The Carrots of Motivation

Between them, the two Carrots give you 12 ideas for improving motivation in your organization:

Carrot 1

• Communication – if you take some time to talk to people and to listen to them it will make them feel more secure, more part of things, and more valued, which are all components of motivation. 
• Ask people for their views- involve them in as much as possible – this gives them a feeling of  belonging but also security, importance and challenge – all of Maslow’s hierarchy! 
• Relationship: getting to know them.  Take a bit of time to get to know your colleagues and your team – this will make them feel more secure as they get to know you, and will cause them to feel more valued, but is also part of building a team and will allow you to identify their skills and the things they would like to do, so it leads to interesting work and challenge too. 
• Recognition - thank people – as well as the obvious self esteem it also makes people feel more secure and more part of things, and allows them to get internal satisfaction from achievement because it is confirmed that they have done a good job. 
• Ownership- trusting people – clearly makes them feel more valued, but also allows them to rise to challenges, feel part of things and feel safer because they are valued. 
• Training/ Learning / Self development – as well as helping them undertake challenges, training makes them feel more secure because you’re investing in them, and training courses often have a team effect as well.

Second carrot

• Challenges– the only way to grow, learn, and get a sense of achievement is to take on challenges, and ideally a good boss would make sure that everyone has at least one.
• Advancement(position and skills) – you can’t always promote people but you can keep them moving on to learn and use new skills.
• Reward– this may not be money, it could be time off or more interesting work.  the main thing is to be fair about who you reward for what, and that’s not always easy!
• Reassurancewhen they fail at a challenge or do something occasionally stupid – so they feel safe to try for things, and don’t fear for their job if things don’t work out every time.
• One to one time with boss– your time is a great thing that you can give away to those who deserve it – which is everyone!
• Team belonging - this comes from team meetings, team activities, and joint challenges given to the team. Also design of the office and the communal areas.

Notice that the stick does NOT make an appearance at all.

onwards and upwards!

CC

PS this is one of many fruit and veg described in my book “Management Vegetables“

available on kindle (which you can read on your phone using the free kindle app)

and as a full colour paper edition available motivationfrom Lulu.com