7
MOTIVATION
Harness Creativity and Loyalty

Individual engagement and empowerment drive workplace productivity, even at the team level. Effective leaders must in ternalize the factors motivating their team members, so they can use their tools in the best way possible to boost productivity.

As noted earlier, emphasize the value of your team members’ contributions, showing them how everyone contributes to the success of the entire team. Invite your team on this journey by motivating them and empowering them as your partners in success. Ask for and consider their ideas and opinions.

Take hold of your own creativity, finding ways to harness it and passing those ideas on to your team members. And never lose sight of the fact that they are your teammates; you’re a team member, not just a leader.

Always seek employee loyalty. This won’t come naturally, so encourage it through basic managerial tactics, avoiding micro management, and being tough but fair. Most importantly, demonstrate your gratitude for a job well done and encourage team trust, tightening team cohesion at every turn.

ENSURING TEAM-MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

Those of us who’ve worked in an environment in which leaders actively encourage engagement can testify to its effectiveness.

The basic recipe for ensuring engagement is surprisingly simple, though the ingredients and precise amounts needed can vary according to the workplace and team. Include these factors in your engagement initiatives:

• Knowledge of the organization’s strategic goals.

• Clarification of each employee’s place within that framework, and why their work matters.

• Sincere and explicit encouragement to take the initiative.

• Ability to take initiative without unreasonable censure.

• Willingness to trust the workers.

• Delegation of authority as well as tasks and duties.

• Refusal to micromanage.

• Respect for all team members and what they do.

• Strong leadership through action and example.

• Positive motivation in forms advantageous to the team.

The last point may be the most important ingredient in engagement. People are more willing to own their jobs and invest more discretionary effort if there’s a payoff, though it doesn’t have to be monetary. As media mogul Rupert Murdoch once pointed out, “In motivating people, you’ve got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example—and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.”

Lost Chances

According to the spring 2013 National Employee Engagement Study by Modern Survey, employee engagement levels in the United States had dropped to their lowest rates in six years at that point.²⁶ Thirty-two percent of the one thousand workers surveyed rated themselves completely disengaged, with only 10 percent fully engaged and another 22 percent moderately engaged. The rest were underengaged.

Fortunately, by fall 2014, the numbers had improved to 22 percent disengaged, 28 percent moderately engaged, 16 percent fully engaged, and 35 percent underengaged.²⁷ But these numbers are still dismal, especially in an era of economic uncertainty like ours. What gives?

In the spring 2013 study, Modern Survey concluded that a big part of the problem was that half of all employees (including managers!) simply didn’t know what engagement meant. No one had ever bothered to explain it to them, much less point out why it matters. Among those who did know what it meant—63 percent of managers versus 43 percent of non-management employees—the big issue was that no one understood engagement’s primary drivers. Worse, most had no idea who bore the responsibility for taking ownership of engagement: was it employees, managers, or senior leadership?

Only 39 percent knew the truth: that ownership of engagement belongs to all of the above.²⁸ That might seem simplistic, but that makes it no less true. It’s in everyone’s best interests for an employee to want to take ownership of his or her job. But too often, front-line workers don’t even know they have the right to do so.

Too many people have worked for companies with rigid hierarchies and permission-based cultures, so it should come as no surprise that most workers engage only when directly told to do so. It’s your duty, then, to reeducate your employees so they realize they can take the initiative. Let them know you prefer it!

Shouldering Your Share

You not only have to make it explicitly obvious to your people that they have permission to take the initiative, but you also have to give them reasons to care.

Sure, you can spend months defining your core values, articulating mission and vision, and fashioning a flexible, up-to-the-minute strategy, but if your team’s collective attitude boils down to “Who cares?” or simple disbelief, then you’ve lost the game before you’ve even begun. If that’s true, then no one’s at fault but you, no matter who you want to blame. So work hard to engage your team and rev their motivational engines.

Start by showing them you believe in them, and that you will hold them to a higher standard because you have confidence they can achieve it. Try these five tips, especially when the going gets tough:

1 MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND THE BIG PICTURE. If your team isn’t already familiar with the organization’s main goals, lay them out in plain language. Make sure they feel valued within that big picture, so they’ll have reason to feel they “own” their jobs.

2 GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEED. I can’t repeat this enough. If your employees lack the right tools or training, they may not feel capable of or confident about doing the tasks you’ve assigned them. Whether they need training, a new computer, a smartphone, or a better printer, make it happen, so they can move forward with confidence.

3 PLAN CAREFULLY. Collaborate with your team on how to best achieve long-term goals. Review the plans and get everyone involved in how to proceed. Give them active, important roles in building those plans, as well as in controlling deadlines, scheduling, project management, and scope creep. Establish performance goals. Provide reasonable objectives for team members to shoot for, both as individuals and as a team, but make everyone stretch a little to reach them.

4 PROVIDE TRACKING METRICS. Show your team how they’re doing. If they realize they’re the front-runners in a company-wide sales race, they may work hard to stay there. Or if they’re in second place, they may redouble their efforts to take first place. Consider it a report card for the team, one that may inspire them to kick it into high gear.

5 CELEBRATE SUCCESSES. When something goes right, even something small, make sure your team knows you appreciate their efforts. Public pats on the back are cheap and, in some cases, just as effective as cash. You can also provide treats for the break room or take everyone to lunch when things go well. If a project’s especially important or difficult, promise your folks that, when they complete it—especially if it comes in early and under budget—you’ll have a blowout party, or they’ll get a special treat such as a three-day weekend. Give them something to strive for.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards

You already know that dangling the carrot of a bonus, raise, or promotion works wonders for some people. But those are individual prizes, not team ones. Intrinsic rewards, on the other hand, can act as powerful motivators in team environments. The thrill of reaching a difficult goal can be its own reward. Knowing how to motivate your team with the intrinsic satisfaction of meeting challenges and doing exceptional work gives you another strategy to keep them at the top of their game. And even if someone is determined to be the MVP, that person still pulls the entire team upward. As basketball great Michael Jordan once pointed out, there’s no “I” in “team,” but there is in “win.”

The ABCs of Motivation

Brian Halligan, CEO of the online marketing firm HubSpot, has a singular way of handling go-getter employees who present him with great ideas with the potential to improve the company’s bottom line. He fires them.

The punchline? He then appoints them as the CEOs of their own change initiatives, akin to little start-ups within the company. Halligan calls this his Mini-CEO Program, and he does it to both decentralize the company and empower team players.²⁹ You can bet it motivates the heck out of his employees to do their best for him, so they’ll have a shot at the big time.

What can you do to motivate your employees? With fewer than 25 percent of nonmanagerial employees fully engaged in their jobs,³⁰ those in the catbird seats have unique opportunities to dangle similar carrots before their team members. Helping them help themselves by devoting themselves more fully to their careers is a win/win situation. There’s no altruism here: fully engaged employees, who are passionate about their work, keep team and organizational performance trending steadily upward.

Truth is, you can’t really motivate people to do anything; they have to motivate themselves. But you can provide incentives and an environment people find motivating, so they’re inspired to contribute their discretionary efforts.

It’s as easy as ABC—and DEF:

A = Analyze. Everyone’s different, so determine what each person wants in return for extra discretionary effort. Give them all the opportunity to profit when the company does. For example, offer flexible scheduling, raises, bonuses, conference attendance, part-time telecommuting, certificates, or pats on the back—whatever it takes. Another A-word, Awards, is your friend here. But don’t hand them out indiscriminately. Give them only to those who fully deserve them.

B = Balance. Your team members need a good work/life balance to remain productive. At a certain point (about the tenth hour of a long workday), accumulated error and declining performance overwhelm any benefit derived from continuing to work. Make sure everyone gets the rest and the breaks they need—from daily coffee to their annual vacations—and they’ll take care of you. Be a good role model as well. If you send an email at 2 A.M. when you have insomnia, be sure to let the recipient know you don’t expect anyone to be working that late!

C = Communicate. We use the gift of gab for a reason: it’s still the best way we’ve invented to convey ideas. Explain what you need everyone to do and why—clearly, plainly, and honestly. Each week, my office manager and I review her master list to prioritize her tasks for the next few days. We make sure we’re on the same page, and then I get out of her way and let her do her job. Keep the lines open for whenever a team member needs assistance.

D = Direction. Although the manager’s role has changed in the last few decades, leaders are still responsible for providing the team’s mission and vision. You’ll see better results when you strategically align individual and team goals with their organizational counterparts. Performance management is one of the most important areas of motivation, since it produces significant improvement if you can implement it. Review milestones and provide coaching with each of your direct reports in weekly one-on-one meetings. Show them why you can’t get there without their help.

E = Expect. Let your people know what you expect from them as unambiguously as possible. But if someone discovers a better way of getting from here to there, let them take it—as long as it’s ethical and legal. Expect great things from your team and model those expectations in your own behavior.

F = Facilitate. When you make it easier for your team to succeed, you boost their morale, performance, and productivity. Go out ahead of everyone and demolish the bureaucratic hurdles, fill in the technological potholes, and build bridges to span knowledge gaps. Influence senior leaders to get the budget you need. Run interference if another department is slowing your team down. When your team sees you out there fighting for them by providing the assistance they need to improve, they can’t help but want to do their best for you.

If you give your team members valid, easy-to-understand reasons to do well, you’ll push productivity through the roof. This little lexicon just scratches the surface of the various ways you can motivate your people to shine. There are twenty more letters to explore, and most have more than one word to draw upon.

HARNESSING CREATIVITY

Allowing your team to unleash their creativity on your collective business problems is an excellent way to motivate them to donate their discretionary effort to the organization. It costs you nothing extra, except for a willingness to relinquish absolute control of your team, and it can deeply benefit your organization.

So encourage your people to think of novel ways to boost the company’s profit. It’s in everyone’s interest, it’s cheap, and, as with Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Consider these four suggestions for combining creativity with your work processes:

1 SET ASIDE TIME FOR CREATIVITY. You may have heard of a little company called Google. According to company rules, employees can spend up to 20 percent of their time working on personal projects they feel can boost the company’s profitability (although former executive Marissa Mayer, now CEO of Yahoo, has stated that it was really only practiced above and beyond the normal workweek—“120 percent,” as she put it). The practice has earned Google millions. Outcomes include Gmail, AdSense, and Google News.³¹ You may not be able to give your people a full day off every week to pursue personal projects, but even the occasional half hour spent brainstorming can have a positive effect on team productivity.

2 STUDY OTHER DISCIPLINES. In nature, some of the toughest plants and animals are crossbreeds. They tend to be healthier than purebreds, because inbreeding reinforces bad genes, producing more duds than random breeding. The same goes for business ideas. Read widely about successful people and businesses in a variety of fields, stay aware of scientific progress in fields other than your own—and keep your eyes open. Encourage your people to do the same.

3 LISTEN TO YOUR TEAM’S IDEAS AND ADVICE. Your team has combined experience measured in decades. Some of that experience may be superior to your own in certain areas. Take advantage of it, urging everyone to make suggestions about how to better achieve company or team goals. If they prefer to stay mum, offer a reward for profitable ideas. You may jostle a few loose. And remember: your team’s ideas may be like seedlings. When they first emerge, you never know which will die off, which will be weeds, or which will grow into mighty oaks that buttress your organization’s success. So give ideas time to mature before you thin them out.

4 DON’T PUNISH FAILURE. Everyone makes mistakes or overestimates the worth of some ideas or initiatives. Most ideas fail. Some fail dismally. Let your people err without worrying about punishment. Otherwise, they may give up too soon. There’s an old joke about someone’s uncle who invented 1-Up through 6-Up and then GAVE up. Though humorous, it teaches a sly lesson about tenacity. Many famous entrepreneurs failed multiple times in their careers before striking it rich.

While we have procedures and traditions for a reason, we can’t let them hold us back. Mavericks who keep their eyes open and are willing to try something new drive innovation. So open your eyes to the possibilities. As the saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Imagine how well you can do with both eyes open.

ACHIEVING SUCCESS THROUGH LOYALTY

In recent years, I’ve repeatedly seen business leaders bemoan the death of employee loyalty. This amazes me every time I hear it because, really, why would anyone be surprised? This loss is completely predictable.

On the one hand, technology has freed employees from most traditional workplace restraints. Some have decided to strike out on their own; others realize they can get further faster by jumping from company to company instead of working their way through the hierarchy of one organization. On the other hand, global competition and shareholder demands have ensured that most companies can no longer provide lifelong employment or traditional pensions—loyalty guarantees that workers once took for granted. So why should employees feel loyal toward the company?

The New Loyalty Paradigm

That said, employee loyalty need not be a thing of the past. No one expects lifelong loyalty anymore, but you can increase loyalty to gratifying levels if you make a few adjustments to the way you do business.

A simple way is to treat your team with trust and respect. One of your chief aims should be to make your team’s work easier by clearing the way toward achieving your goals. Respect your people by making those goals crystal clear and show them you’re working as hard as they are. Don’t look down on your teammates or dismiss their concerns. Give them the training and advice they need to do their jobs well. Shared respect takes many routes, and you have to police them all.

Strive for consistency along the way. Workers need to be able to predict your behavior, at least to some extent, and know you’ll treat everyone the same way no matter what. Otherwise, how can they trust you? When you make a promise, fulfill it. Follow through with your commitments. If a specific achievement earns a specific award, everyone who captures that achievement gets the award. Display consistency with word and deed, and expect the same of your people. They’ll respect you for it.

Empower your team. Let your team members own their jobs. If they can function without excess interference or overly punitive responses to mistakes, they’ll stay with you longer. Give them room to breathe, and let them take the initiative to improve their own output. They’ll find it easier to execute strategy at a moment’s notice if they don’t always have to ask permission first.

Above all, lead! Your position gives you the ability to shape other people’s lives by example. Your workers watch you constantly, so they know if you ignore your own rules. Leadership means more than ordering people around; it means guidance, in everything from coaching to living up to your promises.

Looking Ahead

Accept the fact that business has changed irrevocably due to technological and sociological evolution. No matter where you work or what you do, team members will leave more often than you like, and you’ll be forced to bring newbies up to speed. Even innovative companies such as Amazon and Google have higher turnover rates than you’d expect.³² You can’t hold on to people as your predecessors did, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. While money and position mean a great deal to employees, so do simple things including trust, compassion, respect, empowerment, good communications, and solid leadership.

The Power of Gratitude

Good old-fashioned appreciation can be amazingly motivational and loyalty-inducing. Shortly after Robert Eckert joined the ailing toy company Mattel as CEO back in 2000, he convened a meeting of all its employees to thank them all for their fine work—and for the even finer work they were about to do.

Eckert let them know he believed most people go to work willing to overdeliver. From that foundational belief, a culture of gratitude sprang forth, helping Mattel become the envy of the manufacturing industry. While it took a few years to turn the company around, Mattel made the Top 100 in Fortune’s list of the “Best Companies to Work For” from 2008 through 2013.³³

Adding an Attitude of Gratitude to Your Business

How can you sow the seeds of a gratitude culture within your team? Consider these factors while handing out thanks:

1 DON’T OVERDO IT. Praising everyone for everything they do dilutes the effect. One of my friends is a ghostwriter, and for years, he had a customer who praised everything he submitted to the skies. While my friend appreciated that, and no doubt the customer meant it, the praise became routine and expected—until the customer had to pare back his business and stopped sending my friend more work. In some ways, that effusive praise meant less than praise from tougher clients who were perfectly willing to bounce an article back for rewrite—or even kill it—if it didn’t meet their needs.

2 BE GENUINE. Don’t always couch praise as a warm-up to criticism. If you inevitably follow praise with correction, employees will think of your gratitude as a platitude. When they hear positive words, they’ll think, “Here it comes,” in anticipation of the critique that is sure to follow. Instead, sincerely praise what employees have done right. Even if they made mistakes, you can preface coaching with an appreciation of their willingness to take on the task and learn new things.

3 GIVE GIFTS. For many people, nothing works better as a motivator than a simple “thank you” and a pat on the back. And while verbal praise is important, we all respond positively to tangible gifts. In multilevel marketing, the smart recruiters always thank their recruits, especially party-planning hosts, with a worthwhile gift. Gifts not only encourage people to repeat desired behavior, they also trigger the reciprocity effect—when you do something nice for someone, they feel the need to do something nice for you.³⁴ A well-timed gift may encourage your people to go above and beyond on the next project.

4 RECOGNIZE MILESTONES. A monthly party with a cake for that month’s birthdays is an inexpensive way to build camaraderie. Other important team milestones may include surpassing a sales benchmark, hitting a five- or ten-year anniversary with the company, or far exceeding expectations—so make sure they get the recognition they deserve. Recognition differs from praise because you do it in public.

As he explained to me in an interview, Senior Vice President Darren Smith’s recipe for company loyalty at John Hancock Investments is simple, straightforward, and includes all these strategies. He keeps good people on board by

very thoughtfully and intentionally fostering a culture of excellence that is people focused, family friendly, and performance driven. This can’t just be a slogan that hangs on the wall, but has to become part of the corporate DNA, present in all that we do. You have to start with a foundation of cultural integrity, which essentially means that we are who we say we are, and we do what we say we’ll do.

We believe that a company can and does have a soul, and it is evidenced in the company’s culture. If we have achieved true cultural integrity, then that culture should be manifested in the same way from the top to the bottom of the organization. Once the cultural foundation is in place, respect, recognition, and appreciation provide constant reinforcement and are crucial in developing loyalty. Recognition should come not only in the form of corporate trophies at the year-end, but also in personal touches on a regular basis.

Those touches take a number of different forms, to include verbal affirmations, inclusion, monetary recognition, and birthday, anniversary, and holiday greetings. Study after study has shown that the biggest factor in employee loyalty is appreciation, and if we can get that right, we rarely lose people.

Paying It Forward

Gratitude is like the magic penny from the kids’ song: the more you give it away, the richer you become. Expressing appreciation—and really meaning it—will make a huge difference. Your employees will feel proud that you’ve acknowledged their efforts. Never take them for granted.