In a recent survey of what our readers consider top challenges, one that surfaced repeatedly was, “How do I motivate my people when our income is down?” or “our budget has been cut” or just “How to motivate people” in general?
As I have said in earlier posts, I believe fundamentally that all human beings and organizations are order-energy systems. So I see the challenge of motivating people as finding ways to turn on each person’s own unique energy system and channeling (ordering) that energy in ways which we the manager-leaders want.
You cannot really motivate someone else in the sense of implanting something in them which makes them move (the root of “motivate”) as desired. We all have memories of cheerleaders working up a crowd and sometimes think that is what motivation is like. Or maybe we envision an inspiring leader like General George S. Patton or Jack Kennedy or Billy Graham moving people to action. Well, God did indeed bless a very few gifted people with the power to move others to action. The rest of us will be much better off tapping into our people’s innate “motives” and channeling them in directions we need.
In searching for a more approachable context for understanding and managing motivation and its relation to human energy, I discovered a really great book, Intrinsic Motivation at Work: Building Energy & Commitment, by Kenneth W. Thomas. This is the result of 16 years of research (I love big research studies) by Ken and his colleagues, concerning what is really a moving target. That is, the expectations of people at work have changed dramatically in recent years. The gap between the work expectations of Baby Boomers vs. Gen-Xers is huge, as you probably have noticed yourself.
In his book, Ken Thomas points out that extrinsic motivation like money and a big office just don’t have much lasting impact, especially with today’s workforce. Instead he believes—as do other top manager-leaders like Jack Welch of GE—that tapping into intrinsic motivation is the only way to build energy and commitment, which are just as valuable to the worker as they are to the company. (Ken uses the term “worker” to mean anyone who works, and we are using it in the same context here.) Commitment is a big bottom-line success factor because it leads to better performance as well as worker retention, and we all know how incredibly expensive staff turnover is.
So how do we achieve that?
First of all we have to get beyond “rational-economic assumptions.” You know, the idea that we all make decisions rationally based on what will give us the best economic outcome, i.e., more money. Economics certainly has its place, but it tends to downplay the whole intrinsic side of human nature and motivation. Ken and his fellow researchers believe instead:
1. “People care about more than money and self-interest at work” (the rational-economic priorities).
2. “Intrinsic rewards are about emotions.” (Yeah, that’s where the motivation comes from.)
3. “Doing the ‘right thing’ makes people feel good.” (People are not after money above all else but want to do the right thing even if they have to sacrifice for it on occasion.)
The Power of Purpose
Ken believes, as do I, that there is great power in making work purposeful. People like to feel they are serving a higher cause. Really good vision statements, developed with a lot of worker involvement and put into practice by committed manager-leaders, can inspire people to feel better about their work. But even tasks, the components of work, need to be purposeful. In fact Ken defines tasks as “sets of activities directed toward a purpose.”
He and his colleagues have developed a model of purpose-directed work which they call “The Self-Management Process.” It looks like this:
1. First we “Commit to a Meaningful Purpose.” That gets self-management started in the right direction.
2. Next we “Choose Activities to Accomplish the Purpose.” The exercise of choice is vital in self-management (and intrinsic reward).
3. Third in the chain is a circle labeled “Perform Activities.” That’s where we do the intended work.
4. Beneath the “Perform Activites” circle is a block entitled “Monitor Activities for Competence.” Arrows flow to and from this monitoring function, indicating a feedback loop. We must be able to monitor our progress to accomplish self-management.
5. Last in the chain is a block labeled “Monitor Progress Toward the Purpose.” And all the blocks (components) are connected with dotted lines indicating interconnectedness and system functioning (as in Strategic Alignment).
So what Ken and his team are saying is, in today’s fast-paced world of work, we must develop self-management processes whereby workers monitor themselves from two pespectives:
(1) How am I doing on this task as far as competence? and. . .
(2) How am I progressing towards the meaningful purpose?
I really love the detail of this model and find it a very uplifting view of work – self-managed work, of course.
The Four Intrinsic Rewards
Now it turns out that there are four intrinsic rewards we can use to tap into people’s intrinsic motivations. As you can understand, they are very closely linked to the self-management diagram. Remember the greatest management principle of all: That which gets rewarded gets repeated. So rewards are extremely important. The four intrinsic rewards are:
1. A sense of choice – “the opportunity you feel to select task activities that make sense to you and perform them in ways that seem appropriate.”
2. A sense of competence – “the accomplishment you feel in skillfully performing task activities that you have chosen.”
3. A sense of meaningfulness – “the opportunity you feel to pursue a worthy task”
4. A sense of progress – “the accomplishment you feel in achieving the task purpose.”
These rewards result from self-managed work. Sound good, don’t they? But how much time do we as manager-leaders focus on providing the type of work that generates these rewards for our workers? These rewards create energy and commitment, which in turn energize the self-management process. This is the right model for work in the 21st Century. Get Ken’s book to learn more. (That link will take you to the book at amazon.com)
So what are the implications for manager-leaders?
“Top managers necessarily have the lead role in building an organizational context for strong intrinsic motivation,” Ken says. They need to “systematically measure intrinsic motivation” and do “what is necessary to build and maintain it.” Here are some things manager-leaders can do related to the four intrinsic rewards:
• Meaningfulness. “It is up to top managers to state convincingly the strategic need for intrinsic motivation, to articulate the values and philosophy that support it, to incorporate it into their visions for their organizations, and to keep emphasizing that message.”
• Choice. It is important to allow self-managers to make their own choices about how to achieve each goal, “so that they can use their ingenuity to make it happen and believe in what they are doing. It pays to encourage experiments.”
• Competence. “Provide the necessary training, so that leaders throughout the organization understand the basics of intrinsic motivation. It will also pay to encourage the sharing of best practices across the organization and to recognize improvement and continued excellence in leading for intrinsic motivation.”
• Progress. “Top managers should make sure that leaders at all levels get feedback on the intrinsic motivation of their teams. This can be done with surveys or incorporated into 360-degree appraisals. Retention should also be considered here, since it is a rough index of intrinsic motivation.”
In other words, you’ve got to walk the talk. Be a model of behavior that reinforces intrinsic motivation. This is a huge topic. Get the book to understand the details. That’s how you stay on. . .
The Managing-Leading EDGE