management
On the other hand, when people are motivated, work seems easy.
Motivated people have a positive outlook, they're excited about what they're doing, and they know that they're investing their time in something that's truly worthwhile. In short, motivated people enjoy their jobs and perform well.
All effective leaders want their organizations to be filled with people in this state of mind. That's why it's vital that you, as a leader and manager, keep your team feeling motivated and inspired. But of course, this can be easier said than done!
In this article we'll go over the key theories, strategies, and tools that you can use to help your people stay enthusiastic about their work.
Types of Motivation
Although there are literally hundreds of tactics that you can use to motivate your team, it's important to realize that there are only two main types of motivation – extrinsic and intrinsic.
Extrinsic motivation is when you use external factors to encourage your team to do what you want. Pay raises, time off, bonus checks, and, on the negative side, the threat of job loss, are all examples of extrinsic motivators. As a leader, you have significant control over these external motivators.
Intrinsic motivation is internal. It's about having a personal desire to overcome a challenge, produce high quality work, or be on a team with people you like and trust. People who are intrinsically motivated by their work get a great deal of satisfaction and enjoyment from what they're doing.
Although you can't directly control someone's interest in their job, you can create an environment that helps your people become more intrinsically motivated.
The trick to motivating people successfully is to find a good mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The following steps and strategies help you do this.
Step 1: Check Your Assumptions
Did you know that your management style is strongly influenced by what you believe about your people?
For instance, do you think the members of your team inherently dislike working, and need continuous supervision? Or, do you believe that they're basically happy to do their jobs, and would enjoy being given greater responsibility and freedom?
These two basic mindsets form the backbone of Theory X and Theory Y , a theory about team member motivation.
Theory X is authoritarian. Managers who follow Theory X assume that people need to be supervised constantly, that they don't want or need any responsibility, and that they can only be enticed to produce results using extrinsic motivators.
Theory Y is participative. Managers following Theory Y believe that team members want more responsibility and should be involved in the decision-making process. They assume that everyone on the team has something of value to offer the group.
In short, what you believe about your team's motivation affects the way you behave towards them. This is why it's important to think carefully about how you look at your team, and to explore what you believe truly motivates them.
(You'll have more success motivating professional people, in particular, if you adopt a Theory Y management style. Just think about it from your own perspective – would you prefer your boss to use Theory X or Theory Y management with you?)
Step 2: Eliminate Dissatisfaction and Create Satisfaction
As part of his Motivation-Hygiene Theory , psychologist Fredrick Herzberg determined that if you want to motivate your team, you have to first eliminate job dissatisfaction, and, only then, create the conditions for job satisfaction.
Often, causes of dissatisfaction arise from irritating company policies, intrusive supervision, and lack of job security. If these factors are not addressed, people won't have job satisfaction; and motivating them will be difficult, if not impossible.
Once you've got rid of job dissatisfaction, you can look at providing job satisfaction. Sources of job satisfaction include clear opportunities for achievement, an increased sense of responsibility, ongoing training and development programs, or simply a feeling of working with purpose .
It can be very effective to use Herzberg's theory to motivate your team, because it helps you overcome the common assumption that most people are entirely motivated by money. When you deal with the issues that are causing your team annoyance and dissatisfaction, you effectively "clear the decks," and create space for them to experience job satisfaction.
Step 3: Tailor Your Motivational Approach to Each Individual
Never forget that your team is made up of individuals, each of whom has his or her own unique circumstances. Consequently, each person may be driven by different motivating factors. Getting to know every person on your team is a crucial part of keeping them motivated.
For instance, imagine that you've been offering one team member, Gian, a financial bonus for every percentage point that he grows his sales. But then you discover that he's frustrated by working in a noisy office, and would love to spend more time at home to be near his kids. For Gian, a financial bonus probably means little when compared to the "bonus" of getting to work from home two days each week. He'd be far more motivated if you offered him this kind of incentive!
There are several tools and strategies you can use to tailor your approach to motivation:
Sirota's Three-Factor Theory is based on the principle that there are three crucial factors involved in helping your people to be enthusiastic and motivated. These are Equity/Fairness, Achievement , and Camaraderie . This theory is useful if you suspect one of your team members has low motivation because they lack one or more of these factors in their work.
McClelland's Human Motivation Theory helps you think about what truly drives individuals within your team. McClelland believed that we all have three different drivers: the needs for Achievement, Affiliation and Power , but each of us has one dominant driver. As a leader, if you structure your motivators and leadership style around someone's dominant driver, your efforts will be far more effective.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs identifies the five needs we all have, from the most basic to the most complex. These are: physiological/bodily needs, safety needs, love/belonging needs, self-esteem , and self-actualization . These needs are usually represented in the form of a pyramid, with basic needs at the bottom, because these are the needs that must be met before any of the other "higher" needs can be addressed.
Understanding this theory is useful, because it points out that certain motivators, like raises and bonuses, only satisfy basic needs, since the assumption is that they're generally spent on food and shelter. However, you can satisfy other needs by providing a safe working environment, building a community with your workers, encouraging team bonding, and praising your team for a job well done. Addressing all of the factors in Maslow's Hierarchy can help your team be more motivated.
Alderfer's ERG Theory takes Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs a step further. Psychologist Clayton Alderfer developed the ERG Theory because he believed that people can experience more than one of Maslow's needs simultaneously. For instance, you can be hungry for food and need acceptance at the same time. This led him to reclassify Maslow's needs into just three categories: Existence, Relatedness , and Growth .
Alderfer's theory is useful for understanding motivation, because it means that, as a leader, you don't have to focus on satisfying just one need at a time. It also shows us that the needs of your team will likely change over time: people will need different things as their life and expectations change.
Of course, money does matter, and Understanding Strategic Compensation can help you better structure your team's extrinsic rewards. Whether you reward people with increases in base pay, performance pay, or group-based performance pay, understanding the differences, and their inherent benefits, can help you better structure their financial compensation.
Tip:
If your team includes lower level managers, make sure that you train them in how to motivate their own people effectively.
Key Points
As a leader, it's your job to keep the members of your team motivated and enthusiastic about their work. It's important to try to strike a balance between extrinsic motivators, like pay raises and changes to working conditions, and intrinsic motivators, like assigning tasks that people truly enjoy.
First, check your own assumptions about your team. You'll likely get a more positive response from your people if you use a participatory style of management, where your staff have responsibility, and can take their own decisions.
Next, use Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors to eliminate causes of dissatisfaction and create satisfaction among your team members.
Last, tailor the motivational approach you use to the individual people on your team. There are many different strategies and tools that you can use with them, but the more you know and understand the individual people involved, the more effective your efforts will be.
