Motivation is something which has interested me a lot in the past years and I am writing this article from a manager’s perspective. From my point of view, motivating your team is one of the most important, if not, the most important, things you have to do as a manager. I have seen the power of motivation and it’s unbelievable the way a motivated team can work without the manager requesting it and even without the manager’s presence.
So, what motivates people? I am going to list here some motivators; of course the list is not exhaustive.
Money
I think money are overrated in the business world today, as a motivator and not only. I am not saying that money doesn’t matter, but they are more of a hygiene factor. This means that the lack of money is demotivating. This is especially true for performing people that have put a lot of effort into their jobs and they begin to feel frustrated that their work is not paid as it should. People can work for a lower salary if they are happy with the rest of the work, but they will not stay forever if they are not paid enough. They will start asking themselves: either my company is not rewarding me as it should or I am in a wrong company that does not know how to make business since other companies afford to pay higher salaries.
So pay your people well, but if you want them to work harder, to give their best at work, you should go beyond material reward.
Excellence
People love to get better at what they do. So offer your people the opportunity to get better at something and they will find motivation in the work itself. One of the manager’s objectives should be to grow his/hers people. The advantages are multiple: the employees are happy and they will stick around for a longer period of time, they feel taken care of and not taken advantage of and also having better skilled employees is always an advantage for a company.
Autonomy
Even though the employees may not mention it as something that motivates them, the given autonomy is a great motivator. When I talk about autonomy I talk about giving your people the opportunity to take decisions in their work. Usually, in a project, the objective is already set, but there are always several ways to get there, so let your people chose the way. When they are taking the decisions, they will work harder to achieve the goal so that they prove to themselves and to others that their decision was the good one.
And there is another good thing that comes with autonomy: creativity. A person will never be creative when all the decisions have been taken for her. Obeying orders does not imply any creativity so why bother to think when all decisions are made for you.
The manager
It may come as a surprise but many times people work for their manager. If they like their manager, if they trust him and look up to him and mostly if the manager is kind to them, the employees will do their best not to disappoint him. I think kindness is underrated in the business world. Most of us think we go to work to make money and to do our jobs, so what has kindness to do with it? But, in fact, most people respond to kindness and, as children, we are thought that if someone treats us kindly we should respond in the same way. Who wants to disappoint a nice person? A manager can show kindness by, for example, showing understanding to the employees’ mistakes. Usually an employee knows when he has made a mistake so, when talking to the employee, the manager should not insist on the mistake but more on the correct behavior that should be adopted in the future. Being kind to your people when they are not doing their jobs properly and when you are under stress is very difficult, but I can assure you it is very rewarding and it is worth the effort.
Because we talked about creativity, I must underline that kindness is also indirectly nurturing creativity. Fear is a killer for creativity and if you are kind, your people will not fear judgment and they will not fear making mistakes. As a result they will be more confident in coming up with ideas as well as taking risks in their work.
Fun
Some decades ago it was thought that people are lazy by nature and they work only if they are determined to do so. Recent studies, and common sense I would add, have shown that people and primates can work for fun. We all have things we love doing that can be qualified as work and it seems that work can make us happy. Scientists have identified a mental state they call “flow” when we are happy doing things. They say there are two conditions for this state to appear:
- the work we are doing is not something we have done many times before, so it is not boring for us
- the work we are doing is not very difficult either so it does not create anxiety that we are not able to do it
So trust that your people can work for fun and, if you can, try to facilitate as many flow moments as possible.
Desire to make an impact
This is in my opinion the motivator that drives the world around. We are all born with the desire to leave something behind. Of course, the “something” varies from one person to another but if you, as a manager, can find the “something” for each person in your team and you can align it with the company goals, you have found a gold mine. It sometimes happens that a person has not yet found his “something”, especially true for the younger employees, or that one person’s driving goal is not compatible with the company goals. There is not much you can do in this case, but you can always try to find opportunities for your employees to make an impact with their work.
There is much power in the human will and to have the skill and knowledge to put this will at your service is a very, very valuable asset for a manager. The manager will never arrive to the destination alone and the main aim as a manager becomes to have a team of people determined to accomplish the project goals as if they were their own. I believe the ability to motivate people makes the difference between a good and an excellent manager.
