How do you motivate your team members?

I just finished reading The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance [Updated & Revised] written by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.  The book is based on a ten-year study of 200,000 employees and managers in the area of how to best motivate their team members.  The results of their studies found that "the central characteristic of truly effective management - the element that shows up time and again in every great workplace - is a manager's ability to recognize employees' talents and contributions in a purposeful manner."

I think there are three kinds of leaders in the workplace today.  One group does nothing in the area of motivation and recognition.  They believe that the paycheck the employees receive each week is all the motivation they need.  A second group would like to do something in the areas of motivation and recognition but do not know how to go about it.  When they do attempt to do something it is often awkward for everyone involved and usually fails to be very motivational.  The third group is committed to providing a workplace where people's efforts are recognized and rewarded in a way that is motivational to everyone.  What is exciting about this book is that it has something to say to persons in all three groups.

Their study found that effective leaders were seen by their employees are strong in four areas: Goal setting, Communication, Trust, and Accountability.  When recognition is added to these four areas "it serves as an accelerator of employee performance and engagement."  I wished I had understood this better when I owned a small business a few years ago.

I would probably have put me in the second group.  We had good employees, but I did not intentionally recognize their extra efforts as much as I should have, and when I did it was usually somewhat awkward for them and for me.  I was never certain of what kind of recognition was appropriate.  Probably my efforts were more demotivating than they were motivating.  I have no doubt that my leadership would have been much improved if I had read this book when I had the business, and I have no doubt that our company would have been much more productive and profitable if I had properly recognized our employees in ways that would have encouraged them.

If this is an area in which you struggle you really need to read this book.  Near the end of the book you'll find 125 different ways to recognize your team members.  That information alone is worth the price of the book.  You can find out more about it or order it by clicking on the above title.

First you have to start

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

"No one aims for average.  No one sets out for status quo.  No one longs for ordinary.  But one day you wake up and ask yourself, How did I get here?"  These are the words on the inside flyleaf of Jon Acuff's book Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.  They are words that many of us have said and might even be saying now.  We say them when we hit those transitions times in our lives.  We say them again when we wake up one day and realize that it is going to be like every other recent day, and we're just not sure we can take it anymore.  We repeat them when something triggers thoughts of unrealized dreams, and we wonder if it's now too late to make them a reality.

Most people intend to do something significant with their lives.  I doubt that there is anyone who hasn't had big dreams and had every intention of fulfilling them sometime.  Of course, that is the key word here isn't it: sometime.  Too many of us are content to live on Someday Isle.  Someday I'll start that business I always wanted to own.  Someday I'll complete that degree.  Someday I'll spend more time with our children.  Someday I'll get serious about getting our finances right.  Someday I'll focus more on exercise and healthy eating.  Someday I'll....

The problem is someday never comes, and one day we realize that the opportunities to do those things we dreamed about are behind us.  In his book, Acuff writes that fear is one of the primary reasons we don't seek to live out our dreams.  We are afraid of the unknown.  We are afraid of failure.  We are afraid of what others might think or say.  Some may even be afraid of success.  Until we address the fears that hold us back we will never live up to our capabilities or achieve the things we've dreamed of achieving.  We have to stop listening to those voices within and without that creates fear.  Acuff provides several specific things we can do to overcome that fear and move on with our lives.

Fear is what keeps people from starting that small business they've wanted to own.  For owners of small businesses, fear is what keeps them from taking it to higher levels.  We settle for normal because normal pays the bills and provides us with a regular income.  We don't want to risk that by trying to grow our business so we settle.  But, while we're settling we're also stewing inside because we know we could be doing so much more. 

I spend a lot of time working with church leaders, and many of them have settled for the ordinary as well.  In fact, it's safe to say that some have just given up.  They have been beaten down so often by having their ideas rejected by small minded people with big pocketbooks they've stopped dreaming.  They make no effort to lead their churches any more; they're content to just manage what they've got.  They have forfeited their role as prophet and leader and settle for becoming a chaplain.  In some cases, they are hospice chaplains providing care for a dying institution.

Life is too short to do work that doesn't matter.  Life is meant to be lived with purpose, and part of that purpose is to follow your dreams and to achieve everything you were created to achieve.  To do so will require some determination on your part and a plan.  Acuff's book can help you identify a plan.  After all, if you want to accomplish something the first thing you have to do is  Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters.

Raising the bar

I recently was called to be the auctioneer for a near-by auction house when their regular auctioneer had to be away for the week.  When I drove to the auction I found they had a very nice facility.  The owners were very warm and friendly.  As we talked about how they operated one of them told me that their primary problem was that people didn't want to give anything for what they bought.  I was told, "We have a lot of one-dollar bidders here."  When I began looking at what was being offered I understood why.  I personally wouldn't have given a dollar for much of what was being sold that night.  As the auction began I noticed something that I've seen at other auctions.  Better quality items were bringing some decent prices, but the people were not going to pay much for the inferior items.  I thought to myself that this is not rocket science: if you want higher prices you have to sell better quality items.

Unfortunately, the problem is that the regulars who come to this auction have been conditioned to buy things cheap.  The risk to the sellers is that even if they began to bring in higher quality items, for which they've probably paid more to get, the buyers have been taught they can buy things cheap and may not bid much to get it.  This has happened to me several times when I've sold items at an auction and they brought much less than I paid for them.  I've learned that there are some auction houses I can take only lower quality items to sell because these are what I call "$2.00 auction houses."

What needs to happen in these facilities is that they need to quit accepting low quality items and begin to raise the bar for what they are willing to sell.  With better merchandise they can afford to do more advertising to attract the buyers who are more likely to pay what the better items are worth.  In time, these auction houses will be known as the place to sell top quality goods for a fair price.  The sellers make more on what they sell, the buyers are buying top quality items at a fair price, and the auction house sees its commissions increase.  It's a win for everyone, but it's not going to happen until the auction house raises the bar and insists on only selling quality items.

This is true for any small business.  In another business I owned I had a sign where our walk-in customers could see it.  The sign read, "We sell the highest quality merchandise, offer the best service in town, and have the cheapest rates.  You may now pick two out of three."  I knew we had competitors who offered less expensive equipment than we did, but we weren't competing for that business.  We had competitors that charged less for their service work than we did.  That was OK too because we felt we offered better service than they did.  We wanted to set the bar high enough to attract what we felt would be quality customers who knew the difference between cost and value.  I still believe that is a business philosophy that works for small business owners.