Motivating people towards peak performance
Being a leader means energising and motivating your team of direct reports to perform at a higher level. In managing people, ineffective managers are considered ineffective not because they don't know how to motivate people, but because they don't know what motivates their people. Most managers falsely assume that what motivates them also motivates others. The major problem is that today's managers generally tend to be player-coaches, meaning that they have individual production responsibilities in addition to their managerial roles. Who has the time for all the "people issues"? If only there was a simple way of thinking about it. Here's a one-minute course on energising and motivating others:
ROLE
ENVIRONMENT
DEVELOPMENT
As managers, you need to talk regularly with employees about the three buckets, and as you keep the dialogue going, listen for information about their preferences and aspirations. Armed with this information, you can label and link day-to-day work with their expectations. For example, if you know that one of your employees wants to get more experience in dealing with cross-border transactions, you might staff her on a team that is working on an important transaction. However, before giving her that assignment, you must talk to her and tell her (label) that you are doing so because it will give her the experience she needs, and explain (link) that it will help her in her career progression if she gains cross-border expertise.
You will find that it does not take a lot of time to energise people if you organize your interaction and communication with employees around the simple RED framework. All it takes is a bit of proactive action on the part of managers during the normal course of day-to-day functioning.
Thrasos Lazarou
Senior Programme Director
Being a leader means energising and motivating your team of direct reports to perform at a higher level. In managing people, ineffective managers are considered ineffective not because they don't know how to motivate people, but because they don't know what motivates their people. Most managers falsely assume that what motivates them also motivates others. The major problem is that today's managers generally tend to be player-coaches, meaning that they have individual production responsibilities in addition to their managerial roles. Who has the time for all the "people issues"? If only there was a simple way of thinking about it. Here's a one-minute course on energising and motivating others:
- No matter how hard you try, you cannot motivate another human being. Humans are pre-motivated by their individual purpose and values.
- Don't ask yourself what you can do to motivate them; try to find out how they are already motivated.
- Once you know their personal motivation triggers, try as best as you can to match their expectations with the work at hand. For example, if someone enjoys creative work, give them more assignments involving creative work. If someone likes customer interface more than processing, try to give them opportunities to interact with customers.
- If, however, there is a complete mismatch between personal motivators and the work at hand, rather than fixing the problem with carrots or sticks, the best course is to find a better fit. In other words, if the demands of the job are diametrically opposite of what the individual is energised by, then it is best to help this individual find another job or role.
ROLE
ENVIRONMENT
DEVELOPMENT
As managers, you need to talk regularly with employees about the three buckets, and as you keep the dialogue going, listen for information about their preferences and aspirations. Armed with this information, you can label and link day-to-day work with their expectations. For example, if you know that one of your employees wants to get more experience in dealing with cross-border transactions, you might staff her on a team that is working on an important transaction. However, before giving her that assignment, you must talk to her and tell her (label) that you are doing so because it will give her the experience she needs, and explain (link) that it will help her in her career progression if she gains cross-border expertise.
You will find that it does not take a lot of time to energise people if you organize your interaction and communication with employees around the simple RED framework. All it takes is a bit of proactive action on the part of managers during the normal course of day-to-day functioning.
Thrasos Lazarou
Senior Programme Director
