All signs are pointing to a massive year ahead.  We all know about the fast-paced nature of the work at the moment, and we all know about the shortages of staff across the region. So, the question is how do we motivate our people to capitalise on the opportunities with the resources that we have?

Broadly there are 2 types of motivation:

·        External motivation – using external forces such as pay rises, time off, bonuses, targets, accountability.

·        Internal motivation – tapping into that person’s personal desire and the motivating from that desire.

The problem is I don’t think you can ‘motivate’ anyone to do anything for any reasonable length of time if they don’t really want to do it.  Which means, no level of external reward or incentives will bring about permanent change in people’s behavior by themselves.  It is always going to take the addition of an internal motivation to bring that change.

Think about this – threatening someone’s job if they don’t perform will still only give the desired result if that person has an internal desire to keep the job.  That might be an internal fear or an internal enjoyment that they get from the role.  But without that internal motivator they aren’t really going to care if you threaten their job or if you throw more money at them etc.

Motivating people to carry out tasks they aren’t interested in is a complete waste of time if you can’t get them on board with “The Why” so that they are along for the ride and bringing that internal motivation to the task.  Otherwise, you are just dragging them kicking and screaming which means much higher risk of them dropping the ball on that task or responsibility when their motivation is low.  

With our team we get them to learn about and directly be involved with our clients.  That means getting to know you and understanding you, your business, your goals. Basically, build a true trusted relationship.  Other than the development they get for their career and the improvement to the client experience the reason is simple - if the team has direct contact with our clients, they build a mutual trust and therefore a care factor.  With care factor higher comes higher motivation as the reward is helping someone they care about and creating results they are directly involved in influencing.  

If the team is motivated by monthly bonus alone then what happens?  The monthly bonus has to keep getting bigger to get the team to maintain their care factor.

There has to be a more meaningful reason – “The Why”.  The experts call it engagement.  It means tapping into that internal motivation, caring about what you do and why you do it.  If you cannot connect people to “The Why” expect it to be hard to get the engagement you want.

I think it important to reward and celebrate team success. However, bribing people to carry out things they would otherwise be unwilling to do is a short-sighted strategy.

So, from here you should be doing the following to elevate motivation around you:

1.      Paint the picture for your team – what is your Why? What are the goals and what does the business stand for.  Don’t assume they know it is the most common mistake and you don’t want them left filling in the picture because you haven’t painted it clear enough.

2.      Talk to each of your team about their internal motivators.  Everyone is different but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the different motivations to still come to the same desired outcome.  Find out what each person thrives on and use that as the motivator for that person to do their part.

3.      Get buy-in from the team.  Obviously as a leader there are times you have to provide the direction and set the standards.  But if you are always dictating rather than collaborating then expect resistance.  Best way to get the team connected is have them be involved in building it.  Do a session together to ask them what the goals and the standards should be.  Ask them what motivates them personally so you can deliver it.  Explain how them doing their part (even for the less desirable tasks) plays into the bigger picture and ties into their motivation.

Without engagement, people will happily take the short-term incentives (i.e., Motivators) – but often under their own terms.  If the incentive doesn’t really appeal, people won’t buy in. But a team that is truly connected to what they are doing will achieve greater outcomes even for lower rewards than might otherwise be necessary without getting that buy-in.

‍