Motivation at the Workplace - Maybe We Missed Something?

Source: Canva AI

The word 'motivation' has always given me a bit of discomfort.  I can't say why exactly.  Maybe it was the idea of motivating other people that made me think of people who have a high need for control (who I don't really like).

"The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you."

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I came across this quote on #motivation, and it reminded me that in the corporate world, it seems we are not on course when it comes to "motivation practices" particularly since the incentives and bonuses that are used to generate (motivate?) an increase in #performance are short-lived and ineffective.  For eg. Sales Incentives tend to be revised  / increased every quarter, particularly in sales-driven organizations, which, along with the time spent in redesigning and cascading these incentives, adds to the organization's costs with not much corresponding increase in performance. I realized that the top performers will continue to be at the top of the game, because of how they apply their natural talents and adapt to situations.  But even they need time to adjust to the culture and start delivering performance when they move to competitor organizations.  "Hit the ground running" seems to be a meaningless term that indicates more of "wishful thinking" rather than anything realistic.

Source: Pixels

Performance Improvement Plans (PIP) rarely improve the employee's performance, though it mostly has the effect of demoralizing said employee and prompting them to move out of the organization because PIP is considered as the need for fixing and therefore a stigma of sorts - leading to another loss that in turn leads to more costs.  I'm not referring to wrong hires here, but if you think about it, this increases the organization's costs as well.

What managers and leaders (all functions) refuse to accept is that the carrot gets digested and the stick withers over a short time. - Ryan Barretto (That's me)

My own exploration to understand this topic took me to many theories, starting with Abraham Maslow's work, Herzberg's two-factor theory, and others.  I then came across the work by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, which, given my background in strengths, really made me stop and think if we're getting motivation wrong in the corporate world.

Self-determination theory (by Richard Ryan and Edward Deci) emphasizes instead the importance of fostering intrinsic motivation through satisfying these specific core needs. It suggests that all humans have three basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—that underlie growth and development. 

• Autonomy means that the employee has some freedom of choice in his work (not the "take it or leave it" sort that exists in many organizations). 
• Competence is about whether the employee can do the work required and deliver adequate results
• Relatedness is about the feeling of connectedness and sense of belonging that the employee has with others.

In my experience, the main key is to help the employees uncover the #alignment of their #strengths to the #goals of the organization, which has the benefit of positively impacting the #employeeengagement and #employerbrand. This transcends working for more than just a paycheck. - (Also me.)

For each of the above three areas, it is the Reporting Manager that bears the major amount of responsibility, because of the frequency of contact they have with their team members.  Let's keep in mind:

1. When a manager or leader micromanages a competent employee, that creates uneasiness and over time, frustration, because the employee feels shackled while doing his work. The only thing worse than this is to be micromanaged by someone who knows far less about the job than you. In some cases, a totally hands-off approach would not be effective especially if the employee is new to the role, which would also lead to frustration again.  So a balance is required in getting work done from others.  The #situationalleadership model provides great insight on this.
2. The Manager / HR / Leader has to clearly articulate and define the level of competence required for the role, and hire accordingly. If this is missing, it can create additional ambiguity for everyone concerned, and it might result in everyone trying to do everything and do everything.
3. Additionally, if the manager doesn't spend much time conveying the importance and relevance of the employee's role to the organization's goals and vision, it creates apathy and casualness in behaviour from the employee.  This again negatively impacts performance.

HR also bears a joint responsibility and should support the manager / HOD by being flexible about job descriptions and jointly defining KRAs and KPIs.

Here are some practical ways to Increase Intrinsic Motivation (IIM)-

This is most effective when jointly addressed by HR and the Function Heads.  Firstly, all employees at all levels should have a deep awareness of their strengths.  Next, based on what we now know from applied neuroscience, leaders can intrinsically motivate themselves or their teams—and coaches can help their clients increase their sense of intrinsic motivation—by exploring these three tactics:

1) Increase a sense of autonomy

Explore any perspectives where they see their work, project or task as being forced upon them. Then, help them to choose a more motivating perspective. Based on the leader's / manager's / HR understanding of their strengths, reflect on:

• What do they have control over? What could they be given control of over a period of time?
• What should they never be given control of? 
• How could they approach the work in their own way?

2) Include Mastery Goals that stimulate their sense of being positively challenged

A Mastery Goal is a goal that challenges the employee to think about making a positive attempt to achieve a goal, even when they know it is something newer and/or larger for them to achieve than they normally would. Of course, it's the manager's job to ensure that it doesn't #burnout their people.  This would enable them to deliver performance that would be more than what they otherwise might have done. Stimulate their sense of intrinsic motivation by asking:

• What interests them?
• What skills or knowledge could they improve upon or attain that's aligned with their strengths?
• How do they wish to grow in their work and capabilities?
• What would make the task at hand feel like less of a chore and more of a positive challenge or chance to explore and accomplish something new?
• What organizational support would they need to achieve those new stretch goals?

3) Bring meaning into their work

Ask questions that connect leaders to a deeper personal purpose:

• What values come into play here? For example, how does their work or task align with their core values? What values could they draw on to help feel more aligned with their work or with a team or project? What values-based goals could they set?
• Also, what makes their work feel purposeful? What is important in it? What might the work result in? Whom might it help in a broader societal sense?
• What makes their work or a project feel fulfilling? How is it a part of their bigger vision?
• What will enhance their sense of connection—to the team, to a higher purpose, to the people they serve?

Now you may think, this is all fine, but what about an employee's motivations? What motivates an employee in the first place? For that you could use the framework of David Maclelland which speaks of the a person's need for Affiliation, Power and Achievement.

Of course, the culture of the organization also plays a huge role in influencing the motivation of the employees at all levels. Check out the Three Factor Theory of Sirota that highlights the importance of Fairness / Equity, Achievement and camaraderie in motivating employees.

As you can see, there are many paths to motivation, and a blend seems most appropriate.  However - 

The manner in which the leaders motivate their people or enable their people's motivation plays a huge part in the perception of the culture of the organization, the engagement levels of people and whether it would be a #greatplacetowork.

Want to have a discussion around motivating your team?  Write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call on +919820155778 and we'll fix a mutually convenient time.

Two Techniques to Fast Track your Goals

Interesting read on how short-term #gratification can help in meeting goals.

We tend to be overconfident about how easy it is to be self-disciplined, but a big payoff far down the road — or even knowing that a change is simple or cheap — just isn’t enough to keep us motivated. Economists call this tendency to favor instantly gratifying temptations over larger long-term rewards “present bias.”

Read the rest of the article here

#goalsetting2022 #strengthsdecoder

9 Critical Aspects to consider when Setting Goals in the Organization.

Goal Photo by Markus Winkler from pexels-markus-winkler-4052198

We're nearing the end of the calendar year. New Years Resolutions and new goals are going to be set.  These goals will hopefully make us happy and improve the quality of our life - conditions apply.

I have just finished reading the book 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is about how to achieve happiness (Is Happiness on your Goalsheet?). One of the essential requirements is to set goals for yourself that test and stretch your skills, strengths and talents (psst... not your weaknesses).  I am not benefiting from the book sales in any way, but please do read it, as it will give you really good insights.

You have to set goals to get ahead in life.  This is true enough, but really no one tells you how to do this.

Then you are also told to find your passion or purpose. Again, no one can really say exactly how this is to be done.

Sometimes, goals get confused with purpose.  Here's a superbly lucid distinction I found by Prof. David Clutterbuck, who said

"The difference between Purpose and Goals is as follows: 

    Purpose  = envisaging the world we want to live in and our role in bringing it about.
    Goals      = the actions and decisions that will help to create that world."

So effectively, there are three challenges about setting goals:

1. How to define and set goals.
2. How to ensure that your goals serve (align with) your purpose.
3. How to ensure that working on your goals will give you satisfaction and joy.

This is a bigger problem if you happen to be a manager or leader and have to set goals for others.  When it comes to setting goals for others, especially in the corporate world, goals are handed down because you hold a particular position that is based on your  job description.  There is little, if any, discussion about the 'how' of the goal.

Here are my thoughts about setting goals (whether setting them for yourself or your team / organization):

	Question	Why this matters?
1)	What is the "why" for the goal to exist?	You are committing scarce and expensive resources to an activity that is expected to bring some benefit to the organization.
2)	How exactly is the goal being defined?	Will the goal be understood in the same clarity and context as when it was set?
3)	How is the goal being measured?  How will we all know when or if the goal is achieved?  Where and what do we have to look at in order to know this?	These are critical for course correction during our journey to the goal, otherwise there is a strong chance that we will miss our goal. We don't really want to be like Christopher Columbus.
4)	What are the various steps required to accomplish the goal?  How much control does the employee have on these steps?	Goals are comprised of complex tasks and sub-tasks.  To execute each task successfully and within deadlines means supporting the employee a great deal, especially in the areas where they don’t have control on outcomes.   An awareness of this helps us understand whether the goal being assigned is realistic (particularly under stringent timelines) or not.
5)	Are these steps / sub-tasks of the goals aligned with the employee's strengths?	Let’s take an example – if an employee is assigned a customer interfacing role, but has great skills in analytics and doesn't enjoy people interactions very much, that employee is doomed to both failure and frustration on the job.  Because of this, the manager will also fail in achieving his goals, along with a host of other complications, not to mention possible loss of customers.   When the tasks are aligned to the employee’s strengths, there is research showing that there will be superlative performance and the employee will be more engaged at work.
6)	How much impact / influence is expected from external factors (current and future), including business & political environment, on the accomplishment of these goals?	This is about awareness of market sensitivities and their possible impact on your customers (current and potential) or suppliers / vendors or both. If we can anticipate these correctly, how flexible are we / can we be to take advantage and ride these waves towards meeting our goals?
7)	Does the employee have any control on        these factors?  If so, to what degree can they influence or impact these factors to get an effective outcome?	Here's another example: If the employees requires some software upgrades or some approvals which would improve their productivity, then the longer they are without it, the longer it will take them work effectively to reach their goals. When you make an employee responsible for achieving goals where they have no control on the factors affecting the goals, then you end up creating frustrated employees. These employees will either leave the organization, which is not a good situation, or will stay and turn toxic, which is terrible for the other employees.
8)	What support can the immediate manager and the leadership team provide to the employee to achieve these zero-target goals?  How will they ensure that they will provide     the support sufficiently in time?	This follows from the above question especially since it is unlikely that all employees have control on their budgets. As a leader / manager, your success is tied to your teams successes and the same applies to failures - yours and theirs.  It would be strange to get a high rating for yourself as the HOD and rate people in the team as low.  This is your best opportunity to build trust with your team.
9)	Will this support be included in the         immediate manager and leadership teams' goalsheets? What will be the criteria for measuring this goal here?	This tends to get missed out in many leaders and managers.  If asked, you can be told that it is implied and doesn't need to be explicitly stated.  Also, just stating it without saying how it will be evaluated is ineffective.  This needs to jointly brainstormed for clear articulation.  I think articulation of this will help to develop a robust organization and department, else why make that person manage a team?

As you can see, these questions can be used to analyze and review any types of goals, including zero-target goals.

You might say "aside from the time involved, I'm not fully sure how to go about doing this". Here's the thing - to really do this well, we're going to need other skills like 

• Research, 
• Analysis, 
• Teamworking,
• Articulation, 
• Influencing.  

You may also need a coach or a consultant along with some of your colleagues to help you walk this journey.

The bad news - you may not have all these skills up to the required ability within yourself.  

The good news - you may find them within your team members.  

This is how you get your weaknesses to complement your colleague's strengths.  

When you use your strengths to support someone who has a weakness where you have a strength; and they do the same for you, then you are collaborating effectively while engaging as a well-knit team.

By the way, I'm sure you realize that these skills are required on the personal front, whether you are buying a house, making weekend plans, vacation, hosting a party, and so on.  I'll be happy to assist you in setting your goals and making 2022 your year to shine. Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com to set up a meeting or call me +91-9820155778 for an appointment.

I wish you all the best in making 2022 a productive and goal completion year.

The problem with trying to standardize Performance Methods

 We're not in the Industrial Age anymore.  We're asking people to do much more than operate a machine / desktop / laptop.  We're asking them to use their intelligences (all of them).  

So trying to standardize a performance method is doomed. 

Your thoughts.

My Brief Thoughts on Goalsetting for Growsum.com

Happy to share my brief thoughts on #goalsetting in a blog by GrowSum along with other HR experts.  From the article:

"A well planned goal-setting approach makes what it takes to build an effective process and helps an organisation run successfully.

The stage of goal settings is the foundation for building an effective performance management system and gives a snapshot of the employees’ health of the organization.

We asked the experts, whether the goal settings process should include the active participation from both the employees and managers to let the former’s goals."

Of course, being a Strengths Strategy Coach, I had to mention the role of strengths in goal-setting.

Read the entire article here

Top Executives set these goals

 An article that expanded my perspective on #goalsetting

The article shows stark parallels between the goals of seniors and frontline people.

Read here

#strengthsdecoder #goals #smartgoals #performancemanagement #performancecoaching

Feedback - Goalsetting Webinar for IAF (International Association of Facilitators)

 Here are some of the comments received after my webinar on Goalsetting for 2021

It was a 3 hour session and participants discussed what plans they would like to have for 2021 through a short visioning session, along with a detailed expert interview on aids, hinderances to their vision, keeping current status in mind.  

It was a wonderful experience, and thanks to IAF and the IAF Mumbai Core team for the opportunity to facilitate this interesting topic.

Setting your Goalsetting Conversation

While stretch Goals can be useful in forcing people to break old rules, and do things better, they’re worse than useless if they’re totally unrealistic, or if the people who haven’t met them aren’t given the chance to debate them beforehand and take ownership with them 

-          From the book  Execution by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy

I’m currently reading this book 'Execution' and came across this line.  I was reminded of a time during my corporate stint when the management decided to set targets for the next year at a number that was 3X of the previous year without any discussion or debate with the teams concerned.  The various heads didn't receive any inkling on how the target was arrived at, or the basis for it. While they continued to drive their teams towards this aspirationally stretched target, one could see that actual energy was missing – because they didn’t own the targets. A key reason for this was that the targets were considered unrealistic, and not in sync with market conditions.

Why am I writing about this now?  The world is in a state of chaos thanks to COVID 19, and with social distancing norms, lockdowns and travel bans world wide, many businesses don't know if they will survive this.  Without this crisis, there’s a tendency among some managements to grudge the permission of leave among their employees, irrespective of the reason for the leave.  With the current lockdown in India and other parts of the world, business is pretty much at a standstill. In India, the government has asked organizations not to lay off employees, and pay their dues.  Employers will naturally be considering how to make up their lost business when things return to normal.  They will feel that they have to push their employees extra hard since there’s a lot of catching up to do.  And the first thing they will do is increase the targets above the norm in an effort to make up for lost time. It could be a stretched goal or an aspirational goal.  Such targets are usually handed down, with a minimum of discussion. The discussion on “how to reach the goal” is not open or encouraged, since "there's no time because there's so much to do". This is one example of how it looked in a Dilbert cartoon strip (Thanks to Scott Adams for his kind permission).

In a world economy which is already slowing down since the past 6 months, such a strategy that doesn’t take this into account when setting these new goals, is going to get limited results or find the strategy backfiring.  A limited result would be akin to wanting to win a hundred meter race that is being held at a height of 15000 ft above sea level.  It is extremely tiring and draining and things will only get worse from there, if persisted.  

A strategy that backfires would mean that -

1. The unrealistic aspirational target can demoralize the employee morale since they may get a feeling that the organization doesn’t care for them or their work-life balance
2. The demoralization is further accentuated when the “how” of a stretched / aspirational goal is not articulated sufficiently.
3. The stretch /aspirational goals may encourage employees to "do what it takes to get it done", and may indirectly encourage unethical behaviours (small and large). This will negatively impact the quality of the output, and the culture of the organization.
4. Employees at all levels (who are also quite smart) will quickly recognize that the target is quite unrealistic (they do know what stretch targets really are), and would do their work at a little above lip service to save their jobs.  In other words, they will be quite disengaged, which doesn't serve the organization well.
5. Excess stress will hit those who are working wholeheartedly on the target, leading to burnout and perhaps more unplanned leave, if not resignations due to high work pressure or layoffs for not meeting the targets.
6. The organization’s systems and processes will be heavily strained, causing errors, a dip in quality out and service, possible breakdowns and further delay in meeting the targets.

What’s to be done?  I’m not advocating low targets – every business owner / organization knows their own industry well enough to do this task.  I also encourage stretch targets because they can help you to grow, and it can be very enjoyable and satisfying if the tasks  are aligned to the strengths of the employees.  

Here are some guidelines which could be useful:

1. Be realistic when setting the goal.  Start with “Why” – as Simon Sinek advised.
2. In today’s times especially, one person will NOT have all the answers.  So do engage a neutral, external Facilitator to enable your HODs and their immediate reports to have meaningful discussions on ‘HOW’ the targets will be realized, and pool their knowledge and resources to make it happen. You may even decide to invite your vendors for a part of this meeting, especially when discussing support for the execution of the goals. Use this opportunity to include review dates, specific milestones and so on.
3. Encourage and support interdependent behavior – which is about knowing their strengths and balancing their weaknesses with the strengths of other employees, as this will enhance their performance. This becomes easier if your team has undergone their individual Clifton #Strengthsfinder assessment and have this clarity.
4. Ensure that there is clarity on what support (lead generation, training, manpower and other resources) will be provided by the organization and what will not be provided.
5. Ensure that performance reviews are human, practical and based in compassion (not to condone negative behaviour) across the organization.
6. Ensure that performance reviews are solution-oriented and focused on business outcomes, instead of blame games.
7. Don't go overboard with designing an elaborate rewards mechanism, and do ensure that people are rewarded for consistent results born of collaboration and innovation. One person can't know it all OR do it all.

As you can see, this is going to take time, which you may feel that is not worth the investment.  I would submit that it would be more costly (financially and otherwise) not to take this approach. I would also like to point out that this approach will positively impact the employee engagement within your organization, because they will feel feel trusted, and involved in the future of the organization, rather than turning up to office for a paycheck..

Want to know more?  I'd be happy to have a call on +919820155778 to discuss more with you. Or you can leave me a note at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com