How to Get People to Pull Their Weight: Individualized Motivation Creates a Culture of Contribution

“Nobody wants to pull their weight anymore.” We at Always About People (AAP) hear that desperate statement and a? thousand varieties of it every week, but if leadership doesn’t understand WHY people become unmotivated on a team, they will never be able to course correct. The ship will go down; it may be a long slow, painful sink, but it will happen eventually if an organization’s leadership doesn’t figure out how to genuinely motivate people. Here’s some information we have seen firsthand, looking at companies across America and in different industries: it is very rarely laziness or unwillingness to work. It is a lack of understanding people, and almost every business is a people business, so we want to help you understand the people you lead, as well as yourself.

You already know everyone on your team is not motivated by the same things. Additionally, even the TEAM itself influences motivation! Yep, we’re talking about you, leader. Let’s dive into some psychology that backs this up, so you can be a leader worth following . At AAP, we call this a “People Leader” and People Leaders motivate individually to create a culture of contribution.?

Working with a team motivates some and demotivates others, and it’s very individualized.? Being on a team does not always increase performance, even though you rarely hear about this in Leadership Development circles. Interestingly, there is a phenomenon social psychologists call “social loafing ”, which is the tendency to decrease individual effort when on a team. It’s related to the Ringelmann effect , which tends to decrease individual effort when the team size grows. At AAP, we love a good psychological theory for all behaviors, but we think a story can show you even more.?

Remember concerts where the person on stage asks the audience for a clap or reply? OK, we understand it’s been a couple of years since some of us have attended concerts, but think hard. The crowd’s effort is never enough on the first attempt. The one on stage always has to ask for more. That’s social loafing: everyone in the crowd expected others to contribute more so they didn’t have to. Now, let’s apply that theory to motivating teams at work.

Simply stated, there are two sides to motivation within a team. At AAP, we call this the “ME and WE” concept. The “ME” side is how an individual is built: their strengths, individual clarity, personality, knowledge, experience, and values. The “WE” side is the culture of the team: the leader, group dynamics, psychological safety, values, patterns, what is tolerated, and accountability.? The ME and WE concept builds the foundation for individual motivation on a team.?

There are two questions everyone subconsciously asks when deciding whether or not to contribute to a team: what’s best for ME and what’s best for this team (WE)? The answers to those two questions depend on the leader. Leaders must understand people to be able to motivate them to contribute. When you understand people, you understand at least two things that influence performance on a team: perception and prompts.?

Performance is influenced by perception and prompts.

PERCEPTION

Perception of Dispensability (link here if you want the science behind Kerr’s experiment) is a psychological theory for explaining the perception of your effort. How a team member perceives or feels about their effort affects whether or not they give effort. If you feel you are needed, you give effort; the opposite is true. If you perceive effort is not needed, you will conserve your energy. People need to feel valued to contribute to a team. If you feel needed, you give effort; if you feel valued, you give even more effort.?

People Leaders convey the value of each person on their team by showing how their work is tied to the team, the organization's Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) and how the MVV can’t happen without them.

?Practical tips…Mission answers why we are doing what we are doing. Vision answers what we are trying to accomplish; Values are how we will behave as we accomplish the Mission and Vision.?

People leaders take time to clarify what happens when a person fails in their work and how that impacts the team.? We all need this level of clarity to keep going and endure the sacrifice of effort we make for the team. As Toby Keith once described, talking about ME is important, and every leader needs to understand the ME side of motivation - what’s in it for ME?

PROMPTS

Prompts, or triggers, also influence how much effort people give on a team. Individual values, or the things people care about, prompt performance. People Leaders understand prompts and act on them. Each team member’s care for the other people on the team and care for the goal or outcome will prompt performance. People Leaders recognize different prompts for each person and tailor language for the individual to encourage effort, but it takes time to get to know your team members and understand their motivations. It will also take practice and some experimentation.

?Practical tip: if you aren’t having 1on1 meetings, we wrote an entire article HERE to help you with those.?

People Leaders focus on these psychological impacts of motivation to influence the effort given on a team. People Leaders authentically show individuals how they are indispensable and valued in their work, tie the work back to the MVV, and genuinely understand what prompts people to action. People Leaders care about people, and that affects everyone’s effort, which affects every goal a team ever has. People Leaders prioritize time for listening to the people on their team and to know them better. They understand each individual is motivated by their self-perception, perception of the group,? and various prompts. Leading with a “ME and WE” mentality improves engagement and effort. By understanding “ME and WE”, leaders can encourage individual motivation to create a culture of contribution on a team.

Key takeaways:

• 2 things people think about before contributing individual effort on a team: ME (my strengths and values) and WE (group culture/dynamics and values).?
• 2 things motivate individual effort: perception and prompts.
• People Leaders understand individual motivation to get results/reach goals (short term) and create a culture of contribution (long term).

Sticky:

People Leaders motivate individually to create a culture of contribution on a team by understanding the “Me and We”? Principle.

?Performance is motivated by perception and prompts.?