In the next few paragraphs, I would like to look at individuals and their motivation as they need to be linked to the individual, the unique workplace and other
workers within it, and the geographical location of the business as well as the
individual’s cultural background. Hence, one size does not fit all.
If we go back centuries and even thousands of years, human
behaviour and motivation was very much based on survival. Over time humans have learnt to live in the
more complex societies and to harness this purely biological drive. We can look at the early modern way of
motivation through award and punishment, however the basic pillars of ancient times still remain.
Many of today’s leaders and employees are being put through
psych evaluations before commencing new roles.
A key area of these is to look how the individual is motivated. Are they purely extrinsically (i.e. pay,
working conditions and job security) motivated or are they more intrinsically
(achievement, personal growth or even just enjoying work itself).
I believe different cultures embrace these differently. My understanding is that Japan embraced
intrinsic motivation a long time ago, while the US at that point was very much
extrinsically motivated through large bonuses and incentive schemes, and I
don’t see that much has changed.
As our
company specialises in Lean Six Sigma business improvement, cultural change is
on the forefront of increasing productivity and efficiency, and the culture is
very much influenced by how the organisation rewards and retains their
staff.
I don’t think there is one solution that fits all, as some
may work on occasions, others at other times, however, the key is to
understanding and determining which parts to discard and which parts to keep.
When leaders design a program to achieve certain results they
need to be very careful that these do not have the opposite effect (also known
as the Sawyer Effect: practices than can
either turn play into work or turn work into play) which can often be the
case. Understanding the organisation, its values, vision and mission go a long
way to establishing the basics, and may have to be re-visted to ensure we are
not losing focus and what is important.
In the end of the day we want to achieve high performance
from our staff and leaders. We want them
to remain creative while sticking to “good behaviour” such as honesty and
integrity. There are plenty of examples
in recent times where major corporates have collapsed. We often hear about the extravagant amounts
of money the executives were paid, the lavish lifestyles etc. And while they all seem to have set out trying
to achieve high performance, the latter part of this paragraph was forgotten.
Unethical behaviour crept into their
every-day work life and it was as if they were getting addicted to the
rewards. Their thinking became short
term, ignoring any long term consequences.
Earlier in our course (and this blog) I/we discussed whether leaders were born
or made, and I remember some interesting comments from many of the other students.
It seems to be a fact that in the long term,
intrinsically motivated people will often outperform extrinsically motivated
people. While in the short term extrinsically motivated people can often
delivery better results faster, the trouble seems to be that this approach is
difficult to sustain, which leads to the addictive problems discussed
earlier.
If you remember my earlier post (http://leanimprovement.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/leadership-and-three-levels-of.html) which discussed EQ’s, CQ’s and
SQ’s, I also mentioned that I felt it was important to include mind and
body. Intrinsically motivated people
have been shown in many studies to generally lead healthier lifestyles, with
greater physical and mental well-being.
In summary, every person is different, so is every workplace. There will always be some people who are
motivated in other ways than their co-workers.
A good leader needs to assess the situation and try and master the
distribution of rewards based on the individuals. Some of it will be by trial and error, but as long
as the basics are adhered to with integrity (values, vision, mission), the
outcome should be sustainable.
As for politics, whether we like it or not, they are part of
every work place. The aim is to minimise
them and to lead with autonomy. Warm and
fuzzy does not work for me, it is as it is.
Although it may not always be appreciated, people know where they stand
with me and hopefully respect the honesty.
Therefore I do agree with the statement by Prof. Lusk “No,
there are a lot of places where no matter how hard you work, if you don’t play
the politics, you lose! “,
I am just glad that I work for a company where this is not the case, and in the
end this is everyone’s choice to make!
Below are a couple more extracts from a presentation (Unit 1.1 - Motivation & Rewards, University of Cumbria & Robert Kennedy College, Prof. Lusk) which are interesting and fitting:
Defining
Motivation
Motivation
The
processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and
persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.
Key Elements
1. Intensity: how hard a person tries
2. Direction: toward beneficial goal
3. Persistence: how long a person
tries
• Between
50% of our employees are not motivated
• Employers
want to improve efficiency and increase productivity.
• Benefits
and Rewards packages need to be designed to be motivators
Comparison
of Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers
Source:
Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review. An exhibit from One More Time: How Do You Motivate
Employees? by Frederick Herzberg, September–October
1987. Copyright © 1987 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College: All
rights reserved.
