Who Doesn’t Love a Good (Motivation) Framework?

Who doesn’t love a good framework? I was facilitating a leadership offsite for 130+ company leaders last week.  Everyone agreed that it was a big success, especially the break-out sessions. One of them focused on strategies for motivating your team members.  The consultant running the session introduced this simple but effective motivation framework. How do you motivate a team member who has a lot of will and skill? That’s easy, you delegate.  But often we don’t have that perfect pairing.  When you have someone reporting to you who is skilled but not that motivated…well, in the short term you need to direct that person.  Often newer team members may have the will to learn and contribute but lack the skill; they require guidance on how to develop their skills.  A test for many managers is the team member who has a lot of skill but not a lot of motivation/interest in taking on more challenge.  How can the manager excite and advise this employee? You should try and try to tap into this person’s passions or perhaps concerns.  At the end of the day, motivating isn’t as clear-cut as these four quadrants would have us believe; at the same time, this framework can help a manager rapidly assess a situation and focus on which motivation strategy makes the most sense.