The Real Secret to Motivating Your Employees

Each week I travel the country speaking to groups of leaders at meetings and conferences. No matter where I go, I’m asked the same question, time and again, by leaders ranging from front-line managers to CEOs:

“How can I motivate my employees?”

Sadly, what the person asking the question usually means is “How can I manipulate my employees to do what I want them to do?”

Organizations and their leaders waste billions of dollars each year on manipulation, disguised as incentives, in an attempt to change employee behavior. Sometimes they get short-term results, but manipulation never works out over the long haul.

Because motivating people is such a mystery for leaders a $30 billion industry has been built around helping companies motivate their people. There is certainly nothing wrong with providing valuable incentives to employees who do a good job, but what these programs don’t do is teach leaders how to tap into what really motivates employees and in worse cases, give leaders and excuse to abdicate that responsibility.

People Don't Work for Incentives, They Work for Leaders

Steve is a regional account executive for a huge business services company. In a management shake-up, his company hired a new vice president of sales. The new VP came in full of ideas. One of those ideas was to build a national incentive program. In doing so, he took the local budgets away from his sales managers and insisted that any recognition be in compliance and under auspices of the corporate office and the national sales incentive program. He established a strict process and rules for recognizing the organization's salespeople. Then he hired a staff (bureaucracy) to administer the program. Finally, he proudly rolled out the new and improved program to his field sales team of over 1,000 people.

Steve was a consistent top performer, so it wasn’t a surprise when he sold more than anyone else on his team the quarter after the program was announced.

“About a month after the end of the quarter, UPS dropped a box off on my front porch. Inside was a plaque with my name on it, a catalog, and a form letter congratulating me on my achievement that explained what I could order from the catalog.” Steve shook his head in disgust as he told me his story. “It meant nothing to me. I threw the plaque back in the box and handed the catalog to my wife. No one, not even my manager, called to say anything about the award! At least before the program, we would all go out to dinner at the end of the quarter and my sales manager would toast all the top performers.”

He went on to tell me about the other plaques he’d been awarded that were still gathering dust in his closet. “This was truly the dumbest recognition program in the history of sales. It did not motivate me in the least. But what really pissed me off was when I found out that they were deducting taxes from my paycheck for the value of the prizes in the catalog they sent me. I finally went to my manager to ask that they not send me anymore catalogs. I was making plenty of money, and all I really wanted was to be recognized in front of the other salespeople on my team.”

Steve eventually was recruited away and said he is very happy at his new company. If you are shaking your head, believe me—this is not the worst story I’ve heard. Unfortunately, far too many leaders have no idea what actually motivates people. They wrongly assume that there is a complex formula for motivation, and the gurus and companies in the employee-incentive trade encourage this false notion.

The Two Things that Really Motivate People

The truth is, motivating people is extremely simple. Psychologists and social scientists have proven time and again that the two most powerful motivators of people are achievement and the recognition of that achievement. It is important to note that these two elements cannot be separated. Achievement in the absence of recognition is rarely rewarding, and recognition in absence of achievement is hollow.

However, when people are given the opportunity to achieve (win) and those achievements are recognized by leaders, serendipity happens. People who are being consistently recognized for their achievements report higher job satisfaction and perform at higher levels than those who are not. They report that they have better relationships with and more trust in their boss. They are more loyal to their company.

Leaders who consistently find ways to recognize the achievements of their people through positive emotional experiences deliver superior results.

Become Intentional With Recognition

Recognition, to be effective, must be directed at achievement - big and small. Most leaders find it easy to recognize big achievements. However, where the top leaders excel is in consistently recognizing the many small achievements required for big things to happen - including plain old hard work.

One of the easiest ways to motivate people for small achievements is to catch them doing something right and recognize them for it. The key is awareness - paying attention.

Recognizing small, everyday achievements though can be challenging for leaders who are under intense pressure to produce immediate results. Because they are so often myopically focused on delivering on plans, tasks, or fixing problems, it's easy to forget to take time to pat people on the back and say thank you.

One leader who is highly regarded by her team admitted to me that although she knew it was important to consistently recognize small achievements she found it difficult to remember to give those pats on the back. So she devised a simple trick. Each morning she put a handful of chocolates in her pocket. Each time she recognized an employee for doing something right, she ate a chocolate. “It worked for me because I love chocolate and I rewarded myself for doing the right thing for my people.”

Another manager we interviewed explained that with the unrelenting demands of his workday, which often included back-to-back meetings, it was often impossible to recognize achievements in real time. “I found that on many days I would be working late after all my people had gone home. One night after a particularly hard week where my team had gone above and beyond, I wrote personalized thank-yous on sticky notes and stuck them on everyone’s computer screens. The reaction the next morning was amazing. People were coming into my office to thank me! It meant so much to them. After that I made it a regular part of my day to recognize outstanding performance with after-hours sticky notes.”

Certainly big experiences, like national sales meetings, president’s clubs, special recognition dinners, contests, trips, and so on are appropriate opportunities to recognize and appreciate employees for big achievements. What cannot be forgotten is that small gestures, more often than not, carry far more emotional weight and meaning than big ones.

When it comes to motivation, thoughtful recognition of achievement in real time will take you to the next level as a leader.

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Jeb Blount advises many of the world’s leading organizations and their executives on the impact of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills on customer experience, strategic account management, sales, and developing high-performing sales teams. Jeb is the author of eight books including People Follow YOU: The Real Secret to What Matters Most in Leadership & Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal

Contact Jeb at [email protected], call 1-888-360-2249 or visit https://www.salesgravy.com