What motivates you? 2

[JimmyZ1]

What motivates you? I.T. is always hot/cold, somedays are go, go, go, and others are ........ you know.

So what motivates you and what do you do to motivate your staff?

 

[Nortellian]

Positive people and positvie comments motivate me. Negative comments make me screech to a halt.

 

[aarenot]

Motivators are demotivators, demotivators are motivators, depending on the person. Each person is different, as long as you think what works for one will work for all, you will be a mediocre motivator at best.
In order to determine what will motivate, and what will demotivate an individual you must approach each person as an individual. In the current business structure the common approach is to treat everyone the same, this is counterproductive to motivating individuals. There are to many factors that motivate and demotivate to go through a list of things here. I will state that money is often considered the greatest motivator, and it is not even close. I am not saying that money is no factor, but it is a short term motivator in most cases.
There is no substitute for finding out what is important to the work life of an individual in order to find what will motivate them. You need to develope a relationship which will allow you to know them well enough to see what is important to them.
Most of all, I would say, a mutual respect, and appreciation for each other is the most important thing in motivating an individual. Beyond that, those who work for someone who is hard working, thorough, proactive, appreciative, understanding, and does not expect from others what they are not willing to do themselves is always important.
Two books I have found helpful, Assertive disciplne, by kanter, and developing the leader within you, by Maxwell. These have proven to be good application teaching resources for myself.



You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.

 

[Dollie]

My paycheck is a great motivation.

That, and remembering to pat someone on the back instead of kicking them in the butt always helps. Keeping your work environment light, happy, fun and BUSY helps too (typed while ducking two paper airplanes that just few past).

 

[MasterRacker]

Looking forward to going home and having a .

_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[SQLSister]

Motivation depends a great deal on the individual personality. WHat motivates me personally is mostly internal - I like an intellectual challenge and can't do rote type tasks at all. I've taken pay cuts just because the job itself sounded interesting. I've left jobs becasue after the intial learning curve, they devolved into rote tasks.

My personality type is very work-oriented and I am one of those people who will go the extra mile just becasue it's the right thing for the task at hand. I'll do that even if the job circustances are what are very demotivating for most people unless they are extremely bad.

That said, I still prefer a good work environment becasue it's less stressful to me and I enjoy the day more. Probably the biggest motivator that a manager can give me is respect.



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[stubnski]

For me it's my co-workers that motivate me to want to come to work. It makes the job less stressful, they help with any boss issues, and it is more fulfilling to my life when your co-workers(at least a few) become friends outside of work.

As for the work itself I've always been the 110% or nothing type no matter the job.

Pay is always good, but the least paying job I've ever had was by far the one I had the most fun at. Too bad it couldn't pay the bills.
But thats just my 2 cents.

Stubnski



Humans are good students. God created misery, we created computers.

 

[cupid11213]

stubnski makes a very good point. there's nothing really that can replace good co-workers. They can always help you get some motivation one way or another and make the work environment alot more enjoyable.

to motivate the staff I (no matter if they fumbled the job or assignment) always give them possitive feedback and slowly let them know what are some of the areas they need to improve on, so as not to just make them feel like S%^t they rest of the day or week. You can never get someone motivated to do a better job by telling them that they "suck" at what they do.

i belive that by letting them know all the good things that they are doing and slowly prepare them for the things they need to improve on, you get far better attitudes toward the things that they do need to improve on.

Basically it's not what you say, just how you say it.

and i have a beautiful baby boy that gives me all the motivation i need to get me through the day no matter how bad the day can get.But that one is just a personal one.

Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, while others wonder what happened.

 

[johnherman]

Mmmmm - donuts.

-------------------------
The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[dBjason]

..... - And pizza.

 

[JimmyZ1]

u guys are easy

 

[damber]

In psychology, positive feedback and negative feedback can involve both positive and negative comments - the definition of positive feedback is along the lines of; reinforcing behaviour through feedback to ensure continuation in the direction you want (which could involve remaining stationary). Negative feedback is the opposite - feedback that detracts from the behaviour you wish to create. I might respond positively to criticism - by trying to prove them wrong, or I might shy away into a the shadows because the criticism upset me.

So, both negative and positive comments can create positive feedback that reinforces the right behaviours - as mentioned above, it depends on the person as to what motivates them, but praise does not make everyone work better, or happier. If everyone in the team gets praise -what is the value of the personal praise that you receive ? Less than that of someone who rarely praises.

In fact I remember some test they did on a TV program to see if the army style tough approach created more effective teams than the lovey dovey, praise-to-you-all type teams. The 'stick' won over the 'carrott' in terms of team performance, and they seemed to be happier with their experience too.

I don't agree that this is the best way by any means (or that it was the most scientific of tests!), but the softly softly approach doesn't get as much work done as other methods - and doesn't always make the deserved people happy. Blend the two and you're probably nearer the mark.

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[aarenot]

Motivation and reviews, or criticism are not the same thing. Motivation does not have to have anyhting to do with criticism, or reviewing a persons performance.
Simply treating people with respect, and honoring their contributions can be a very powerful motivation. In the military one gives up personal rights, and becomes the property of the military. If you do not think so, look in the court records, if you drive drunk and have a military passenger that gets hurt or killed, they can sue you and win on that basis. Employess do not forfeit those rights, nor are they the property of the company.
Positive and negative feedback are parts more of a review, which are flawed procedures to begin with. Reviews often break down to establishing a concentration of efforts by the individual into an individuals area of greatest weakness, or lack of raw ability. This is an exercise in futility, as asking a blind man to improve his vision is about as fruitful as a review that concentrates the individuals efforts on an area that he has no basic talent in. For instance asking a fiery disciplinarian military officer to concentrate on being touchy feely, is a waste of his natural talents.
The wise effort is to establish an employees strengths, and concentrate their efforts on improving in the areas they have raw ability in, rather than in an area that they may score low in, but could work on their whole life, and get minimal return on. One has to be realistic about expectations, and reviews, and that is the first step of motivation, not setting a person up to grand effort in an area where they are set up to fail. You can not get blood from a turnip, and looking at everyone as equal in all things is the biggest de-motivator of all. People are individuals, and Hitler was a loser in the German military, but he sure reached the top of the field in facist dictator anals of history. Have people play to their strengths, and encourage equip, respect, and honor their efforts. Learn from their failures, and sometimes that means, do not have them do what they failed at again. That is the strenght of teams, not everyone should try to be the quarterback, and throwing the ball all day long is a waste for a natural linebacker. When you see this happening, fire the coach, don't blame the linebacker for throwing an interception.

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.

 

[damber]

Positive and negative feedback are parts more of a review,

No, they are not. They can be considered on a macro level to be part of a review but they are part of everyday life - part of everything we do, and predominantly how humans learn.

Suggest you look up the text book definition of psychological/behavioural feedback and positive/negative reinforcemnt, mine was a little thin on the ground for brevity (and laziness). But feedback is the result of those things that you mention - concentrating on strengths is a form of feedback - for some that is great, others not so good.

But I agree with your sentiment that you shouldn't flog a dead horse... but that is more about building effective teams than motivation (however is still important to motivation).

Each team requires a different set of personalities to be succesful - having an imbalance, such as a full team of reflectives or emotive/directives with little variation to support the necessary gaps and allow people to have their own niche will in itself lead to lack of motivation - and frustration within the team.

Here are 6 key motivation factors:

1. The more people understand about their role, the team, the reasons for doing what they do - and the value of it, the more motivated they will be.
2. Clear and achievable targets.
3. Involvement.
4. The right people in the right job
5. Fairness - being unfair is a quick way to lose respect and motivation
6. Valuable/Real Praise - as mentioned before, if you devalue praise by overdoing it, people will not respect you when you give praise, and not feel it is as meaningful as they wish it to be.

Leaders should be considerate of the team by a) handling mistakes made by the team with care and sensitivity, but fairly b) being honest about what you mean - if something is poor quality, say so - c) be positive - look at issues as opportunities to shine, not point fingers etc

There's obviously plenty more in terms of effective team building and staff motivation, but it comes down to the same learning cycle that humans rely on: feedback & reinforcement.

A smile is worth a thousand kind words. So smile, it's easy!

 

[aarenot]

I hear what you are saying, and you make some very great points. I agree with many of them, however, I would advise and extend a few. By your numbers.

1. The more respect that you show your individuals abilities to see, understand and contribute to the big picture, the more you will invest in that. Even if you are assured that the individual will fail, showing confidence in their ability to succeed wil improve their performance, even if only between moments of failure along the wat to success. For instance, "son, you can do it, if you try. If you fall down, get up and try again, you will get it" versus, "quitters never win, winners never quit." Your confidence displayed by your investment, breeds personal expectations in themselves.
2. Clear and achievable targets, along the way to achievment beyond their initial comprehention.
3. ownership, mentoring, and mentorship.
4. With enough room to grow.
5. As far as an unfair world can be fair, so as not to raise unrealistic expectations. Life is not fair, nor is justice.
6. Agreed about praise, added, if you can not find something to praise, you need to look more "fairly", if you can not, the team needs a better recruitment team, either to replace the individual who has no positives, or the person who can not see them. Either way, someone besides the one being evaluated is not doing their job.
As a further note for number 6, Negative feedback has the same effect on the ears that hear it as overdone praise, only 50 times as fast. No one will continue to try to please someone who can not be pleased indefinitely, not anyone worth having around anyway. You do not want stupid, foolish, angry employees. 10 good to one bad is a realistic goal.

Finally, a person can be highly motivated, and perform poorly. Performance management is not the same as motivating.
I would submit that motivating, mentoring, and performance management is much like dealing with children. Lee Kanter wrote a great book all managers, or persons with direct reports should consider reading. It is called assertive discipline, and yes it is about kids. I deal more with people than books, terms and definitions,
I would also recomend the University of Wisconsins, school of business, management institute, they have great programs there and incredible resources, both human, and data. Management certificates series are highly recomended to anyone seeking knowledge of motivating people, employees or volunteers. It has been over ten years for me, and still apply the things I had learned there daily. Great application based, results based training.
Other good books, "developing the Leader within you", and "Developing the leaders around you" by Maxwell

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.

 

[Onyxpurr]

Leaders should be considerate of the team by a) handling mistakes made by the team with care and sensitivity, but fairly b) being honest about what you mean - if something is poor quality, say so - c) be positive - look at issues as opportunities to shine, not point fingers etc"

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree!!

 

[Welshbird]

I was always told that I shouldn't need someone to motivate me - I should be able to motivate myself. And generally I would agree with that.

I think the bigger issue is actually not to work with or for someone who de-motivates. And many people do that with no knoweldge that this is what is happening.

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[123jayjay]

fee,
did you find that advice about motivating yourself motivating.

i would have to agree with the de-motivating observation. i have found some things i do with good intention have no profit in them. also, that good intentions do not always keep me motivated. i think it takes experience, and unfortunately that means someones mistakes will be made in our direction along that persons way to learning.

i try to use this guidleine for myself.

when i try to motivate someone, and it de-motivates them, i explain i was trying to help, and i failed. when i try to motivate someone and it motivates them, i congratulate them on thier success.

 

[Welshbird]

JayJay - Have a twinkly thing for that - that's excellent.

I do tend to find that I am self-motivating, but that is partly the nature of the job I find myself in.

But if someone tried to motivate me and were prepared for it being their fault if they failed, and my success if they succeeded that would certainly work for me.



Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[aarenot]

that is exactly what good leadership does.
take responsibility for the failure of those they lead, and congratulate those they lead for their success.

if you make the game plan, and the execution does not succeed, check your team preparation including motivating them.

if you make the game plan, and the team does execute the plan, you may succeed, but they still executed the plan. congratualte them, they executed your plan. win, or lose.

coming up with a good game plan does not get it executed, the team does. if they execute the plan they succeed, if that ends in a loss, it was the plan that failed.

leadership takes responsibility, and gives credit.

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.