Your Job is to Motivate: Fact or Fiction?

As a manager, I learned a long time ago that I couldn’t motivate anyone except me because motivation is internal and personal. I did learn, though, that the work environment can influence an employee’s motivation to achieve her own goals and that motivation positively affects performance and business results. Unfortunately, the wrong environment results in an equal and negative impact on motivation.

I just finished reading Dan Pink’s new book, Drive as well as a white paper published by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on motivation. These are good resources and I recommend them. Both sources agree that there are a number of things at work that can influence motivation including engagement, commitment and job satisfaction.

As a manager, what does all of this research and thought leadership mean to me? How am I going to apply it? Here is the “how” of influencing motivation from my perspective:

It Starts With Selection. Hiring people with the internal orientation, not just the skills, has to be Job #1. Asking interview questions that help you assess the level of motivation present in a candidate is invaluable. Examples:

• “What is it about XYZ Company that makes you think this is the right place for you?”
• “What kind of work makes you excited to be at your job every day?”
• “What do you want to know from me?” (I think this one is key. If the candidate doesn’t have a clue, that’s a clue for you).

It’s Not Always About the Money (or the t-shirt or mug). As Dan Pink pointed out in Drive, extrinsic motivators work in very limited circumstances but intrinsic motivators work in a high percentage of scenarios. This isn’t an issue of pay; if that is out of line, morale and engagement will suffer.

What kind of intrinsic motivators could work with your staff? You’ll have to ask them because motivation, like fingerprints, is unique to the individual. This is where asking relevant questions specific to your company on an employee survey can provide great insights, especially when linked to other employee data and financial results.

Sometimes It’s About You. People don’t often leave their jobs but they do leave their managers. Here are some of the issues I’ve read when analyzing clients' employee engagement studies:

• Showing favoritism
• Not communicating often enough – or at all
• Pointing out failures but not successes
• Managing every detail of my job
• Not listening to my ideas
• Not allowing the flow of information to trickle down from senior management and percolate up from me.

Thinking about your own performance as a manager, here are questions you can ask of yourself:

• Am I managing someone’s job or managing results?
• Do I play favorites or let my personal likes and dislikes influence how work is done?
• Is information my personal power base, accessible by only a chosen few in my team?
• Do I insist on making all of the decisions or do I share that with all team members?
• Am I onboarding my new team members or do I leave that strictly to the HR department?

That Vision Thing. This is a tune I will continue to sing. Talking about the company’s vision, strategy and plans for the future often and with a consistent message is critical for commitment and therefore motivation. What if your company doesn’t have a concrete vision or strategy? Ask yourself:

• What results am I accountable for?
• What is the mission of my department/team/unit? What does it exist to do?
• How does my team contribute to the company’s results?
• How do I communicate our mission and our team goals?

Measure Progress Toward Results. Spread the News. End of story.

As Gary Hamel, a leading thinker on strategy, often says, leaders are needed at every level of a company. Providing a working environment that positively influences employee motivation can start right in your office, no matter what your title.

I’d love to hear what you are doing to influence employee motivation at your organization.

What Makes a Good Business Strategy?

That question was asked by Veena Houston at one of our recent Leading Engaged Companies webinars; it’s a good one. I’ve been an internal practitioner and external consult of strategy for 25 years and it’s interesting how strategy formulation goes in and out of fashion, seemingly more in vogue when the economy is tough. For me, business strategy is one of the CEO’s KPI’s and there is the additional responsibility for communicating it and for ensuring it is executed.

First, my definition of business strategy, as I see so many references to “strategy” in the blogosphere but their message is really about tactics (marketing strategy, CRM strategy, HR strategy, etc.). The late Peter Drucker defined business strategy as “Analytical thinking & commitment of resources to action and innovation. Making decisions today about an uncertain future. Taking the right risks while exploring opportunities.”

Back to the original question: good business strategy components. Here are my must-haves:

Foundation of Vision, Values and Mission. Strategy can’t tell you what you stand for or why you’re in business but it should guide you in how you’re going to be different, competitive and successful.

Thorough Understanding of the External and Internal Environment. Knowing where you are now in terms of competition, customers, economic and regulatory issues and creating a report card of internal resources are imperatives; otherwise, strategy and direction are built on hope or dumb luck.

Evaluating Options in the Context of Your Reality. Strategy is about moving in a new direction which means building capability (human, structural, financial and relationship capital) that will support these decisions. Because strategy is a 3-5 year look ahead, not everything can be or needs to be accomplished Year One. That’s why we love annual action plans and budgets.

Scenario Planning. I came across this tool while working in England in the 80s through Royal Dutch Shell and the concept was so blindingly obvious that I’ve never thrown it out of my toolkit. We don’t have a crystal ball to predict our future so strategy development is, by its very nature, imperfect. We mitigate the risk by assessing our assumptions and using those to create scenarios of “What Ifs” and responses to those. Scenarios can lessen the impact of a flaw in the original strategy by allowing rapid course correction.

Measures and Monitoring. Failure to execute is the single greatest reason for strategy failure. These days, with financial and business modeling, strategy maps, scorecards and the like, there is no excuse not to design short- and long-term measures. Good strategy also demands that it cascades into departments, regions, and functions; and, ultimately to the individual level through a performance management system. If KPIs and compensation are not tied to business strategy, there is no skin in the game and therefore no incentive to change the status quo.

Communication, Involvement and Celebration. Communicating strategy is not a one-time event; it needs to drip continuously into the organizational consciousness until it is part of the fabric of all discussions, meetings and reviews. Keeping the message simple makes it easier to weave it into everyday activity.

Involving the workforce is critical, not just so that they are engaged but also because employees are in a perfect position to immediately discern a problem, which, if diagnosed quickly, can avoid strategy disaster.

Yes, celebrate. Every success; every mistake as a learning experience; every time a goal is achieved.

What do you think makes good business strategy? Can you add to my “must-have” list?

Let's Hear It For (the New) HR

A lot of us have taken a verbal swipe at the HR profession occasionally; some have written about it. After all, they are the “people people” not the hard-driving, analytical, results-oriented business influencers that the rest of us are. Right?

I had an amazing experience a couple of weeks ago when I volunteered for SHRM-Atlanta at a call in Help Desk for job seekers hosted by a local TV station. Here are some of the things I observed about my HR colleagues:

• They Get It. They not only have a good grasp of business strategy but also are good at formulating it. The organizers developed a mission critical style and approach to this event that was awesome to watch. During our two- day call-in, the organizers were tracking call types and other metrics to analyze how best to follow up and improve for the next call in. I know they also will be tracking and analyzing call resolution.

• They Are Savvy About Business. This group of HR professionals developed a program, including training, researched resources, screened volunteers and marketed the heck out of this event using every channel available including social media; on time and with a shoestring budget.

• They Give Back. SHRM-Atlanta has a vision of Working For a Better Atlanta and from the Board down to individual members; they are trying to live out that vision in all that they do. I don’t think this approach is limited to our local people.

• They Believe in Education and Development. HR professionals are credentialed and take their own professional development very seriously. I never sat for the PHR or SPHR designation but I understand that the curriculum is rigorous and maintaining the credentials requires annual continuing education including strategic coursework. How many of us can say that about our own professional development?

• They Are Collaborative. These HR professionals worked closely with the Department of Labor and the television station as a seamless team; adding their own particular talents to create something bigger and better than anything they could create alone.

• They Can Execute the Heck Out of an Initiative. That says it all.

Is there a theme here? I believe it’s that HR isn’t “Personnel” any longer or the group that processes benefits and payroll or nags us about performance reviews. There has been a sea change and it can only benefit businesses that are challenged to do more with less and yet do it with the best talent available. Your HR department just might be an untapped source of what it takes to lead an engaged company:

1. Strategy Development and Execution
2. Identifying and Developing Leaders
3. Creating a Culture of Collaboration and Teamwork
4. Providing guidance and influence in human capital development and management
5. Selecting, developing and training customer-focused employees through a performance management system.

So, before we put our HR colleagues back in their box on the organization chart, take another look at your HR department. Talk to them; invite a dialogue. Better yet, invite them to your next strategy session. You wouldn’t dream of leaving out the Finance person, would you?

Is your HR Department leading the way to organizational engagement? What are some of the ways you utilize its strengths in non-traditional ways?

What Drives Your Numbers?

Stephen Sadove is a leader I can follow. The CEO of Saks, Inc. was interviewed by the New York Times recently and was asked about his leadership philosophy. His response was that leadership drives culture, which drives business results. Mr. Sadove went on to say that while Wall Street never asks about leadership, culture or people, they actually are what drive numbers and results. Mr. Sadove, you are my hero.

Trying to define organizational culture is a little like nailing Jell-o to a wall: slippery, messy and just plain hard. But, when a leader understands that the harder- to -grasp organizational elements actually make up the engine that propels results, we are at least half way to having a company that truly is engaged. While many C-Suite occupants are comfortable with spreadsheets and analytics (and no one would argue their essential value), the numbers don’t happen by accident or in a vacuum. It takes a lot of deep searching to arrive at a culture design that supports the results you want.

I recently saw a presentation by Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix who, while not a fan of process, nevertheless, put the steps for embedding Values, Strategy, Leadership and People into a framework he calls Freedom and Responsibility Culture:

How Do We Define Success? For Netflix, business results are “continuous growth in revenue, profits and reputation”.

How Are We Going to Get There? Hastings defined the strategy as “rapid innovation and excellent execution”.

How Does Our Environment Support Our Strategy? Netflix’s culture specifically supports “effective teamwork of high performing people”.

What Would Jeopardize Our Success? For Reed Hastings, it is a culture that tolerates rigidity, politics, mediocrity and complacency.

From this high level, Netflix is able to articulate how its Values are embedded in its culture and specifically defines behaviors that will be rewarded and those that result in being cut from the team. There is no room for ambiguity in Reed Hastings’ vision of success, which means that employees know exactly what is expected of them (part of a team of high performing people) and how their jobs contribute to the company’s success goals (innovating and executing).

We are in an environment today which demands that we stand out in every way. To ignore organizational culture is to sabotage your business success.

Can you answer the four questions above for your company? Can your employees?

Got a Game Plan? Dispelling Some Myths

What's your game plan? Do you have one? Despite the rumors that strategy is dead, it's never been more important to know where you're going and how you're going to get there.

First, let's dispel some myths about creating a game plan:

Things Move Too Fast - No Time: unless you have unlimited resources and access to capital, it's never been more important to get a handle on how you're going to be more successful.

It's Too Hard: The old process of a never-ending planning cycle has had its day. You can use just 5 steps to get from Purpose to Execution. That's it. Five steps.

We Do Fine Without One: Are you sure about that? If you can't draw a straight line from programs, initiatives and campaigns to the business results you want, you may seem fine but you'll do a lot better with some direction. Without a game plan, how do your employees understand where the company is going and how they can play their part?

In the video clip below, I outline the five steps to get a successful game plan:

As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, ' if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.'

What process do you use to get your game plan? Are you actively engaging in strategic thinking or just bumping along?