Pep talks don't motivate staff; then what can?

Psychology At Work - By Dr Goh Chee Leong

MORALE among the staff team is low. Productivity is low. Management decides that something needs to be done and quickly. So they get a trainer to give a “motivational talk”.

“Just come over”, they say, “give them a two-hour pep talk” and the expectation is that all of them will be inspired and motivated.

We want instant solutions for long-term problems.

If only life were so simple. If only leadership were so simple.

Don’t get me wrong. Words are powerful and when delivered by a skilful orator, they have the potential to exert an incredible amount of influence on a whole mass of people.

A good motivational talk certainly can lift the spirits for a moment, but therein lies the problem. Its effects are temporary at best.

The reality is that to boost motivation levels in the organisation on a more permanent basis, there needs to be more a fundamental change taking place in the organisation.

Research in organisational psychology has identified numerous organisational factors that contribute to workers’ motivation levels.

I have attempted to synthesise the various variables into four elements that, in my opinion, characterise the organisational culture of a highly motivated team.

Empowerment

People are motivated when they are given room to take ownership of their work process.

Read any management guidebook and it’ll tell you the same thing: Choose people who have the ability to get the job done. Set them clear targets and give them room to work.

Avoid micro-managing. Where possible give them freedom to make decisions about their work environment and their work processes. There are always boundaries and limits to freedom and decision-making rights of course, but the principle should be to give as much space as possible.

This is particularly important when you are dealing with your “top performers” and “high potentials”. These people are usually highly intelligent, highly motivated and full of ideas about how to get the job done. Nothing de-motivates them more than being straight-jacketed.

Sometimes as supervisors we make the mistake of over-managing perhaps, because they are trust issues.

Some organisations are overly bureaucratic, creating so much red tape that staff lose any incentive to implement improvements because it’s just too much trouble to change anything.

Some organisations regulate their processes and SOPs (standard operating procedures) to the point that staff no longer have any room to make any decisions or to exercise any discernment which makes the organisation rigid, inflexible and clumsy.

The danger about all this over-regulation is that it takes away a sense of control and ownership from the worker and this is de-motivating.

Growth

People are motivated when they perceive that the organisation is facilitating their growth and development.

Research seems to indicate that this is as important as financial remuneration especially for younger workers. They need to see that the current challenges they face are part of a personal development process for them. “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

Good organisations have transparent career development pathways for their staff and they communicate these regularly so that everyone is clear about what level they are at and what level they can aspire to.

Good organisations also provide the means for staff to make this leap. Talent management has become less of a buzzword and more of an operational necessity at many organisations that wish to compete at a global level.

The bottom line is that people are motivated when there is something to aspire to in their careers and it’s got to be more than just the money. Most “top performers” and “high potentials” are driven people who have relatively strong ambitions. Show them how their current “suffering” is going to help them get to where they want and they’ll be motivated to climb mountains and swim oceans for you.

Clarity

People are motivated when they are clear about the goals, missions and objectives.

Good leaders are great at communicating the vision, mission and direction in a way that is both clear and inspiring. They are constantly “defining the mountaintops”.

High potentials like challenges. They want to be stretched. They seek a sense of achievement and accomplishment. That is why clarity of the mission is so important to them. Like soldiers in the battlefield, they want clear targets, clear objectives, clear victories.

Some organisations are poor at communicating expectations to their staff. As a result, workers have no sense of their performance indicators, their monthly targets, their scope of responsibilities. This ambiguity can be de-motivating.

Equity

People are motivated when they perceive that they are being treated fairly.

Nothing turns off a “high potential” more than the perception that “performance doesn’t really matter in this organisation”.

This is a problem that plagues organisations the world over. People feel that it’s all about office politics. It’s all about who you know rather than what you do. “As long as you’re close with the boss, they’ll let you get away with murder.”

In this kind of work culture, workers become experts at “managing” and “handling” their bosses, rather than improving their actual work performance. The name of the game becomes how to impress the boss rather than how to get things done. Once the worker sees a disconnect between his/her effort and the reward, you can forget about motivation, where the real work is concerned.

The solution of course is to put into place a comprehensive and well-executed performance management system that has clearly defined and measurable hard targets. I like the use of hard targets because it minimises manipulation.

The system needs to be fair and it needs to be seen to be fair.

Dr Goh Chee Leong is vice-president of HELP University College and a psychologist. We welcome feedback on this article. Please email to starbiz@thestar.com.my