When you think of your team members, do you think of them as eager to work more hours and initiate more responsibilities? Across the board, it seems to be a fair shake out: Some individuals are intrinsically motivated, and others pose a distinct challenge to their manager, resisting to get the bare minimum accomplished. The good news? There are solutions to help motivate your team members.
For many business owners and team leads alike, motivation is believed to stem from “what you get.” The extrinsic incentives — a term linked to Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivation. But here’s the thing about the research, it tells us that motivation does not come from those external incentives such as office perks. It’s not the company game room, the nap pods, the work-funded drinking extravaganzas, or even the promotions (which are all starting to return in the normal course). Instead, these are short-term fixes and there’s an expiration date associated with each. The dangling carrot of promotion is enough to keep someone motivated to reach that achievement, and yet it’s shown that as soon as the promotion is achieved, the motivation doesn’t last. Herzberg very pointedly directs organizations that they have limited power in motivating employees. (Um, yikes?)
Not to worry, the point in exposing the minimal purpose of extrinsic motivation is to demonstrate the necessity of the intrinsic rewards that unlock the vault of motivation (what makes our motor tick). It’s about allowing each person to turn their own keys in the ignition, not constantly trying to start it for them.
Let’s break it down so you can take the most useful tidbits along for the workday (otherwise, read Herzberg’s One More Time for full research).
Create a more enriching environment (leading to motivated employees) by employing the following:
Accountability
Remove your need to control and make individuals accountable for their work. Not sure if you are controlling (e.g., a micromanager)? Ask for feedback.
Responsibility
Rather than giving individuals responsibilities for one part of a task, give them ownership of the entire work stream or unit. Don’t fix it for them, and surely do not take credit for a team member’s work.
Information flow
We like to filter information: Remove this extra step and include your team members in discussions. When trust increases, unhelpful water cooler discourse decreases.
Challenge
Allow (and encourage) your team to take on new projects and responsibilities they haven’t addressed before.
SME
Subject matter experts are essential in teams. Not only does this stem from added responsibility and accountability, but it also stems from the trust that this person owns the knowledge for a certain topic. Assigning individuals specializations is useful for their careers and for the teams of which they’re a part.
In short, this is a management worldview for motivation that says, “Empower, don’t control – Educate, don’t tell.”
Not only is this comprehensive, but it’s also reasonable. Of the listed suggestions, what can you immediately change for your team?