The psychology of employee motivation
“I wish I could make my employees (do something, show some initiative, make a decision, etc.)!” Have you ever had this thought? This statement, or something quite close to it, is what I hear so often from business owners. If you want to do more, with fewer employees, or get more out of the people you currently employ, keep reading.
If you’re short on time, I’ll give you the concept in a nutshell. Like Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, she simply had to click on her heels and she’d be back in Kansas. You also just need to listen to your employees and act on what you hear. Do this and you will be amazed at the results.
Yes, listen, your employees will tell you how to create a climate that allows them to be much more productive, especially in these uncertain times. This is the platinum rule of employee motivation: it applies universally, regardless of age. To maximize the effectiveness of your listening, consider the following:
1. Reduce your conversation.
2. Measure your listening. There’s a reason two ears and only one mouth are original equipment.
3. Learn to ask discovery questions: Explain to me… Tell me more, why, how… What do you mean by…? About what do you think?
4. When an employee speaks, listen deeply. The mark of a professional salesperson is a shut mouth every time the prospect speaks. Because? To get information to help them sell, you also need information.
5. As you listen carefully to what they are saying, watch their body language for subtle clues to additional meaning.
6. Pre-plan your discussion of wrong and right performance, always ending on a positive note. I suggest you become intimately familiar with Blanchard and Johnson’s The One Minute Manager.
7. Question what you hear. Make sure you understand what is actually being said – use the feedback method. This is where you repeat what you heard or thought you heard and ask if the information is correct.
Do the above, and your chances of reducing employee revolving door syndrome will greatly increase. Just as it is important to listen, it is equally important to understand how time and experience shape people.
In a previous life, when I was in the sunglasses business, I worked for an owner who was only motivated by money and thought everyone else was just as motivated. This is simply not true. Yes, we all need money but there are many more needs that must be covered with a job.
Dr. Morris Massey spent nearly 20 years at the University of Colorado as a professor of marketing. He developed a model of human behavior that I think will shed some light on the subject. His model takes a unique approach to how values, biases, and ways of reacting to change are “programmed” into people of different age groups. The population is divided into four groups:
1. THE OLAGERS, the traditionalists, were raised anytime before WWII. They remember the Great Depression and were influenced by the results.
2. THE SQUIZES, the intermediates, were raised in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. They’re not quite sure if they’re Olagers or Nuagers and it drives them crazy.
3. THE NUAGERS, the rejecters (where myself and many baby boomers fit in) grew up in the mid-1950s to early 1960s.
4. LOS SYNTECHS, the synthesizers and technicians, were raised after 1965.
Let’s look at the Syntechs (today called GenXers and GenYers) because many of today’s entry-level workers and lower-level management grew up after 1965. They grew up hearing one thing from the Olagers, their grandparents, and the opposite of the Nuager, usually their parents. To make matters worse, they get all sorts of mixed messages from the schizoans. The Syntechs have grown up with technology: my oldest son, for example, used a computer before me, and my youngest has always used a computer. They were also brought up on the 30-second TV commercial that solved even the most complex problem faster than getting the water temperature right for a shower.
Val Surf & Sport, a small specialty retail chain in the San Fernando Valley (an area in the far northwestern part of Los Angeles County) does everything possible to give their sports experts free time to enjoy their sport, says Mark Richards, owner. He says scheduling is a bit tricky at times, but he thinks that’s the price you have to pay to reduce employee turnover. Richards knows the value of slowing down the employee turnstile.
When you go grocery shopping, for example, and are impressed by the person at the register (now called customer service clerks), hand them your business card. Tell them they just had their first interview with your company! Wherever you go, in everything you do, look for that quality person. It’s so much better than putting a cattle call ad in the local paper or waiting for some loser to walk through your door and giving him the job because you’re too lazy to search for the employee you really want.
Now that you have found that ideal person, you must train them properly. You must start training on the first day. Gene Geromel, Professor of Human Resource Management at Spring Arbor College, says, “The early days, even the hours of work, often set the stage for employee attitude for years to come. When a poor foundation is laid for new hires, they’re taking a risk.”
When you consider the time, effort, energy, and cost of training an employee, it’s obvious that retention is preferable to retraining. To keep any employee, especially younger ones, you need to show them that you care about them as employees and human beings. This brings us back to listening and acting on what you hear. A quick method to turn an employee off is to frequently ask them what they think and then ignore what was said!
I think employee recognition is very important. However, let me warn you about incentives, spiffs, and commissions. Harvey Mackay said in his book, Swim With The Sharks, that you shouldn’t give a turkey for Christmas if you don’t intend to continue the practice. I also learned what I called the donut lesson. When he was selling to retailers, he regularly gave product clinics to drive sales. He usually brought donuts as a peace offering for the employees, since not everyone was enthusiastic about mandatory attendance. Over the years, the employees of my retail clients began to wait for the donuts and the value to me for bringing them began to diminish. God forbid that the few times I didn’t bring my peace offering, it was hard to keep his attention.
My suggestion, based on years of working with business owners and a national survey I conducted, is to customize the recognition and/or incentives specifically for the employee.
Most of the ideas I’ve shared with you are actually quite simple, you may be thinking, “I could have thought of those ideas,” or you already have. I think the secret is to take action on these ideas. While it is not always easy, it is simple. To do these things, you have to get out of your comfort zone and change your business paradigm. Your new paradigm will be to partner with your employees instead of the old ineffective paradigm of being an overbearing boss.
Here are some ideas to help you develop your partnership paradigm with your own employees:
o Understand what motivates your employees.
o Learn what motivates your associates to action.
o Be open to their ideas.
o Allow yourself and your employees to learn and benefit from mistakes.
o Be open in conflict, accept responsibility that your associates may be right, may have a better idea, and stop advocating your position when proven otherwise. A colleague of mine, Patricia Fripp, says it best: “Prove me wrong and I won’t waste time defending my former position.”
o Accept the fact that teens and young adults have trust issues with their elders.
o Live by the Law of Reality. One receives from the universe in direct proportion to what one gives. Eastern civilizations call it karma, in the West we refer to the biblical passage, as you sow, so you reap.
o Teach your new hires the life value of learning sales skills. Help them understand how they will benefit in life if they know how to communicate well; after all, selling is helping through communication.
The psychology of employee motivation is simply listening and understanding. I’m glad you didn’t click your heels like Dorothy in Oz might have and read on for a better understanding. One last thought to leave you with.
If you were driving a BMW 7 Series and stopped at your local dealership for a tune-up or, more importantly, a major repair and noticed that the mechanic only had a screwdriver and a pair of pliers in his toolbox, would you would you stay? Would you let that mechanic work on your pride and joy? No way! You’d be out of there so fast the mechanic’s head would spin.
You and your employees also have toolboxes. Inside you can find sales and communication tools, as well as product knowledge. Grow yourself and everyone you work with. Challenge yourself and the people around you to become their best selves daily.
One of my favorite quotes that you might want to copy for yourself is: “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” -Victor Hugo. Hopefully the time has come for you to listen.