I don't see a lot of people talking about shared ROI when they talk about office motivation...and by ROI I don't simply mean pizza parties, bonuses and vacations.
I mean that for real motivation, your team needs to have their individual motivators and group motivators aligned--and that may look very different to each person on the team.
Here's what NOT to do:
- Act like the company has ownership over each employee's time outside work, thoughts, feelings and beliefs. (All a company has is influence, for better or worse.) Orly Lobel gave a stomach-churning account of Mattel turning on one of their star employees in her well-researched book You Don't Own Me.
- Offer more incentives without conversation...more of what we don't want is still unwanted and thus not truly motivating.
- Keep the status quo. In the 21st century, not only are they already looking elsewhere but you're also giving the competition an advantage in recruiting them away from you
Here's what TO DO, via a concrete example:
Teammate A really wants autonomy over the tasks she gets to work on next, while teammate B wants more flexibility to spend time with his wife & kids and teammate C wants to build her portfolio so as to launch a consulting career.
Want the best out of A, B and C? You need to tackle projects together that achieve organizational goals while also getting each teammate closer to their individual dreams.
If you don't know their personal goals, then there's an unavoidable starting point: have those conversations and choose to care.
If you think you don't have the flexibility to orchestrate a win-win, why not be transparent with your team and then brainstorm on how to get there? (I think you'll find that your teammates respect you more for being open to their feedback on winning together.)
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For a gently-sung reminder that we should treat each other better, it's challenging to find a serious contender to this Band of Horses track. If you haven't heard of this group before, know that while the singing is consistent their guitars often rock much harder (especially live).
https://lnkd.in/gPMTv-6p