CrazyMotive.com

In many organizations the problem is not with motivating employees. It is about not demotivating the people.

When a newbie comes to work, they are usually driven to produce and do their best. However, in over 80% of business entities the enthusiasm of employees plummets within a year and continues to decline with time. This fact has been found from surveying about 1.1 million people at 50 Fortune 1000 businesses over 2001-2004. The research was organized by Sirota Survey Intelligence.

The root of the evil is the actions of the management. It boils downs to how the company performs its hr policies and work procedures and how relationships are built with immediate superiors.There are some traits of character in managers that should be held accountable. And there are things that that can be done to turn things around.

What do people want at work?

If you want to satisfy somebody’s need, you need to know it. There are three things people want at their work place:

• Fair treatment. It is respect, honoring obligations in terms of money and job security.
• Accomplishment. Being proud to work in this company, for this boss.
• Good relationships at work with collegues.

If you want your people to be happy, focus on these three components. If all the three bits of the puzzle are in place, the workers will have more fun in comparison to a case when something is missing.

You cannot expect people to take your respect as a compensation for low pay. You cannot pay the bills with your pride. And getting tons of money is a poor substitute for a sense of achievement and pride.

Individual managers matter

There are things that have to be done on the level of the upper management. For example, a consistent approach to managing talent. However, enthusiasm and personal charisma can impact personnel motivation of subordinates.
The crucial element of employee management policy is offering them a sense of security. People must know that they will not be fired if they underperform. Firing people is the extreme method and not something to use when things go a bit in the wrong direction. Certainly, providing security is just a way to start.

Accomplishments

1. Provide people with a vision. To have enthusiasm in people you need to give them an understandable, believable and inspiring organizational mission. The answer to the question why the company exists and why the employees are working there (everything which is beyond the money).Just having a mission is not enough. It is equally important to communicate this mission to people.

2. Recognize for good results. No matter big or tiny each achievement should be recognized. A good compliment goes a long way to the workers heart. And nothing is more disheartening than getting no thanks for a well done job, but lots of criticism for a slip or mistake. People need recognition. It is a basic instinct. Rewarding success reinforces the behavior that lead to the accomplishment whereas punishment simply makes people complacent. However, no compliment is a good substitute for a fair pay.

3. Work to help your people succees. Being bossy and overdemanding is going to kill any enthusiasm there was left in your employees. However, making sure that your people have what they need to have things done will produce wonders. The role of the manager is primarily to be a communicator, facilitator and intermediary between his unit and other business elements. How do you know if people are coping? Talk to them! Talking to people openly helps you earn their trust. If you cannot solve the problem right away, let them know how it will be dealt with later.

4. Train your people. Many managers do not train their employees because they do not know how to do it properly. There are a few hints that can help. It is very important when working with people who do just fine to let them know you are okay with their performance, so that they know it is satisfactory. Then they will more happily accept and welcome constructive criticism.

5. Have a formal and meaningful feedback system. It would take a lot of words to discuss it all here, but some basic points:

• Give feedback when things happen. Do not wait for a formal appraisal. The goal of formal reports should be making a summary rather than an unpleasant surprise.
• Do not be afraid to criticize. Employees actually like to know if they are not performing properly. All the same, do not forget about praise. You should have a group of minds that you can rightfully praise all the time. Your feedback regarding areas for improvement should be specific, informational, with no emotions and about performance rather than employee’s personality. Do not say “The work was shoddy”. Instead explain the specifics of what and how should be improved.
• Focus on the employee’s role. Do not talk about things disconnected from the tasks you provide feedback on.Let employees tell you their side of the story. This is the chance for you to deal with their performance issues.
• Do not try to prove your position or superiority. Focus on improving performance. That is your goal of the conversation, remember?

Fair treatment

6. Do not unnecessarily restrict the flow of information in the company. Workers hate being excluded from the communication mechanisms. There should be some confidential information that has to be kept secret. Let your people know the rest.
If you communicate with people fully, you show them respect. It is a nice motivating factor to work for somebody who respects you.

7. Deal with poor performance. If there is poor performance from somebody, deal with it. It will make others feel proud of their work.

Relationships

8. Build teams. Most work requires an effort from a group of people. Problem solving can be more effective when done in groups. For many people working in a team is already a motivator. Allow people to have self-managed teams whenever it is possible. It reduces the need for management and results in a healthy reduction of costs.

All the elements combined

9. Listen to your people and engage them. It works with any employee, even part time ones. Show interest in your people’s ideas. Have frank conversations about improving effectiveness. Create the climate where the past is always not good enough and more innovation is expected.

After you define task boundaries, you should give your people the room to work and introduce changes on their own. Let your competent people do their work the way they see fit.

I am very curious about making myself more effective.There are tons of nice posts on the matter in the Internet. I have decided to pool back the basics into one post for me (and for you) and to go from there.

1. Understanding what is important

The shortest path to personal effectiveness has to lie through understanding what is important for you. People try to do stuff they believe is important. Believing and knowing your priorities may not be enough to succeed, but that is definetely a starting point.

2. Setting goals

We are bombarded with impulses: there are tons of unimportant things we fall for doing. Watching TV is the one biggest time consumer for many people. Currently, I am crazy about HOUSE M.D. series

However, if you know what is important for you, you can prioritize and you can set goals. The best goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Imagine that you are running a marathon. You couch wants to cheer you up. She comes up to you and shouts: ‘Come on! Do you your best. You can do it!’. Will such words actually help you do your best? And what if she says: ‘There’s only 200 meters to go. You can do it!’  Being specific and measurable is such a slave driver.

3. Managing time

There is one resource that we cannot save. It is time. Managing time is probably not the best way to put it. We cannot manage time as it simply happens to us. What we can do, however, is manage our activities. To be effective, we need to give time to achieving our goals and less time to routine. Managing time is connected with the first two points: get the priorities and the goals right, and allocate time to pursue them.

4. Managing money

The best thing about money is that you can save it. You can accumulate it. You can use it to help you achieve your goals. Not having enough money is bad. Impulse spending is the real evil. If you watch and plan your expenses, you will be a happier person in the end. Saving for the contingencies & important things is the way to go.

5. Managing emotions & stress

If you strive for personal effectiveness, you have to learn to deal with stress. It is important to learn to relax. To do sports. A cool thing is to create positive experiences for yourself: rewarding yourself for a job well done or a goal achieved.

Our happiness in many cases depends on our relations with other people. Relationships are easier to build if you are open, sincere and helpful. Leading a social life has been shown to give fairly positive results. Give it a try

6. Managing Health

Good life has to be long. To make sure we have enough time to reach our goals, we have to stay healthy. It means good dieting, regular medical examinations and physical activities.

7. Hard work.

Personall effectiveness means nothing if it is not used. To achieve results, we have to work and work a lot. The hard work should be also smart work: it makes sense to focus on the most important goals and priorities and achieve success there. Spreading thin is stupid & ineffective. Going too narrow will make us overspecialized and less prepaired to change. Hence, the balance has to be found somewhere.

There thousands of books about each of those elements. Probably, you could add something else to the list, or formulate something differently. However, keeping those 7 in mind seems to be working for me. At least to a certain extent.

1. People are consistent. If the person cheats on others, they will cheat on you. If somebody gossips to you, they will gossip about you. If you have a good friend, no matter what happens they are likely to stay with you.

2. Work to live, not the other way around. If all you do is work, you are either a great artist who’s driven by passion, or a stupid person who robs himself or herself of many pleasures of life. Life can be more fun then just work and money. It is new stuff that matters: emotions, relationships, experiences. Even money is only as good, as the number of emotions it can buy.

3. Don’t try to motivate everyone. A crazy motive, right? There are people who are lazy. There are people who are different. Do not waste yourself on them. There are others you can help. If you want everyone to like you, you are easy to manipulate. Choose the right people and be rewarded with the right attitude.

4. You’ll always be you, no matter what you do. Pretending is fine in the short term. But in the end its best to find the person who will think that the sun shines out of your ass and loves you for what you are.

5. 80% of things you do does not matter much. It is 20% that matters. Each day we waste more than 19 hours of time. At most, you’ll have 4-5 hours to do something meaningful, important, useful. Make sure you do it. Every day.