Get Motivated, Stay Motivated!

Newsletter 20 - 24 March 2005 This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. If you are not already a member and you would like to subscribe, please visit http://mindtools.com/testspark.htm. To unsubscribe, please send a blank email to leave-mindtools-9074447I@atomic.sparklist.com. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email newsletter@mindtools.com.

Contents: In This Issue... Motivational Myths Mind Tools Store Triumph From Failure Time Management A Final Note

In This Issue.

In this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter, we focus on motivation: an area we're often asked about by newsletter readers.

This is an important, and broad topic. High motivation is vitally important if you and your team are to achieve peak performance. It's also a topic littered with myths and misconceptions: This is why most managers find it so difficult to motivate people, and why so many well-meaning attempts to motivate go astray.

Because it's such a wide topic, we've broken it into three short articles. In this newsletter we share the first of this three-part series, entitled "Myths Dispelled: What Really Motivates People". This will be followed in subsequent editions by "The Nuts & Bolts of Motivation," and finally "A Manager's Motivation Survival Guide."

This issue also provides you with information on time management, helping you to schedule more effectively with the final goal being to make better use of your valuable time.

Finally, we take a quick look as a book by Sir Robert Alistair McAlpine and Kate Dixey called “Triumph From Failure, Lessons from Life for Business Success.” Appropriately informative, the book is written in a charming and easy-to-understand style, making it both a quick read and a huge help. This guidebook is a must for anyone looking for success in the corporate world, as it provides a reliable roadmap for a journey that ends with balance and, as the name implies, triumph.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter and encourage you to continue to send us your thoughts, suggestions and comments. Not only do we respond to your comments, we act on them, with the three-part series on motivation the latest example of how we put to use your ideas and requests.

And as ever, if you find these articles useful, we encourage you to share the newsletter with your team and your co-workers.

Best wishes, and enjoy this issue!

James & Kellie

Myths Dispelled: What Really Motivates People

Part 1 of a 3-part series on Motivation

By: Kellie Fowler

Within every organization lies the opportunity for employee performance improvement. And, if you’re a manager or in upper level administration, motivating your team is a must: it can be one of the quickest ways to increase the bottom line of your business.

Because of this, a great deal of time and effort has been invested in motivation practice and theories. Despite the various researchers who have worked to understand exactly what motivates us and the numerous theories that have been applied, one common denominator prevails: To understand motivation, one must first understand human nature.

We will dive into the various theories (theory y, theory z, achievement motivation and two factor motivation hygiene theory (some of which is touched on in this article)) in the second article of this series. But for now, we will work to understand that motivation in the workplace may best be defined as performance improvement.

So, just how can you increase motivation, improve employee performance and sit back and watch your bottom line grow?

Perhaps we should start with the old saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but cannot make it drink”. The same is true for people. Thus, making the first step in this direction one that ensures your employees and/or your colleagues want to be motivated.

While it seems that some people are born with higher levels of motivation than others, this is not always the case. In fact, it has been proven that motivation is a skill, one that must be mastered to achieve success.

Motivation - A Key Contributor to Performance

Thus, performance is considered to be a function of ability and motivation. You can think of it as a simple equation

Job performance = ability x motivation

Ability is hinged, to some degree, on education, experience and training. This makes improvement a continual, lengthy process. By contrast, motivation can be quickly improved.

There are a handful of very basic, broad strategies that exist to improve it. These include:

• Positive reinforcement
• Effective discipline
• Treating people fairly
• Satisfying employee needs
• Setting attainable work-related goals
• Restructuring jobs when necessary
• Rewards that are based on performance

While motivation practices will vary widely from workplace to workplace, these are the areas you should draw on when looking to improve performance, hence motivation.

Frederick Herzberg’s Findings

Now, it's worth going into a bit of theory here. One can look to Frederick Herzberg, a well-respected researcher who closely studied the sources of employee motivation in the 1950s and 1960s, to find answers relating to job satisfaction and employee satisfaction. While Herzberg’s studies were conducted some time ago, they are strongly respected and underpin much of our current view of motivation.

As he found, the things that make people satisfied and motivated on the job are different in kind from the things that make them dissatisfied (or act as de-motivators), which points to a trend which is exactly opposite of the motivators commonly put in place in the modern workplace, i.e. compensation and incentive packages.

For, as discussed in his classic article in the Harvard Business Review ("One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?", January - February 1968), Herzberg determined that spiralling wages may very well serve to motivate employees; however, it may very well only be motivating the employees to seek the next wage increase and nothing more.

In fact, Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory, drawn originally from an examination of events in the lives of engineers and accountants and later paired with at least 16 other studies that utilized a broader sampling of professionals, suggests that the factors that determine job satisfaction (and serve to motivate) are “separate and distinct from the factors that lead to job dissatisfaction.” Hence, the opposite of job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction, but rather no job satisfaction. Conclusively, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no job satisfaction.

According to Herzberg, the factors to consider when working to enhance job satisfaction and motivation include:

• Achievement
• Recognition for Achievement
• Work Itself
• Responsibility
• Growth
• Advancement

And the factors which cause most dissatisfaction (Herzberg's "hygiene factors", which we'll talk about in the next article) include:

• Company Policy
• Administration
• Supervision
• Interpersonal Relationships
• Working Conditions
• Salary
• Status
• Security

So managers should seek to motivate people by giving opportunities for and celebrating achievement, and helping individuals enjoy and grow in their jobs. And they should actively minimize the bureaucracy and petty irritations that organizations often unthinkingly inflict on employees.

Herzberg concluded that motivators are the primary cause of satisfaction, and hygiene factors are the primary cause of unhappiness in the workplace. Taking an example: people are often only temporarily motivated by an increase in salary, however they can become very demotivated if they think salaries are too low or if they’re earning less than their peers.

Now, it’s easy to pass over this information without absorbing its significance.

Instead, pause for a moment and put aside your current assumptions about other people’s motivations. Reflect on how you feel yourself. Isn’t this true for you? Don’t you get your greatest satisfaction from doing a good job, being recognised for it, and from growing your capabilities?

And aren’t you most demotivated by the frustrations of bureaucracy, organizational stupidity, politics and being “taken advantage of”?

As it is for you, so it is for most other people.

A Surprising Summary

If you’re a manager, you already know that an important part of your job is to motivate your team. In so many cases, the level of motivation of your team is a huge factor in its performance.

The role of motivating or “job enrichment” is, as Herzberg determined, more than a single project, instead calling on continuous efforts from management. In working to do this, managers should:

• Where possible, enrich jobs so that they offer a level of challenge equal to the skills of the person that was hired;
• Work to ensure those with ability are able to demonstrate it, and can win promotion to higher-level jobs; and
• Understand that the very nature of motivators (as opposed to hygiene factors) is that they have a much longer-term effect on employees’ attitudes.

Obviously, not all jobs can be enriched, nor do all jobs need to be enriched. As Herzberg concluded, if a small percentage of the time and money that is dedicated to hygiene was instead allocated to his motivating factors, the return in employee satisfaction and motivation, as well as economic gain, would be one of “the largest dividends that industry and society have ever reaped….”

Now, time to put this into practice. How are you going to motivate your team? How will you make good motivation a routine part of your approach to management?

Look for part two of our in-depth series on motivation in the next edition of the Mind Tools newsletter.

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Book Review: Triumph From Failure, Lessons from Life for Business Success
By: Sir Robert Alistair McAlpine and Kate Dixey

“We may stop ourselves from going up, but never coming down.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

In working to craft a clear, concise summary of this eye-opening book, I found myself going back to the above quote (which serves as the opening of Chapter 6), for it summarizes the book well.

“Triumph From Failure, Lessons from Life for Business Success” is the clever, insightful work of authors Alistair McAlpine and Kate Dixey. In it, this dynamic duo takes a look at the essential dimensions of balance in life to achieve happiness and success.

McAlpine and Dixey lay the groundwork for what it takes to reach that elusive goal – to be successful in business, at home, and with people in general.

As appropriately pointed out in the book’s foreword, industry loses billions of dollars every year through negativity displayed by both employers and employees, with negativity starting in the mail room and ending in the boardroom (or, for that matter, the other way around).

McAlpine and Dixey say that negativity, once lit, runs like wildfire through any business. More contagious than the flu, they determine that negativity in today’s workforce is more deadly to a business than adverse financial conditions.

“Triumph from Failure” explores essential human themes, such as success, eating, sleeping, understanding, beauty, kindness and failure, in an effort to make life happier, defeat negativity and make both work and home more successful through achieving balance (while holding your hand and providing practical advice every step of the way).

Admittedly, my favorite chapters in this great read are Chapters 1 and 7 (Kindness and The Need for Understanding, respectively). For it seems that these fundamentals have long since been missing from most of our boardrooms.

In summary, the book looks at the importance of discovering your own unique rhythm, and takes you all the way to sure-fire success – a journey you are happy traveling on the entire way.

“Triumph from Failure, Lessons from Life for Business Success,” is available at www.amazon.com.

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Tool Review: Time Management
Planning to Make the Best Use of Your Time

In today’s global marketplace, where everyone seems to be working with colleagues or customers in different time zones and where our society seems to be moving at an increasingly hurried pace, effective time management is more important that ever.

To manage time well, you need to first determine your priorities and set your goals (see http://www.mindtools.com/prtodo.html and http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html for more information on priorities and goal-setting). Once you have done this, delivery of your priorities and achievement of your goals becomes an exercise in the effective allocation of time.

Start by looking at the time available to you. Next, plan how you will this allotted time to achieve the goals you identified. While this sounds simple enough, there is an art to effective scheduling. By learning to schedule properly, you can:

• Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time
• Plan to make the best use of your time
• Leave enough time for things you must absolutely do
• Preserve contingency time to handle the unexpected and
• Minimize stress by avoiding over-commitment to yourself and to others

If you want help in doing this, assistance is available in the form of diaries, organizers, paper-based organizers, PDAs and software suites like Microsoft Outlook or GoalPro 6. The trick here is to determine which method best suits you, your job, your situation and your budget.

Next, commit to scheduling your time on a regular basis, perhaps at the start of every week. In preparing your weekly schedule, you should:

1. Identify the time you want to make available for work, considering the demands of your job and your personal goals.
   
   
2. Write in the actions you absolutely must take to ensure you do the best job you can do (keeping in mind that the job you do may very well be used as a measuring stick for later assessments of you). Note: If you manage people, allow time for communication with stakeholders, for dealing with issues that may arise and make sure you leave time for good team management. In short, set aside time for those important to you.
   
   
3. Review your to-do list (more on this at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_04.htm) and schedule in the high-priority or urgent activities, as well as maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated (see http://www.mindtools.com/tmdelegt.html).
   
   
4. The next step is to write in appropriate contingency time. This requires some experience, for the more unpredictable your job is, the more contingency time you will need. If you are a manager, you already know that most days bring constant interruption, with studies showing that some managers get as little as six minutes of work time before being interrupted. Because you cannot predict interruptions, you should leave time in your schedule for these and make sure you allow yourself the flexibility in your schedule to address each appropriately.
   
   
5. The time left over is your discretionary time, or the time you use to deliver your priorities and achieve goals. Review your prioritized to-do list and personal goals, evaluate the time needed to achieve these actions, and schedule these in.

If, by the time you complete Step 5 you find you have little or no time left, you should revisit the assumptions you used in the first four steps. In doing this, question what is absolutely necessary. Look for tasks that may better be delegated, or perhaps done in less time.

Remember that one of the ways people learn to achieve success is by maximizing the leverage they can achieve with their time. To do this, delegate work to others, be willing to spend some money to outsource, and use technology to automate work as much as possible.

Also, use this as an opportunity to review your to-do lists and personal goals. Have you set goals that are not realistic, perhaps not achievable with the time you have available? Are you taking on too many additional duties? Do you need additional help? Or, are you placing greater importance on things or in areas that really aren’t that important?

If, after doing all of this, you find you still do not have enough time, you may need to renegotiate your workload.

Effective Scheduling is just one of the 39 tools explained in Mind Tools’ “Make Time for Success!”. This downloadable e-book contains more than 140 pages of time-tested tips, tricks and secrets that help you to work better (not harder). As many people have already found, you can rely on “Make Time for Success!” to teach you how to set realistic goals, generate a practical and achievable life plan and finally leverage all the opportunities life has to offer you. It includes workbook exercises that guarantee you understand how to put these invaluable skills to work for you in your life. Click here to find out more.

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A Final Note...

I hope you’ve enjoyed this issue – and in particular, I hope you found the article on motivation useful.

Although it takes time and effort to build a well-motivated team, the rewards are enormous. And this is not just in terms of “feel good”: By working to increase the motivation of your team you are very likely to see substantial increases in productivity, revenue generation and profitability.

And what's more, you'll also see improvements in staff retention. This is critical: properly done, it costs a lot of management time and money to recruit new team members. Once recruited, they can take a long time to come “up to speed”. This is why it's desperately difficult to grow a business if your staff turnover is high: just as a new team member finally becomes productive, another leaves and you lose a whole lot more expertise.This is yet another reason why a happy, well-motivated team is so much more effective than an unhappy one.

Developing this further, in our next issue, you can look forward to “The Nuts & Bolts of Motivation”, part two of the three-part motivation series.

We also look at “The Value Chain”, a powerful tool for increasing the value you deliver to your personal customers. We’ll have a great article on stress, and we review a good book on motivation called “The Enthusiastic Employee,” by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Irwin Meltzer.

In the meantime, if you'd like to forward this email to friends, co-workers and team members, please do. I hope the newsletter stimulates some useful discussion!

Best wishes, and until next time!

James

James Manktelow

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