Motivating And Engaging Your Employees: The Comprehensive Approach For Success

Motivating and Engaging Your Employees
A Comprehensive Approach for Success

David Clarke – July 2010

Destroying the first assumption about motivating employees…

Have you heard the
expression
„Herding Cats‟?

o Do they respond to carrot and stick?
o Why do we think employees will be any different?

Enhancing decisions, behaviour and performance © 2008 Genos Pty. Ltd. - www.genos.com.au 2

Understandably you need proof to dispel the myth!

This is Dan Pink,
the best selling
author of „Drive‟

And there are two examples that he is famous for sharing with the world...

Enhancing decisions, behaviour and performance

Example 1 – A Study by MIT, funded by the Federal Reserve Bank

o A large number of students at MIT were set a series of challenges

o These included:
 Number and word problems
 Physical Tasks
 Spatial Puzzles

o Incentives were provided:
 Low performance = Low Reward
 Middle Performance = Middle sized Reward
 High Performance = Substantial Cash Reward

So, how do you think they did?
Source: Dan Pink Presentation to TED in 2009 (available to view on the Ted website at www.ted.com)


Conclusions of Example 1 – MIT Study

o When students performed purely MECHANICAL SKILLS...

Bonuses worked as expected!
o However, when even ―rudimentary cognitive skill’ was required...

Larger rewards = LOWER performance



Hang on – how does that work?

Doesn‟t that go
against all of the
rules of behavioural
science?

There must be a problem with the study...
So let’s repeat it...



Example 2 – A Study by the same MIT scientists in India

o A large number of workers in Madurai, rural India

o Similar tasks, again including:
 Number and word problems
 Physical Tasks
 Spatial Puzzles

o Incentives this time were:
 Low performance = a reward of 2 weeks salary
 Middle Performance = a reward of 1 months salary
 High Performance = a reward of 2 months salary

Any guesses on how
they did this time?


Conclusions of Example 2 – Study in Madurai, India

Yep, you guessed it!
The same results...

o The small and medium rewards had the same
performance

o But those offered the Top Reward
consistently and repeatedly did the worst!?!



What can we conclude from all of this?

Confused?
Well, you shouldn‟t be,
because think about what
motivates and drives you...

Employee Engagement and
Motivation is not just about
reward. We‟re people... We‟re
far more complicated than that!


Reward has a role to play… but it’s only a small part of the story

“It is not cash that fuels the journey to the future, but the
emotional and intellectual energy of every employee”

—Hamel and Prahalad, Competing For The Future

o Share ownership, competence based pay, team rewards and pay for
performance all help drive organisational performance

o But ‘Rewards’ are a hygiene factor – you need to pay enough, but beyond a
certain point it becomes a law of diminishing returns...


Reward – a diminishing return for your business

% ROI

Superior Returns Investment in
other drivers of
engagement and
motivation

Competitive
Returns Reward
Investment

Fair/Reasonable Additional INVESTMENT
Investment Investment

Source: Hewitt Associates Best Employer Australia and New Zealand research 2009


But beyond Reward there is so much more that you can do!

For example, Dan Pink has identified
what he regards as the three
universal motivational drivers...

1.Autonomy
2.Mastery
3.Purpose


Autonomy

Removing the shackles and
Autonomy fulfilling our destiny is
something we can do at
work...
„The desire to be self-directed‟
Atlassian – Australian Company
o 24 hours once a month
o To work on ANYTHING
o Simply have to present back

Results...
o High level of innovation
o New solutions to old problems
o Highly profitable new products

All WITHOUT an innovation bonus!



Mastery

We all have an innate desire to
Mastery get better at things... which is
why we play golf, play musical
instruments, and have hobbies
„The desire to get better
at something‟ Why can‟t we do this at work?

Microsoft and numerous other
companies spent ages trying to
create online encyclopaedias...
And then along came Wikipedia

The people who created
Wikipedia all have day jobs and
none of them are paid... think
about it... You just need the right
people doing the right jobs



Purpose

People need more than a profit
Purpose motive... They need a purpose
motive
„A reason for existing, a Steve Jobs said:
source of motivation‟
“I want to put a ding in the
universe”

In the absence of purpose
motives, profit motives can lead
to socially unacceptable results
and each employees’ intrinsic
motivation is completely
overlooked



But, within our working lives, there are many more Universal
Drivers of engagement and motivation

Research has shown that beyond Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose there
are actually many more Universal Drivers of engagement and motivation

These include:
And these are just a
Recognition few of the things that
we ALL want as part of
our work experience to
Fairness a large degree

Effective Leadership
Effective Communications

In addition to these Universal Drivers there are many individual
Motivational Drivers that employers need to understand and manage…

Individual Motivational Drivers are the intrinsic and unique
drivers that motivate each and every one of us...

Understanding these individual Motivational Drivers is the key to
unlocking truly superstar performance in all of your employees


Individual Motivational Drivers include….

Pace Technology Leadership Style

The extent to which you The extent to which The extent to which you
want a fast paced or slow you are motivated by want a directive leader,
paced role with more or working with new and an empowering leader,
less intensive time leading edge a decisive leader (or
demands placed upon you technology any other type of leader
for that matter)

In summary…

A highly driven workforce Employee Engagement
simply requires a balanced
approach to understanding the
needs of the whole and the
needs of the individual...

The Universal The Motivational
Drivers of Drivers of
Engagement Engagement


Get this right, and
get superstar
performance from all
of your employees...
and it‟s really not
that hard to do – just
ask us!


Motivating And Engaging Your Employees: The Comprehensive Approach For Success

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