by Brent Filson

Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But you can’t get results by yourself. You need others to help you do it. And the best way to have other people get results is not by ordering them but motivating them. Yet many leaders fail to motivate people to achieve results because those leaders misconstrue the concept and applications of motivation. To understand motivation and apply it daily, let’s understand its three critical factors. Know these factors and put them into action to greatly enhance your abilities to lead for results.

1. Motivation is physical action.
“Motivation” has common roots with “motor,” “momentum,” “motion,” “mobile,” etc. .. all words that denote movement, physical action. An essential feature of motivation is physical action. Motivation isn’t about what people think or feel but what they physically do. When motivating people to get results, challenge them to take those actions that will realize those results.

I counsel leaders who must motivate individuals and teams to get results not to deliver presentations but “leadership talks.” Presentations communicate information.. But when you want to motivate people, you must do more than simply communicate information. You must have them believe in you and take action to follow you. A key outcome of every leadership talk must be physical action, physical action that leads to results.

For instance, I worked with the newly-appointed director of a large marketing department who wanted the department to achieve sizable increases in the results. However, the employees were a demoralized bunch who had been clocking tons of overtime under her predecessor and were feeling angry that their efforts were not being recognized by senior management.

She could have tried to order them to get the increased results. Many leaders do that. But order-leadership founders in today’s highly competitive, rapidly changing markets. Organizations are far more competitive when their employees instead of being ordered to go from point A to point B want to go from point A to point B. So I suggested that she take a first step in getting the employees to increase results by motivating those employees to want to increase results. They would “want to” when they began to believe in her leadership. And the first step in enlisting that belief was for her to give a number of leadership talks to the employees.

One of her first talks that she planned was to the department employees in the company’s auditorium. She told me, “I want them to know that I appreciate the work they are doing and that I believe that they can get the results I’m asking of them. I want them to feel good about themselves.”

“Believing is not enough,” I said. “Feeling good is not enough. Motivation must take place. Physical action must take place. Don’t give the talk until you know what precise action you are going to have happen.”

She got the idea of having the CEO come into the room after the talk, shake each employee’s hand, and tell each how much he appreciated their hard work — physical action. She didn’t stop there. After the CEO left, she challenged each employee to write down on a piece of paper three specific things that they needed from her to help them get the increases in results and then hand those pieces of paper to her personally — physical action.

Mind you, that leadership talk wasn’t magic dust sprinkled on the employees to instantly motivate them. (To turn the department around so that it began achieving sizable increases in results, she had to give many leadership talks in the weeks and months ahead.) But it was a beginning. Most importantly, it was the right beginning.

2. Motivation is driven by emotion.
Emotion and motion come from the same Latin root meaning “to move”. When you want to move people to take action, engage their emotions. An act of motivation is an act of emotion. In any strategic management endeavor, you must make sure that the people have a strong emotional commitment to realizing it.

When I explained this to the chief marketing officer of a worldwide services company, he said, “Now I know why we’re not growing! We senior leaders developed our marketing strategy in a bunker! He showed me his “strategy” document. It was some 40 pages long, single-spaced. The points it made were logical, consistent, and comprehensive. It made perfect sense. That was the trouble. It made perfect, intellectual sense to the senior leaders. But it did not make experiential sense to middle management who had to carry it out. They had about as much in-put into the strategy as the window washers at corporate headquarters. So they sabotaged it in many innovative ways. Only when the middle managers were motivated — were emotionally committed to carrying out the strategy — did that strategy have a real chance to succeed.

3. Motivation is not what we do to others.
It is what others do to themselves. The English language does not accurately depict the psychological truth of motivation. The truth is that we cannot motivate anybody to do anything. The people we want to motivate can only motivate themselves. The motivator and the motivatee are always the same person. We as leaders communicate, they motivate. So our “motivating” others to get results really entails our creating an environment in which they motivate themselves to get those results.

For example: a commercial division leader almost faced a mutiny on his staff when in a planning session, he put next year’s goals, numbers much higher than the previous year’s, on the overhead. The staff all but had to be scrapped off the ceiling after they went ballistic. “We busted our tails to get these numbers last year. Now you want us to get much higher numbers? No way!” He told me. “We can hit those numbers. I just have to get people motivated!”

I gave him my “motivator-and-motivatee-are-the-same-person!” pitch. I suggested that he create an environment in which they could motivate themselves. So he had them assess what activities got results and what didn’t. They discovered that they spent more than 60 percent of their time on work that had nothing to do with getting results. He then had them develop a plan to eliminate the unnecessary work. Put in charge of their own destiny, they got motivated! They developed a great plan and started to get great results.

Over the long run, your career success does not depend on what schools you went to and what degrees you have. That success depends instead on your ability to motivate individuals and teams to get results. Motivation is like a high voltage cable lying at your feet. Use it the wrong way, and you’ll get a serious shock. But apply motivation the right way by understanding and using the three factors, plug the cable in, as it were, and it will serve you well in many powerful ways throughout your career.

By Susan M. Heathfield

Want the bottom line when it comes to employee retention? The quality of the supervision an employee receives is critical to employee retention. People leave managers and supervisors more often than they leave companies or jobs.

It is not enough that the manager is well-liked or a nice person. Sure, a nice, likeable manager earns you some points with your employees. A draconian, nasty, or controlling manager takes points away from your organization. So will below market benefits and compensation. But, a manager or supervisor, who is a pro at employee retention, knows that the quality of the supervision is the key factor in employee retention.

Effective Managers Create Employee Retention
Managers who retain staff start by communicating clear expectations to the employee. They share their picture of what constitutes success for the employee in both the expected deliverables from and the performance of their job.

These managers provide frequent feedback and make the employee feel valued. When an employee completes an exchange with a manager who retains staff, he or she feels empowered, enabled, and confident in their ability to get the job done.

Employee complaints about managers and supervisors center on these areas. Employees leave managers who fail to:

* provide clarity about expectations,
* provide clarity about career development and earning potential,
* give regular feedback about performance,
* hold scheduled meetings, and
* provide a framework within which the employee perceives he can succeed.

How to Help Managers With Employee Retention

Almost every manager can increase her ability to retain employees by developing her management skills. Teaching a manager about how to value people can be more challenging. Particularly if the manager doesn’t already value people and their contributions in her mind and heart, it will be a leap for her to change her values.

These ideas will help your organization develop managers who believe in and act in ways that support employee retention.

* Integrate core values about people and a mission and vision that enable people to align themselves with the company direction. Communicate the importance of these, and clear expectations about the behaviors expected from managers to accomplish these, to every manager.

* Negotiate a performance development plan with each manager that stresses the expected managerial areas of development,

* Provide training in core management skills to every manager. Core management skills include how to:
o integrate performance management including goal setting,
o give and receive feedback,
o recognize and value employees,
o coach employee performance,
o handle employee complaints and problems,
o provide a motivating work environment, and
o hold career development discussions with employees.

# Hold regular meetings to provide management development coaching and feedback. You can assist managers to improve their management style and skills. A regular meeting helps you debrief events as they occur, while memories of the exchanges are fresh in the manager’s mind.

# Schedule and hold learning organization events such as book clubs, product training, project debriefs, and discussion and planning meetings.

# Provide funding for conferences and educational development opportunities for managers to continue learning.

# As part of a fully integrated performance management system, provide 360 degree feedback so managers know how their management style is perceived.

What if a Manager Fails at Employee Retention?

If a manager fails at employee retention, the chances are good that the manager has been unable or unwilling to develop their ability to manage and value people across the board. Managers who exhibit a pattern in which their key employees leave your organization cannot retain their management role.

If you have fairly and ethically provided the manager the learning opportunities suggested here, you can, in good conscience, remove the individual from the managerial role. My experience has been that most managers consider this such a loss of prestige and “face” that they voluntarily leave the organization.

If they choose to stay, however, they must commit to being effective, contributing employees. If the manager cannot make this leap, you will need to let the manager go before their negativity impacts the rest of your workplace.

Given the management development opportunities listed here, most managers will be able to become managers who retain their best employees. Your investment in your managers can fuel your organization’s ongoing success. After all, it is the quality of the people you employ and retain that is the heart of your business success.

by Chris Musselwhite

Motivation in the workplace isn’t about what you do for your employees; it’s about the work you empower your employees to do for you.

Like many managers, you may assume that motivating employees means doing things for them, such as paying annual bonuses, awarding free travel and giving time off. It might surprise you to learn that research actually shows that while these types of extrinsic rewards may cause a short-term burst of productivity, they also contain the seed for de-motivation in the long term.

Why? Because once they are awarded, they become expected. So when revenues dictate that bonuses are smaller and vacation days are fewer, people aren’t just unmotivated, they actually become less satisfied with their jobs overall.

This realization is at the heart of the work and research of the man known as the father of modern motivation, Frederick Herzberg.

A noted psychologist and one of the most influential names in business management, Herzberg’s research showed that while the absence of certain basic things — like good working conditions and an appropriate salary –contributed to job dissatisfaction, they didn’t necessarily increase job satisfaction. In other words, they definitely de-motivate when absent, but don’t necessarily motivate when present.

So what does motivate people to work harder and perform at their best? According to Herzberg’s research, real motivators include achievement, recognition, meaningful work, responsibility, advancement and growth. In addition, if retention is a concern, then consider that the number one reason given for leaving a job is dissatisfaction with supervisors.

No matter what type of work your employees do, you can begin to make changes in the way you manage and in your workplace that will create a more stable and motivating work environment.
Understand the difference between motivation and reward.

According to Herzberg’s research, real motivation comes from the work itself, not the rewards given for doing the work. His research shows that providing more money, less time at work and better fringe benefits in the name of motivation only motivates people to expect them and ask for more.

When you are about to make a change intended to motivate, ask yourself: how will this contribute to the person’s sense of achievement or recognition? Will it enable him or her to grow and be prepared to take on more responsibility? Does it make the work more meaningful to the person? If you can’t answer yes to one of these, then recognize that while it may make the person feel rewarded for a job well done, it probably won’t provide the long-term motivation you’re hoping to achieve.

Recognize that people are natural problem-solvers.

You’ve heard the saying “everyone has an opinion” and you know it’s true. This is because people are natural problem-solvers. We like to figure things out and determine the way things are done — especially when we are the ones doing the work.

When you give people the opportunity to express their opinions and provide input about the work process, you create buy-in and ownership of the work. When people feel ownership of their work, they are more likely to own the problems that occur and take on the daily task of finding solutions much more enthusiastically.

In order for people to provide meaningful input into the design of the work process however, they must first clearly understand the desired outcome and the parameters within which they must work to achieve it. Once this is understood, people must then be given latitude to determine how they are going to achieve it. Recognizing this natural drive to be an integral part of the solution is a critical first step to motivating people to do their best.

Build Trust: Take time to get to know your people.

Effective managers take time to get to know their people. This area can be a pitfall for entrepreneurs, who have the tendency to focus on the task and not the person. When you make people feel like you care more about the work than you do about them, you make them feel insignificant. Conversely, when an employee feels that his or her manager is as concerned about their well being on the job as they are about the job itself, they are more likely to feel the sense of trust that is critical among high performing teams and organizations.

In addition to creating this vital sense of trust, taking the time to get to know your people will provide invaluable insight into what motivates them. Different people are motivated by different things. While one person might be stoked to be designated as project manager, another might feel more achievement if they get to actually produce the desired product once it’s determined how it will be done.

This comparison illustrates how different people require varying degrees of structure in order to be happy within their jobs. One way to asses each individual’s need for structure is to ask them to bring in questions about their jobs. Someone who has lots of questions needs more structure; the person who has few questions needs less structure.

Make the transition from problem-solver to coach.

You must also recognize this human drive to problem solve in yourself if you are to make the critical transition from problem-solver to coach that every effective manager must make.

As a manager, your job is to mentor, coach and develop people so they are adequately prepared and supported to do the work on their own. Turning off the impulse to simply provide answers when your employees come to you for help isn’t easy, but you must learn to do it. When you always provide answers, you’re doing long-term damage to the person, your company and yourself.

First, you’re reinforcing the person’s lack of confidence in their own problem-solving ability. Second, you’re missing an opportunity to teach your people to problem-solve, which will make them better employees and keep your management pipeline filled with good candidates. And finally, you’re creating more work for yourself, teaching your people to continue to come to you for answers instead of trying to solve the problems on their own.

Instead of providing answers, ask questions. Asking good questions is a great way to help people learn to problem solve. This Socratic method of coaching gives people the opportunity to discover the answers for themselves, creating sustainable learning that will serve them much longer and better than any solution you simply give them, no matter how ingenious it may be.

Focus on what’s working.

As managers learn to make the transition from doing to coaching, it’s natural to focus on what’s not working. Managers who intervene only when there’s a problem are often viewed negatively by their people, who begin to fear every conversation with them. Brain chemistry research shows that this sense of fear of criticism actually triggers the fight or flight response, bathing the brain in fear hormones that increase defensive behavior and actually inhibit learning. And if you only take time to talk to your employees when something’s wrong, chances are they’ll be defensive and withholding — decreasing the opportunity you’ll find out what you need to know about the job or the person.

To avoid this all-too-common scenario, you must instead intentionally make time to focus on what is working. One way to do this is to schedule regular meetings with your people where they are invited to report their successes. Quite the opposite of the scenario where you only show up to talk about problems, this structured time together will begin to make your people see time with you as a positive experience and something to look forward to, motivating them to achieve even more.

And of course, in the process of learning what’s working, you’ll inevitably learn about what’s not working. But because the interaction starts with attention on what the person is doing right, you’ve created an atmosphere where people are open to discussion and learning can definitely take place.

BONUS: When you create time for regular positive interactions between management and employees, you also further contribute to the sense of trust between you and your people, which as stated earlier in this article, is critical to high performance among teams and organizations.

Recognize people through responsibility and advancement.

In addition to making time to let people tout their own achievements to you, public recognition is also necessary to extend that achievement into a feeling of responsibility and accountability in the workplace. When people are publicly recognized for a job well done, they experience that sense of achievement all over again, which makes them eager to get back to work and tackle the next problem even more skillfully.

Appropriate recognition for good performance can and should include the awarding of more responsibility and advancement within the company. Using responsibility and advancement as recognition is good for the employee, the manager and the whole organization.

The timing of recognition is important too, so don’t wait for the annual awards banquet. Making public recognition spontaneous and frequent will motivate everyone by creating an environment that supports and encourages ongoing learning, achievement and accountability by all.

To truly motivate your people to perform their best, you must provide a work environment that provides achievement, recognition, meaningful work, advancement and growth. You can start to create this work environment by trying out the following six suggestions. First, make sure you understand the difference between motivation and reward. You’ll make better decisions on how to do both. Second, recognize that when people feel ownership of their work, they are more likely to own the problems that occur and take on the daily task of finding solutions much more enthusiastically. Third, no matter how busy you are, keep in mind that taking time to get to know your people and what they need at work will pay off big in the long run. Fourth, remember that your job is to coach, mentor and develop your people, not to do their work for them. Fifth, make time each week to focus on what’s working. And finally, publicly recognize people frequently on their performance, awarding responsibility and advancing them up in the organization as soon as they’ve demonstrated that they can do it.