A Leader's Guide: How to Unlock Motivation for High-Performing Teams
"People are already intrinsically motivated. It's about creating the environment that motivates them."
- Cassy Aite, Co-Founder and CEO of Hoppier
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The Question
How can leaders influence motivation?
Quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, Burnout - all have been the recent plagues of many workplaces.
However, many of these are simply new terms for age-old problems. At its root, often being (at least in part) responsible is employee engagement.
Leaders who aim to build high-performing teams want highly engaged teams.
Employees who wish to succeed and be high-performing want work that will engage and fulfil them to give them the drive to perform.
Amidst this, the role and question of motivation naturally come up.
Can leaders harness motivation for their teams? If so, how???
The Research
In 1914, German philosopher and psychologist, Eduard Spranger, published the research behind identifying the six core attitudes, values, and motivators in every individual.
These six values were what he believed created motivation and drive in an individual.
He defined them as, "world views or filters that shape and define that which a person finds valuable, important, good or desirous."
Following suit, American psychologist Gordon Allport worked off Spranger's model and created the first values instrument to measure an individual's value hierarchy.
The combination of these two researchers' work created the seven dimensions of values that signify the reasons that drive individuals to utilize their talents in the unique way they do.
Some Advice
Outside of the individual's motivators, it's important to consider the external environment.
The mistake many managers often make is they begin focusing on motivation before laying the foundation for a high-performing team.
This means they forego seeing the role of culture in motivation.
Does the culture foster psychological safety and belonging? Does it consider empowerment and role design? Does it allow for voice and impact? Does it encourage its leaders to coach? And is there ongoing career growth?
All of these environmental factors will influence motivation.
Cassy Aite, Co-Founder and CEO of Hoppier, shared his personal story and experience with motivation.
You can watch the full interview, which goes more in-depth, below.??
Your Hack
While there is no silver bullet to motivation, organizations should aim to build environments and cultures that facilitate motivation.
Leaders can focus on understanding motivations in their own team members.
Understanding motivators will help leaders see opportunities to maximize performance by achieving a stronger alignment between individuals' motivators, choices, and actions.
So this week's hack is to?try a motivators assessment for your team.
It's important to understand the seven motivator dimensions and how they work in combination.
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They influence things like interpersonal communication (including conflict) and job selection.
Fostering a self-awareness around these motivators will help resolve conflicts quicker and identify opportunities for alignment and success.
As leaders, this understanding can help you identify the reason for an employee’s (internal) lack of motivation and then apply a targeted strategy, especially if it concerns a values-mismatch issue.
But remember!?Your time should first be prioritized to understand the macro system at hand and its role in either optimizing or derailing motivation.
You can use the seven dimensions to help guide you, but until the overhauling culture is optimized, you shouldn’t waste time trying to motivate individuals. You won’t be able to keep that up indefinitely.
Only then can you shift to the individual level, which should be more manageable as fewer members should be struggling with motivation.
In those cases, assessing the nature of the individual motivational failure before taking action is crucial.
Applying the wrong strategy (say, urging an employee to work harder, when the reason is that they’re convinced they can’t do it) can actually backfire, causing motivation to falter further.
A great leader will always personalize their leadership to every unique individual. A difficult thing to do unconsciously.
This is because we often see others as we are, not as they are. We all have our own needs and desires, and we all express them differently through our actions.
And leaders need to see beyond their own frameworks to help others.
Parting Thoughts
If an organization's goal is to motivate people, then ultimately, motivation is a systemic property of the organization.
Many will tackle motivation through financial compensation, but it does not address engagement with the work and the people because other intrinsic motivational properties are missing.
Motivation needs to outlast any short boost of energy that a motivational speech or quote can provide. Especially once faced against the unexpected twists and turns of the daily grind of organizational operations.
Engagement of people should be woven into the fabric of the organization in a systematic way. Then you can unlock motivating team members at a micro level through their personal motivators.
If you succeed, the simplest jobs can be organized within the system in a way that people find and connect to their motivators instinctively.
At?Unicorn Labs, we use a Motivators Assessment to help our clients. See how it works below!??
Unicorn Leaders — The Podcast
Have you heard the newest episodes!?
Our most recent podcast guests are leaders superstars: Samuel Witherspoon and Amanda Gordon.
???Samuel (Founder and CEO, IMRSV Data Labs)?tells us how he created a vision that helped guide his company and how important it is for you to do this too.
???Amanda?(Vice President People at Rewind)?shares the secrets to attracting, hiring and retaining the star employees that will bring your company from good to great.
Take a listen & subscribe ??
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Sincerely,
The Unicorn Labs Team