It's Not (Always) About the Money - Employee Motivation

          What if you could pay your employees the same amount for more work?    As a new generation joins our workforce and company resources are scarce, understanding employee motivation has a new urgency.  
          Many businesses use the carrot-and-stick approach to motivate employees.  The carrot is the promise of more money that's dangled in front of the employee to improve performance.  This approach is like using a sledgehammer to hang a picture:  it gets the job done, but it's not pretty.  

Photo courtesy of profitclinic.com

          I recently attended a class taught by Art Pulis, where he listed four employee motivators.  Surprisingly, money is the fourth. 

•  We are first motivated by autonomy.  We want to define our work, and how we do it.  Give us the task and the tools, but leave the how to us.  As an employer, focus on the outcomes or results of our work.  Ask us how you can help us do our job better, and then review only the results.  
• Our second motivator is relevance.  We want to know that what we are doing has meaning.  Show us how our work is part of a big picture and we'll buy in.  Share a written vision and related goals with us.  Share your progress towards the goals and invite us in to solve the problems and celebrate the victories. 
• Thirdly, we are motivated by mastery.  We want to learn and get better at our job.  Teach us so that we can grow, give us the opportunity to take classes or do research, and let us try new approaches to our work.  As we master our jobs, give us new work and new challenges.

          It isn't about the money, it's about feeling successful in the workplace.  When employers use these motivators to get work done, they are giving employees the opportunity to exceed expectations, to do fulfilling work, and to grow.  

Light Yourself on Fire

People have described passion as consuming, as if it was a fire that can rage in someone, an emotion that can't be denied.  Lately, I have been waiting for my passion to ignite, to consume me, and to lead me to great places.  I have been completely missing the point.


This week, Jeff Goins challenged me (and you) to write "Three Things."  He was inspired by a visual poem by Sarah Kay.  As I thought about my answer, and I listened to others, I learned some things.  (If you want to see my response, and some other inspiring ones, search #threethings on Twitter.)


Passions are pursued.  I am not going to wake up one day with a burning desire to get something done.  I have to chase it down, sometimes relentlessly.


Passions are consuming.  Committing myself to my passion is an all-in sort of deal.  There will be times that I will get lost in it.  That's okay, that's called living fully awake.


Passions are irrational.  I don't have any special knowledge about my passion, and it certainly won't be worth a lot of money or bring me fame.  I don't need justification, I just need to do it.


Several years ago, I wrote a personal mission after reading the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.  The mission reads like a to do list:  explore every gift and talent, begin each day with gratitude, give it my best effort ... yawn.  This mission does not evoke emotion in me.  After reading it, I am not called to action, renewed in my passion, or pounding my fist on the table.  If I put this mission on my office wall, I imagine that people would say, "wow, those are neat things that you are doing."  They would not ask for the sign-up sheet.  Heck, I'm not asking for it, either!




So, I am going to write a new mission statement.  I am going to take a match and light myself on fire and let it rage.  My mission will bring me to tears, and call me to action.  In fact, I'm going to use an emotional word for my mission:  Manifesto.

Photo from:  sodahead.com

I encourage you to join me.  Use this as your match.  Light yourself on fire.  Pursue your passion with all your heart.  


If you would like inspiration, check out Stepcase Lifehack's "10 Insanely Awesome Inspirational Manifestos."  If you need motivation, read Revelation 3:15 - 16.  


Please share with me, I'd love to read your manifesto!  

The 8-Hour Workday Habit

          Have you ever heard of the game called Superfection?  It's a timed game, where you fit pieces together into the shape of squares on a board.  If you do not get all of the pieces on the board before the time is up, the board pops up with a loud "kapow" and the pieces go flying.  I had it as a child, and spent many hours beating the timer.  Recently, my daughter pulled the game out, and I heard the familiar sound of the timer, the "kapow", and her squeal as she played.  Of course, my son and I had to get involved.  I remembered that my best time was 60 seconds, and the challenge was set.
          Amazingly, I recalled the skills I had developed when I was younger and was quickly able to bring my time down to 59 seconds.  My son was impressed with how calm and deliberate my hands were as I played.  My kids are still working on it.  Then my son had an intriguing idea.  What if we set the timer to only have 60 seconds on it?  What would happen when we weren't just beating our time, but we were under pressure to beat the game's "kapow?"
          As a small business owner, you put in as many hours as your business needs to be successful.  You often have 12 to 14-hour days, and never a day so short as 8 hours.  As a matter of fact, you could say that you are in the habit of working long hours.  The thing about habits is that they become ingrained.  We perform the habit's motions but lose the meaning.  
          Business owners in the habit of working long days lose a sense of time.  Since they are "at work" most of the day, tasks can take as long as they need to.  If you are in a service business, appointments can run long, because your day is booked in units of customers instead of units of time.  You just start at the beginning and work until you've seen all the customers on you schedule for that day.  This can be true of other business types.  The mindset is on completing the task, not on the time it takes to do it.  
          While giving the customer or task as much time as it takes may seem like superior customer service, in reality, it leads to inefficiencies and waste.  The customer may not appreciate that you are consistently late to start their appointment (because of the overlap from previous appointments), or that their appointment with you runs long.  Taking longer to complete tasks most often does not mean that you did a better job, it just means that it took longer and so your day stretches on.
          Another effect of an endless day is that you begin to mix your personal activities with your work time.  Since you are never home and never have time off, you begin to take care of your personal emails, bill paying, phone calls, and maybe even errands during business time.  This is a matter of survival, right?  If not now, when?  The result is that you always have a working mindset.  You never give yourself down time, you never feel you are away from the business, and burnout drags you down further.
          I propose that you take a different approach.  Set the timer to as much time as you want to give your business in a day, before you start your day.  You may even set a reminder to go off an hour before your day ends, so that you can take stock and wind up your day.  Start with a 10-hour day, because cutting too much time off too quickly will lead to frustration.  Since you are creating a new habit, you will have a learning curve.  Plan on struggling with it at first, but just like a diet, forgive yourself and start fresh with the next day.
          You will need to clear your personal activities off your work day calendar.  You will need to schedule a reasonable day.  You can use tools from The Busyness Habit to help.  Be firm about the timer and end your day when it goes off.  You will be amazed at how quickly you will adjust to the day, and your new habit will be to go home at a reasonable hour.
          Playing Superfection with the threat of the "kapow" caused me to go back to some old struggles.  My hands were shaking and I had trouble getting the pieces to fit together.  But then, I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I could to this, and went back to calmly beating the timer.

Photo courtesy of marketplaceadvisor.channeladvisor.com