Motivation

Motivation

Motivation is a very broad topic, and one that reaches well beyond just pushing yourself to achieve more. High motivation is vitally important if you and your team are to achieve peak performance.

What Really Motivates People?
Dispelling the myths about motivation
Why do organizations, managers and team leaders want highly motivated employees? The answer is simple: To improve performance.
Better motivation leads to all sorts of positive behaviors: Motivated employees tend to work harder; be less stressed; take more care in their work; be less likely to leave their jobs; look for opportunities to improve the processes with which they work; and much more. But in the end, all of this adds up to one thing: Improved performance.
So, if you're a manager or you're in upper level administration, motivating your team is a must. And it can be one of the quickest ways to improve your "bottom line" too, whether your "bottom line" is financial or measured in another way such as customer satisfaction, production quality or reducing an inherited backlog.
So, just how can you increase motivation, improve employee performance and watch your "bottom line" grow, however it is measured?
Perhaps we should start with the old saying: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". The same is true for people. To get the best from people, you have to inspire and motivate them to give their best.
While it seems that some people are born with higher levels of motivation than others, this is not always the case. In fact, it has been proven that motivating people is a skill, one that must be mastered to achieve success.
Motivation - A Key Contributor to Performance
You can think of performance as a simple equation:
Job performance = ability x motivation
Ability depends, to some degree, on education, experience and training. This makes improvement a continual, lengthy process. By contrast, motivation can be quickly improved.
There are a handful of very basic, broad strategies that you can use to improve it. These include:
• Positive reinforcement
• Effective discipline
• Treating people fairly
• Satisfying employee needs
• Setting attainable work-related goals
• Restructuring jobs when necessary
• Giving rewards that are based on performance
While motivation practices will vary widely from workplace to workplace, these are the areas you should focus on when you want to motivate people.
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Frederick Herzberg's Findings
Now, it's worth going into a bit of theory here. To get a deeper understanding of motivation and job satisfaction, we can look to Frederick Herzberg, a well-respected researcher who closely studied the sources of employee motivation in the 1950s and 1960s. While Herzberg's studies were conducted some time ago, they are strongly respected and underpin much of our current view of motivation.
He found that the things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied (or act as de-motivators.) This points to an approach which is exactly opposite of the motivators commonly put in place in the modern workplace, i.e. use of compensation and incentive packages.
For, as discussed in his classic article in the Harvard Business Review ('One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?" January - February 1968), Herzberg argued that spiraling wages may very well serve to motivate employees; however, the action they motivate is the seeking the next wage increase - and little more than that.
In fact, Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory suggests that the factors that determine job satisfaction and serve to motivate are "separate and distinct from the factors that lead to job dissatisfaction." Hence, the opposite of job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction, but rather no job satisfaction. Conversely, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no job dissatisfaction.
According to Herzberg, the factors to consider when working to enhance job satisfaction and motivation include:
• Achievement
• Recognition for Achievement
• Work Itself
• Responsibility
• Growth
• Advancement
And the factors which cause most dissatisfaction  include:
• Company Policy
• Administration
• Poor Supervision
• Interpersonal Relationships
• Working Conditions
• Salary
• Status
• Security
So managers should seek to motivate people by giving opportunities for achievement and celebrating this, and helping individuals enjoy and grow in their jobs. And they should actively minimize the bureaucracy and petty irritations that organizations often unthinkingly inflict on employees.
Herzberg concluded that motivators are the primary cause of satisfaction and hygiene factors are the primary cause of unhappiness in the workplace. Taking an example:
People are often only temporarily motivated by an increase in salary, however they can become very demotivated if they think salaries are too low or if they're earning less than their peers.
Now, it's easy to pass over this information without absorbing its significance.
Instead, pause for a moment and put aside your current assumptions about other people's motivations. Reflect on how you feel yourself. Isn't this true for you? Don't you get your greatest satisfaction from doing a good job, being recognized for it, and from growing your capabilities? And aren't you most demotivated by the frustrations of bureaucracy, organizational stupidity, politics and being "taken advantage of"?
As it is for you, so it is for most other people.
Summary
If you're a manager, you already know that motivating your team is an important part of your job. In so many cases, the level of motivation of your team is a huge factor in its performance.
The role of motivation or "job enrichment", as Herzberg called it, is more than a single project, instead calling on continuous efforts from management. In working to do this, managers should:
• Where possible, enrich jobs so that they offer a level of challenge equal to the skills of the person that occupies them;
• Work to ensure those with ability are able to demonstrate it, and can win promotion to higher-level jobs; and
• Understand that the very nature of motivators (as opposed to hygiene factors) is that they have a long-term effect on employees' attitudes.
Obviously, not all jobs can be enriched, nor do all jobs need to be enriched. But as Herzberg concluded, if a small percentage of the time and money that is dedicated to "hygiene" was instead allocated to his motivating factors, the return in employee satisfaction and motivation, as well as economic gain, would be one of "the largest dividends that industry and society have ever reaped."
It's now time to put this into practice! How are you going to motivate your team? How will you make good motivation a routine part of your approach to management?
Keep reading to learn more about motivation theories as well as tips and suggestions for making them work in reality.
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Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory
Frederick Herzberg, a well-respected researcher who closely studied the sources of employee motivation in the 1950s and 1960s, produced great work on job satisfaction and employee satisfaction. This work forms a large part of the foundation on which most successful motivation approaches are now built.

As Herzberg determined, the factors that contribute to job satisfaction and motivation are different from those that contribute to dissatisfaction.
You may remember Herzberg's argument that increasing wages does little more than motivate employees to seek the next wage increase. His works showed that the factors that determine job satisfaction (and serve to motivate) are "separate and distinct from the factors that lead to job dissatisfaction." Hence, the opposite of job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction, but rather no job satisfaction. Conversely, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no job dissatisfaction. This is a bit of a mouthful!
Herzberg's "Hygiene Factors" (the things that make us unhappy and de-motivated) are obstructive company policy, unhelpful administration, intrusive supervision, bad working relationships, poor conditions, uncompetitive salaries, low status and job insecurity. By fixing these problems you can get rid of much de-motivation and unhappiness, but you will not build high motivation.
To start motivating people, these de-motivating factors need first to be controlled. But to build real motivation, you need to give opportunities for and recognize achievement; provide intrinsically rewarding work; and give opportunities for responsibility, growth and advancement.

The Simple Answer for Motivational Success
So how can you better motivate your team members to achieve the success you desire?
As simple as it may seem, the answer may lie in talking with them.
The importance of this cannot be overstated: If you don't make a point of listening to your team, you can miss huge opportunities both for removing de-motivators and for motivation. Team members may be upset by tiny points of bureaucracy of which you're not even aware. Or there may be simple actions that you could take that would have a huge impact on people's morale.
But what questions should you ask?
Ask questions that will help you learn more about their individual goals and their views in terms of their job. (For large groups, gather everyone and distribute a questionnaire that asks these questions in the simplest, most direct way possible).
Keep in mind that achievement, recognition, growth, meaningful work, equity and camaraderie and likely to be high on most people's list. This, of course, is aside from the obvious, which is that employees must have a safe working environment, a practical workload, comfortable working conditions, a reasonable degree of job security, satisfactory compensation and benefits, respectful treatment, credible and consistent management, and the opportunity to voice their concerns, if you're to achieve even minimal motivation. After all, these are the basics and should be considered not so much as motivational factors, but as basic necessities.
You should also ask team members if they feel challenged at work and if they feel they are able to use their skills and apply their knowledge. Is there adequate room for growth for your employees? Do they have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and learn new skills?
Do they perceive their job to be important? Do they receive recognition for their performance? And, are they proud to work for the company and proud of their individual contribution?
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Also, strive to learn more about their relationships within the workplace. Do your best to ensure your employees have consistently positive interactions with you, as well as with other members of the team? By having regular one-to-one chats with team members, you can quickly pick up and resolve issues before they become significant, as well as taking the opportunity to praise achievement.
From Theory to Successful Practice...
Remember, your goal here is to learn what will build higher morale, generate enthusiasm, and increase productivity. And just look at companies when they're performing at their best: What you'll most often find as a common denominator is the high morale of the workers.
Simply put, to motivate team members, help them be productive and be the best they can be, let them know how they are doing, make an investment in them and help them grow.
Considering that employee enthusiasm is directly related to employee performance, this becomes a never-ending cycle, one that when spun the right way, will yield unmatched results for you, your employees and the organization.
The bottom line is this: When it comes to motivating your team, perhaps you should start by considering what would motivate you. Then talk to your team members to find out what they want and need. And then work diligently to provide them with it.

 

Dr Marwah