How I Learned to Motivate Different Personalities in my Team.
You know that look .......when one of your team members is still demotivated, despite your best efforts to uplift the team spirit.
Let's admit.... we know we're all different. However, it is because our differences, not despite of them that a group can thrive. It's all about how we deal with these differences. This indeed can make one team more successful than others.
When I see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's 6 kids. A wonderful mix between adopted & biological kids.
The first 3 are Korean, Vietnamese and Ethiopian. You can imagine the variety in this family. All of them raised under one roof for years, before the couple split.
Despite of how different we may look (like the Pitt-Jolie family), the major difference is in our personalities. Even if we all share the same nationality, we still have different personalities. Gathered under one roof at work, we try to deal with that. One aspect of such difference is the way we are motivated. Managers must realize that motivators and drivers in the workplace are quite different from one person to the other.
I used to lead a team of 12 young industrial engineers. I enjoyed giving them Myers-Briggs personality tests. The one I specifically enjoyed so much was the www.16personalities.com test.
A must-try, believe me.
It gives you so much insight about your own personality. And the fun part of it is the explanations of your personality profile from different angles as well : as a manager, subordinate, spouse, parent, friend, and also which career is a best-fit for you.
With the young engineers in my department, after each one of them went through the 15-min online personality test, I discussed the findings in short one-to-one meetings. It was an intriguing experience!
It's amazing how each person is motivated in a different way. We don't have a one-size-fits-all standard list of motivating factors.
Two or three of them were easily motivated just by continuously showing them the big picture. Once they know where their small task fits into the bigger picture, and how the business improves through the tedious task they have on hand, they become more motivated to finish it off. It's as simple as that. The strategic importance of their task was alone a motivator (despite the dull and laborious side of the tasks they had back then).
Osama- (who turned to be an INTP/Logician) was an innovator…. he just needed space for his creativity. We concluded that we need to take any routine type of workload off his shoulders. Logicians have little patience, and plenty of new ideas. They need a different type of workload.
Others simply need appreciation. They are highly motivated just by simple, but frequent, appreciation.
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Ahmed, on the other hand, was motivated when given a sense of responsibility and accountability.
"Ahmed, I can count on you." ….. "I'd like to give u more tasks/responsibilities”.
Or …..
“Ahmed, I’m alone in this task, and I really need you”…. These are the kind of words he likes to hear. They give him a boost of enthusiasm ….more than anything else.
Ahmed however, is ticked off when asked to do 'useless' overtime! He believes in work-life balance. Although his really is a hard-worker, but will do overtime only when there is a true need. He needs to be given a good cause… he needs to listen the WHY part of the task, and then hold him responsible for it, and just let go.
Mona was motivated when a friendly team environment is created. Toxic relations just ticked her off. This inspired us to make more frequent team building engagements (even small quick ones), just to keep the bond between all members of the team. We realized that such engagements might not have great impact on all members of the team, but they sure nurture the right environment for her to keep giving.
Although this exercise made me feel somewhat like a psychiatrist … or even worse - an HR person !
(just kidding) …
… it really gave me a lot of insight about how every person might need different attention. I am sure organizations cannot give such attention to a crowd, but they may surely hire managers that act as coaches. And maybe that's another topic that we may openly talk about later in a separate article.
The tip here is to listen to different voices and be able to adapt to different needs. The needs are somewhat simple. No salary raise or promotion are needed to motivate in this case ….. Just a little tweak to the human side of business. Sometimes some frequent humane positive vibes are even more effective and long-lasting than an adrenaline boost of motivation that comes from a promotion.
Moreover, a one-to-one personal talk with every team member is a real treasure-moment. It takes you miles forward. Whereas motivational department meetings, or even one-to-one business focused meetings only take you a few steps forward (if not backwards at some times). Getting personal helps.
In the next article I'll talk about how night owls can fit in organizations. That's another workplace difference. I'm an early bird type of person, and I just discovered that my HR colleague is a night owl, let's see how bad that can be !
See you then.
Studying Project Management & SCM at SAIT
2yYou nailed it!
Senior Key Account Manager at SIG
2yWell said
Projectleider Energietransitie
2yThanks Waleed for explaining in a practical way how you use personality tests in a leadership roll.
Engineering & Finance Leader | Strategic Management | Franchise Entrepreneur | Advocate for People-First Culture
2yAwesome tips! Thanks for sharing Waleed Radwan
Lean Practitioner l Operational Excellence Manager
2yAlways postive words is good Thanks Waleed Radwan for reminding us with such great tip