How To Motivate People

My career is still in its beginnings, but I've had the privilege to manage numerous individuals in different positions over the years. Although managing and keeping order and discipline might be something that frightens some future managers, I have to say that the number one problematic [in my point of view, whatever that's worth] is keeping the troops motivated for the long run. There are many ways to make sure everyone keeps their heads up and pushes through the slumps, and I'll try to share what worked well for me.

Give Them Achievable Goals - Sometimes

The problem with motivation is that it's very fragile. If your objectives are too easy or too hard, employees will not give their 100%. So how can you assure that employees give their all?

I believe that, by giving multiple objectives, it is easier to keep everyone motivated.

• Give them easy, achievable goals that will only require basic effort.
• Give them medium goals that will be more demanding, either by working harder or just by forcing them to use some key talents that otherwise may be wasted. Usually, these talents are the reasons you hired them in the first place, but having the talents and using the talents are two different things.
• Finally, give them goals that are difficult to achieve, where employees will feel a sens of accomplishment and distinction for surpassing "normal" expectations. These should be used as a way to offer recognition to your superstars (although I'm sure all of your employees are superstars!).

For this, I'll give you an example of managing 50 students-turned-international-development-agents as part of my time as Head of Trade Mission with the Missions commerciales de l'Université Laval. We would require each agent to make 10 cold calls per week (easy goal), participate in two sales pitch meetings (medium goal) and sign contracts (difficult goals). Nobody "failed", but only 2-5% of the members achieved the difficult goals each week which created a healthy sense of competition within our organisation. 

This structure of goals offers everyone a sens of accomplishment while it remains a motivation source to help the best shine and the others to push harder and not fall back in front of their peers.

Help Them Reach Their Dreams - Big or Small

Employees who you want to retain are often the ones you'll lose. Read that twice to make sure you remember.

There are numerous reasons for why it is hard to keep your superstar employees within the company, such as:

- Lack of a challenge: the responsibilities are making the employee feel like a babysitter. Give him responsibilities that match his capabilities, his ambition and his motivation. Top-notch employees will often be able to motivate themselves, but for a limited time. Challenging them with harder and harder tasks can help, but without knowing what the employee wants to achieve, time will take its toll and the employee will eventually look elsewhere to reach his or her potential.

- Lack of investment in employee development: I see a lot of my ex-colleagues flip-flop through different organizations every 6-12 months. I always ask them why, and more often than not they'll tell me they didn't feel like they were "one" with the company. Managers must make their employees feel like they're an important part of the strategic development plan of the organization, and the best way to do this is invest in their development. Training seminars, weekend conferences, trade shows and other industry-related activities as well as night classes are a great way to make employees believe they are valuable assets to the company's success.

Make Others Decide What to Do - Just Make Sure It's What You Want Them To Do!

I remember reading one of Dale Carnegie's books a few years back called "How to Win Friends and Influence People" [For anyone who's working in a group environment, be it as a manager or not, I strongly suggest reading it]. One thing that I learned from this amazing book is how to *cough* manipulate others. 

Now let's calm down - as far as I'm concerned, everything we do is somehow impacted by numerous influences. The chips you get at the grocery store, the car you buy, the coffee you drink and the clothes you wear are all decisions YOU make. But to say you make that decision alone would be foolish. There are so many outside influences that affect your decision-making process: friends & family, marketing campaigns, society (what image you want to project), etc.

So the idea here is to have a strong influence on the decision made by your employee that it is "guaranteed" to go your way.

When you're managing a large group, and you need everyone to be open to a proposed solution for a problem (like in company culture, structure or just a touchy situation that requires 100% acceptation of the proposed solution), you need to be able to communicate the message in a way that doesn't hurt the morale.

The easiest way to have a group of employees accept a decision is if this decision comes from  their inner-circle, discussed around the water cooler. So when you're faced with this situation, you have two possibilities.

1. You can corner an employee into being your lab rat and convincing him to propose the desired solution. This can have horrible side-effects, such as groups forming within your employees since your lab rat is most likely the same every time and most employees are getting sick of his "corporate" ideas, or he can rat you out (no pun intended) and then you end up looking like quite an idiot.
   
2. Option two, on the other hand, gives you methods to layout the landscape in a way that, through group brainstorming, your solution comes up as the ideal solution. The group will feel so intelligent for thinking up this master-plan that they can't wait to put it into gears. You, on the other hand, won't have to take heat in the situation and will be pleased with the results!
   
   Plus, this creates a sens of ownership for the employees who, collectively, have decided this plan of action. Therefore, there is a better chance of everyone pulling through to make it work. The solution will be implemented, employees will be happy because they were part of the brainstorm and believe they own the idea.
   
   Imposing a change could discourage your employees, while creating this sense of importance within the organisation will MOTIVATE them to succeed, to prove that their idea was the best!

PS: Haven't done this in a while, but I saw this ad and thought it was a good eye-catcher!



Until next time :)

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Pierre Babineau is an MBA graduate from Laval University. Currently working as an Industrial Marketing Advisor at FPInnovations, he has worked in Canada, USA, South Africa and India in numerous positions such as International Development Agent, Head of Trade Mission, Director of Internet Marketing and an Independent Consultant for various companies.

You can reach Pierre Babineau on Twitter, LinkedIn or on his personal website.

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