Leadership | Behavior Matters!

Category: Leadership Page 5 of 8

In order to maximize motivation leaders need to provide an opportunity for employees to satisfy the four drives: Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to be Challenged & Comprehend, and to Define & Defend. Leader’s can begin to influence and start to fulfill each of these drives by using some of the systems and processes they already have in place. Alterations and enhancements to those systems and processes can help the organization be one in which employees can satisfy their drives and become highly motivated!

We attempt to map the connection between each of the four drives and the different organizational systems/processes that impact them.

Drive A: Achieve & Acquire

This drive is primarily satisfied through a company’s Reward System. This drive is met when companies have a total reward system that: highly differentiates top performers from average performers and average performers from poor performers; clearly ties rewards to performance; recognition is given for outstanding performance; pay is above competitive benchmarks in the city/industry; and top employees are promoted from within.

Drive B: Bond & Belong

This drive is mostly met through an Organizations Culture. Organizations who’s culture is one that: embraces teamwork; encourages the development of friendships and bonding; one in which employees can depend on their peers to help them; a culture that values collaboration; a culture that celebrates and shares; and a culture that is focused on the “employee first” are crucial to this drive being met.

Drive C: Challenge & Comprehend

This drive is fulfilled primarily through Job and Organizational Structure. Organizations need to ensure that the various job roles within the company provide employees with stimulation that challenges them or allows them to grow. Job roles that satisfy this drive should: be seen as important in the organization; jobs should provide personal meaning and fulfillment; roles should engender a feeling of contribution to the organization; organizational structures that provide growth opportunities within the company; learning offerings (training, seminars, etc) that provide employees with new skills and knowledge, job sharing/rotational opportunities that can provide new challenges are the key to fulfilling this particular drive.

Drive D: Define & Defend

This drive is met mostly through an employee feeling alignment and connection to the organization. This can be done through a company’s Vision/Reputation and their Performance Management System. Organizations that have a strong vision or positive reputation in the marketplace can help create that alignment with employees. The company should be perceived to be: fair; providing a valued service or good; ethical; and good stewards. Organization’ performance management systems can also help through giving insight into the company’s vision. Performance management system should be one that is: open and transparent; perceived to be fair; provides direction; and that is trusted by employees.

What great leaders need to do:

Rightfully or not, many employees look to the company to provide them their motivation for work. While many of these motivations are inherently in a company, good leaders know that they have to work at it constantly to ensure that they are satisfying all four drives.

1. Focus on all 4 Drives:

It is important to understand that all the good work that a company or leader does in these four areas can be ruined if one of the four drives is lacking. Research shows that weakness on fulfilling one of the 4-Drives “castes a negative halo” on how the company or leader performs on all the other 3 drives. It is important then for a leader to ensure that they are identifying and addressing any issues that they see in any of the four drive areas.

2. Individualize motivation:

It is also important to know that individual employees each have a unique 4-Drive Motivational profile. In other words, some employees will respond or require greater satisfaction of the A drive, while others will focus in on the C drive (or B or D). Each employee will perceive how the company or leader is performing on these differently. Good leaders are one’s who understand those differences and can focus specific employees on the satisfiers of their specific needs.

3. Communicate effectively:

Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate how their systems, policies and structure align with the four drives. In other words, they need to be able to explain to map out the connections between what the company is doing or providing and how that would satisfy one or more of the drives. For instance, a leader could discuss the reason that they are sponsoring a community service event is not only to help the community (drive D) but also to provide an opportunity for employees to get to know each other and their families (drive B) and to give them a chance to learn a new skill (drive C).

4. Experiment:

Good leaders need to constantly look for ways of enhancing each of the four drives. This is an ongoing commitment that requires leaders to be focused on looking for different ways in which they can provide the opportunities for employees to satisfy their needs. They should implement new structures and processes and see how they work.

Next steps:

We can help you or your company use the 4-drives to increase motivation. We offer assessment, consulting and workshops on this. You can contact us at 612-396-6392 or kurt@lanterngroup.com

Let us know what you think – leave a comment below!

Using the 4-Drive Model to Customize Incentives

On April 28, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Four Drive Theory, Incentive Compensation, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

The 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation as we’ve discussed (here and here) provides a very robust theory that when applied, can help companies increase the motivation of their employees. One of the key tenants of the Four Drive Theory is that each individual is motivated by all four drives (A: Acquire & Achieve, B: Bond & Belong, C: Challenge & Comprehend, and D: Define & Defend) but that each individual’s motivational profile will be different (i.e., one employee might be driven more by drives A & C compared to another employee who is more motivated by B & D or B & C).

The important thing to understand here is that everyone’s motivation is different!

Which can be a problem since most companies don’t customize their incentive plans down to the individual. Often an organization’s customization comes down to offering a few additional spurts throughout the year. So unless the company hires only people with a specific motivational profile, some employees will not be as motivated as they could be.

Shaq and Snowfall

On April 14, 2011

In Communications, Leadership, Uncategorized

Ok, this is how information should be presented!

Too often we don’t have a reference point for data…really, do you know how tall 80.1 inches really is? The Boston Globe (see here) created this info graphic to represent the snowfall in 2010/2011. They did a fantastic job.

Here is why it works:

1. Shows data relative to something that we know – we can put it in context

2. Graphically simple – yet conveys a lot of information

3. Fun – how can you not chuckle when you see the Shaq-o-meter

How come I feel old?

On April 7, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Leadership, Uncategorized

Gray, bald and old

I always think of myself as being young. Might be because I was the youngest of five children. Might be because I had my kids late, so I have little children in the house right now. Might be because I just act that way most of the time. Regardless, I usually think of myself as young (or at least young at heart and mind and attitude).

But then you meet a really young person.

Not a child or kid, but a young person who is entering the workforce for the first time. Suddenly, it can make you feel kind of old.

You are amazed at how different they are from you. Different style of work. Different focus. Different on a lot of things.

Or at least I was.

Which at first was a little disheartening. I can still remember being 24 and coming into my first “real” job and wondering what all these old folks were doing. Back then we had one computer to share between five people (yes, hard to believe but that was how it was) and I was by far the most computer literate of any of my team (full disclosure – this meant that I knew how to work a spreadsheet and not just Word Perfect). I remember how different I felt from them.

Now I was wondering what I looked like to these youngsters.

Did my lack of internet skills make them smirk (kind of like I used to do at the “old” folk). Do they think my ways are antiquated – “just pick up the phone and call me about your multipart question – it will go much faster.” Do they wonder where all my hair went?

But then I started thinking about when I was that young and what I learned from some of those “old” folks. I remember being taken under wing by them and taught about how incentives work, how to put together a presentation for an executive, how to get up in front of a group and get their attention. I was mentored by a few great people who not only taught me about business but also about life. These were people who went out of their way to teach and lead. I am extremely thankful to have had those relationships.

So now maybe it is my turn.

Not that I want to be seen as an “old” person, but maybe I can impart a little bit of wisdom from my years of experience. Maybe I can mentor and lead. Teach someone how they can be successful in areas that they don’t even realize they can.

So I’ve reframed my thinking – not “old” but “wise.”

Yes, that sounds much better…

Fill in the ____ : Why communication is so important

On April 4, 2011

In Communications, Employee Motivation, Leadership, Uncategorized

Here is a little bit of psychology that most of us know intuitively. People hate vacuums. No not the kind that you use for cleaning your carpets…the kind that exist when there is an information void.

Our brains work overtime to fill in any vacuums that they encounter.

This is a good thing mostly since it has helped us survive, such as when one of our ancestors filled in this unknown, “hmmm….I’m not sure what the growling noise is, but I bet it’s not good so I better run.”

We fill in these blanks all the time – often at a subconscious level. In the 1930’s, Gestalt psychologist conducted a number of experiments that focused perception and filling in missing information. They named this phenomena “the law of closure” famously demonstrated by the Kanizsa Triangle where there are no triangles or circles in the image – yet that is what we see.

Kanizsa Triangle

So What?

While filling in missing information has often helped us, it can also be very detrimental. Take for instance what would occur if your company made a statement to employees such as “we are going through some difficult times and some changes will be announced next week.”

Not knowing what those “changes” are, people will automatically tend to fill in the blank…and what do you think they will fill it in with? Positive thoughts on the future…probably not.

In fact, we can pretty much guarantee that different people will interpret this differently. Some positive, some negative, and others not even registering on their radar. Psychology shows us that ambiguous stimulus will most likely be translated into multiple perceptions by different people – based on their current emotions, past experience, personality make-up, and a variety of other factors.

People will also fill in the blanks based on information they can gather – thus, the “changes” are associated with “difficult times” so the conclusions they will draw will probably be focused on what they have seen or been part of with other changes in difficult times.

But what a company wants is to make sure that a large proportion of people are not filling in the information with negative or wrong information. For instance, the above statement probably would cause a number of people to go back and start talking about the “layoffs” that will probably occur next week – even though nothing of the sort was said.

So what does one do?

While we can never fully make sure that everything is 100% clear and absolutely understood – we can do things to mitigate the negative aspects of this:

1. Eliminate as much ambiguous information as possible – be as clear and complete as you can in both verbal and written communication

Repost: Expanding on Dan Pink – How to Drive Employee Motivation

On April 1, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Four Drive Theory, Incentive Compensation, Incentive Plans and Sales Awards, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

[This article was first published in September of 2009]

It has been interesting how much attention has been paid to Dan Pink’s latest message on motivation that was presented at TED. The number of tweets, blogs, and other messages about this have been huge. We ourselves highlighted the speech here on this blog a couple of weeks ago (http://wp.me/pypb9-31 ).

What I find interesting and a little worrisome, is the idea that many are taking from Dan’s presentation that all incentives (or at least most) are bad. I disagree 100% with that concept. I would like to expand the conversation to explore why.

The debate about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation has been going on for a long time. The candle experiment presented by Pink was done in the 1950’s. Deci & Ryan research from 1970’s and 1980’s suggested that extrinsic rewards can decrease intrinsic motivation. Alfie Kohn wrote about how he thought extrinsic rewards were bad in “Punished by Rewards” in the 1990’s. All of this research suggested a negative correlation between extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation.

However, that is not the only research out there! Research based on both real life corporate performance data and academic experiments show a different side to this debate.

First, performance data from a number of sources points to an increase in performance when incentives are used. Stajkovic and Luthans’ meta-analysis of 72 contingent based behavior programs found that money incentives increased performance by 23%, social recognition increased performance by 17%, and feedback increased performance by 10%. BI, a performance improvement company, has shown increases of over 300% between a control group and an incentivized group in sales performance.

Those are hard numbers to ignore!

Also, Paul Hebert does a nice job of highlighting research by the International Society for Performance Improvement that indicate a 22% increase in performance for individual incentives and 44% for team based incentives – (see it here http://tiny.cc/nHfAj – he also discusses some other arguments around Dan Pink’s message).

Second researchers have found that the way that incentives are structured has a significant impact on their performance as well as on the impact they have on intrinsic motivation. Work by Eisenberger, Cameron and Pierce show that extrinsic rewards, if structured correctly, can actually increase intrinsic reward. They state, “The findings suggest that reward procedures requiring ill-defined or minimal performance convey task triviality, hereby decreasing intrinsic motivation. Reward procedures requiring specific high task performance convey a task’s personal or social significance, increasing intrinsic motivation.” Specific to creativity, Eisenberger and Cameron “concluded that decremental effects of reward on intrinsic task interest occur under highly restricted, easily avoidable conditions and that positive effects of reward on generalized creativity are readily attainable by using procedures derived from behavior theory” [emphasis added]. Yet Dan Pink does not reference any of their work in his book (see here for some research articles that point to how extrinsic rewards can increase creativity: Eisenberger, Armeli, and Pretz, Eisenberger and Rhoades, and Eisenberger, Cameron and Pierce)

In our own work, we’ve seen that when individuals are given a choice in choosing levels of goals and subsequent rewards, they have an increased motivation to choose (and achieve) higher goals than what management would have given them.

That being said, Dan Pink has gotten the discussion flowing on this – which I think is very good. He has also highlighted the fact that most organizations only see one lever to pull when trying to impact employee motivation – i.e. pay systems. As he points out, there are other aspects that influence employee’s motivation. This is vital. To improve performance, creativity, and accountability businesses need to look at more than just rewards! I hope that this will help expand the use of other motivators!

Dan talks about Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose – these fit right into the Four Drive Model of Employee Motivation. Autonomy and Mastery align with our Drive to Challenge and Comprehend, while purpose fit nicely with the Drive to Defend. What Dan leaves out is the power that the Drive to Bond has on motivating employees.

Overall, I think the discussion that will result from Dan’s presentation is great, I just hope that it doesn’t get boiled down to the simple sound bite that “incentives are bad.”

UPDATE APRIL 1, 2011

Let’s start with the positive: Dan’s book has done very well and has helped focus people on the the need for looking beyond the pay system to help drive motivation throughout the business. This is a very, very positive impact.

Now for the bad: the mantra that “incentives are bad” has been one of the larger themes to arise from the success of his book. This is not a positive impact. It has led to a number of non-experts jumping on the bandwagon expounding their personal belief that all pay-for-performance measures should be gotten rid of. That incentives themselves are bad. And that people will be 100% fully motivated if we can just figure out how to make jobs more autonomous, provide mastery and have a purpose. Of course, this doesn’t really account for a lot of what really happens in the world as we know it.

Moving forward, I would like to propose that the discussion around this topic is good – as long as we look at all the research and at how incentives should / should not be used. We need to look at all the tools in our tool belt – that includes things such as Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose – but also includes other things like rewards.

Let me know your thoughts – click on the comment section below!

Kurt

Electronic Maze – A Great Teambuilding Event and the Power of Serendipity

On March 31, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Leadership, Teambuilding, Uncategorized

We just became a Value Added Reseller for the Electronic Maze! I know, strange huh?

I fully believe it was serendipity which according to dictionary.com is:

ser·en·dip·i·ty

/ˌsɛrənˈdɪpɪti/[ser-uhn-dip-i-tee]- noun

1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

2. good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job that she applied for.

The story goes like this. We have been using the Electronic Maze since the first day of business at The Lantern Group. We’ve done hundreds of events that have utilized the maze with great success. Thousands of people have gone through it. I wrote about 5 great insights from the Maze back in August (click here to read). We’ve highlighted it as one of our key team building events on our Lantern Group Web Page (see here).

But I never thought that I’d be selling it.

Then the phone calls started happening.

The first was a few months ago – out of the blue, I got a call and somebody wanted to buy a maze from us. I told them politely that we use the maze as one of our key team events, but we don’t sell them…sorry. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Then the second call came – same inquiry, “can I buy a maze.” Again, sorry, we don’t sell them, but here is the website for the company that makes them.” It seemed a little curious, but nothing more than a fluke. But then the third and the fourth call came and I thought – wait, this might be something.

Apparently, when you Google “Electronic Maze” we are the second highest rated web page.

I thought to myself – cool! I love the product – really do (we’ve owned them for over 14 years – with only needing to replace the batteries). I think they can be used to address a number of team and leadership issues for a variety of participants (we’ve had CEO’s go through the maze, a group of women educators, assembly line workers, and managers from across the globe – to name just a few). And now I’m getting calls about them.

I contacted Interal – the manufacturer. I spoke with Boyd the President of the company (we had a great long talk about the many different uses of the Maze and how I’ve loved it for a long time). Now we are a Value Added Reseller of the product. You can contact us and we can sell you the Electronic Maze at cost (612-396-6392 or kurt@lanterngroup.com).

Serendipity at its best.

Insight # 6 from the Maze: Always be open to new opportunities!

How do you motivate the mundane

On March 10, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

I find that motivation isn’t usually a problem when you have new, exciting, rewarding or cool work projects. The new client that has a problem that challenges you to come up with a novel solution. The big project that will catapult your career or the company into a new stratosphere. The project that if done well will get the high profile recognition both by the leaders of the company and maybe even the outside press.

Those are the low hanging fruit….

Those are the open layups you better make….

Those are the no-brainers…

It gets harder when the task or project doesn’t have the same “appeal”

Here is the $50,000 question for you – how do you make sure employees are motivated to do the everyday, mundane, boring tasks that lead to better company performance? These are those tasks that do not get your picture in the company newsletter. The tasks that make your mind so numb that you swear you’ve lost half your brain. The tasks that are essential, but you would easily skip to watch paint dry as that would be more enjoyable?

Give your thoughts in the comment section below (I know, commenting on blogs can be one of those mundane and boring tasks)…

Layoffs and employee motivation – observations from the outside

On March 7, 2011

In Communications, Employee Motivation, Leadership, Uncategorized

My wife’s company has just gone through a layoff of 125 people. This layoff was announced a few weeks ago and came as a surprise for most people (mostly the employees working there). Of course I had concern for my wife’s job and those of her co-workers…but I also had a curiosity of seeing firsthand from a very close proximity the effects that the layoff had on motivation. This is a qualitative look from my perspective and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt – but still, I think there are some useful nuggets here.

Here are a few observations that I saw:

1. Layoffs suck motivation out of people

From talking to people and listening to my wife, the overarching fact was that this layoff sucked the motivation out of almost all the employees. They were nervous. They were mad. They were making contingency plans. They were talking one-on-one or in small groups about what was going on. They were frightened.

What they weren’t doing was being motivated and productive.

Any company that thinks its employees are going to be motivated because they are afraid of losing their jobs, needs to rethink that assumption. From what I saw, it acted in exactly the opposite way. There was a sense of apathy and one of giving up once the upcoming layoff was announced. People started updating their resume’s, they added people to their Linked-in network (I got quite a few of these from my wife’s co-workers), and they called their friends and acquaintances (either to prospect for jobs or to have a sympathetic ear to vent to).

My wife said to me one day during this, “I feel like I’ve been at a funeral for a week.”

2. Communication is vital

From the time of the announcement of the layoffs to the final layoff occurring took a total of 10 days. During that time, there was a great deal of confusion, fear and anxiety. The communication coming from the company was limited and often led to more chatter at the “water cooler” than it prevented. I would be hard pressed to say that the communication put forth by the company helped much in alleviating any of the discomfort and anxiety that the employees were going through. I know that the company was limited to a degree by certain laws about what they could or could not say, however, that is not an excuse for having people be confused about the reasons for the layoff and how they would happen. I think that any company that is going through or thinking about a layoff needs to think very hard about their employee communications. Specifically, they need to let employees know:

Why the layoff’s are occurring and why this layoff is necessary
What are the alternatives that they looked at and why they were rejected
What the process is for the layoffs themselves
What is the criteria that they are looking at to determine who is going to be terminated
Where can employees go to receive more information
When they can expect more information if it isn’t available now

It is important to communicate about resources people can go to regarding dealing with the stress of the layoff, but that should be just a part of the communication campaign.

Also key to this is to make sure that whatever is communicated is followed through. If you communicate that layoffs are not going to start until next week, don’t layoff directors this week (even if it is only a handful). The damage that does to trust, motivation and stress is significant.

3. The unknowns are the worst

Most of the anxiety, anger and stress that I observed were caused not by what was known, but by the unknown. This plays into much of what I discussed in the communication section – but the entire process would have been better if there would have been more transparency in the process. The biggest unknown that faces an employee is will they have a job or not – but that isn’t the only one. Unknowns also include: what are the layoff criteria? How will the different departments be impacted? What do I do about my on-going projects if people on them might not be here in two weeks? What is going to happen after the layoffs are done? How will we cover the increased workload? What will happen to the people let go?

4. After the fact

The big challenge now comes after the fact. What will the company do now that the layoffs have occurred and the survivors are left. From the few people I’ve talked to (including my wife) there is a feeling of “survivor’s guilt” going around (e.g., “why was she let go instead of me – she has 3 kids and is going through a divorce?”). There is also sense of “is this the end?” Will there be more layoffs in the future? What is going to happen next? How will my job be effected?

This is the moment that the company needs to shine. They have put in place listening sessions with senior leadership (kind of a venting process as much as an information transfer) – this is a good start. There is need for more. They need to communicate their plan for growth to ensure that this will not happen again. Employees need to feel like they are not just numbers in a big machine that are expendable at any moment, but instead feel like they are a vital component to the success of the company. They need to be heard and appreciated. A new energy needs to be instilled – one that drives motivation up and not down.

There is an opportunity over the next month or so for the company to do this. If it doesn’t happen, I fear that it will be a long climb back to the level of engagement and motivation that was there prior to the announced layoffs.

Have you gone through a layoff? Let us know what you feel about how it impacted motivation – good, bad or ugly.

How do you know when you get employee motivation right?

On February 14, 2011

In Employee Motivation, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

I often wonder how we ever know if we are getting employee motivation right?

Really – how can we tell?

Recently Paul Hebert at IncentIntel wrote about something similar to this (see here). The title of his article was “You don’t need to measure employee engagement.” And measurement for measurement sake is futile…however, how do you know if what you are doing is working? You need to be able to gauge that – and not just in a “Joe says he likes the new incentive plan” type of way.

I don’t fully believe that the typical measures we use can really tell us (of course, I could be wrong). So here is the BIG QUESTION: How do we know that the programs, culture and processes we’ve cobbled together are maximized and fully driving long-term employee motivation?

SURVEYS

Of course we can look at surveys that gauge employee satisfaction, employee engagement or other “motivational” measures. I like these. I use them all the time. They can give a snapshot of where a company is on the motivational landscape. Over time they can indicate if you are doing well or maybe doing not so well.

But surveys are limited in the information that they can actually provide us. It is a problem with correlation and causation – and correlation does not imply the later (which is too often overlooked). Surveys are good, but:

They provide just a snapshot of a point in time that can be influenced by other factors (weather, news, economics, etc…).
Recent events tend to outweigh older events on their stated importance.
They are very dependent upon the way a question is worded (i.e., “how do you like the new cost saving measures we put in?” versus “how do you like the new job saving measures we put in?”
They do not show causation – what is really driving the motivation that we see?

PERFORMANCE

We often look at corporate or divisional performance as a measure of motivation – particularly when it comes to measuring sales motivation. How did sales performance improve or not improve after we implemented these programs or incentives. Did sales go up and by how much? This works really well if we have a control group to measure performance gains/losses against. However, I find that control groups rarely exist in the non-academic or medical testing world. Too often we rely on one or two measures looked at for a short time and to determine success. While that can be a good indication of a particular programs effectiveness, I don’t think it really measures overall employee motivation.

Performance is typically impacted by a number of factors that we usually don’t account for (i.e., we don’t have a control group to compare to)
Performance is only measured for a short, specific period but doesn’t reflect long term elements
Performance only measures one aspect which does not reflect a number of elements of employee motivation

FOCUS GROUPS

Focus groups and personal interviews are another way of trying to gauge employee motivation. These are effective in many of the same ways that surveys are, but they can get a deeper look at what is driving or inhibiting motivation. These measures can provide an organization with a lot of very valuable qualitative information that explores a reasons behind answers and get at a level of understanding that one cannot really do with surveys or performance tracking. However, focus groups and interviews are inherently selective – we usually can’t interview everyone. It can be tricky to extrapolate findings from this type of work out to the entire work force. While focus groups and interviews provide some deep level information on employee motivation they also:

Have a limited number of people that provide input
Are time consuming and costly to implement
Like surveys, usually offer a snapshot in time that can be influenced by other factors

GUT

Sometimes I think gauging employee motivation is like porn, “I know it when I see it.” There is a certain vibe that comes from places where employees are engaged and motivated. While it is hard to describe exactly what it is, one can sense it when they walk into an organization that has it. I’ve found that it is also different at different companies – that company A might have it because people are gathered in teams brainstorming ideas in the hallway, while company B has it because they are diligently working away in their cubes. But again, there is trouble in this approach. It is dependent on individual interpretations. It is easily biased based on what I or somebody else sees and hears (which from an executives point of view can be very limited or skewed). There is no good way of quantifying this. While we like to think we can tell things, we often can’t:

Not measurable or reliable
Dependent upon the individual – one person might think a company has it while another doesn’t
Prone to biases that people have (I have a good history with company A, therefore I might be biased to see it in a better light)
Doesn’t show causation again – are the programs and procedures causing the engaged vibe?

SO HOW DO WE DO KNOW

We get back to that BIG QUESTION – how do we know? I’m not sure we can truly ever know.

Does that mean we should give up?

Hell no!

What it means is that we should try even harder and do this systematically. I believe that when we measure these types of things we not only help identify if we are getting motivation right, we are improving employee motivation. We show that we are concerned about it and that typically means something to employees (increases the drive to Bond and the drive to Defend – see 4-Drive Model).

I actually believe that companies that use an on-going, systematic combination of all four measures from above do it best. Those are the companies that are looking at how their individuals programs work but also at the larger picture. They don’t rely on just one measure or look at the short-term impact that these programs have. Instead these companies:

Put in place regular on-going surveys that measure employee engagement attitudes – this provides not just a snapshot, but can give you a trend. The more regular these surveys are (without becoming a burden) the better. There are many traditional ways of doing this but also many newer ways using technology that can improve this process. Recently Hinda Incentives wrote about Rypple and how their system helps management gain valuable on-going employee feedback.
Measure performance on both a programatic and overall basis. This means that you definitely want to measure how well a particular short-term incentive worked for increasing sales but you also want to make sure that you take a longer look at it as well (do sales stay higher or drop off after the incentive ends?). Specific performance measures should be looked at on an ongoing basis to help gauge how a company is tracking on their motivation – not just sales but efficiency, innovation, ROI. Create a specific dashboard of measures that you look at to help see the motivational trends – and if you can create a control group (even for a short-term program) – DO IT!
Focus groups and surveys are key to understanding the “why” behind the “what”. These need to be instituted on a regular basis. If you can conduct these three times a year that is great. If not, do it twice or at least once. Ask some of the same questions each time to see what changes, but also look at different aspects. Try to peel away the layers and look at what is underneath their answers. I find that conducting focus groups / interviews after you get the results from the survey is a great way to expand on that information.
Check your gut feel on a regular basis. If you are a manager, get out and walk around with the specific intention of seeing how the employee motivation “vibe” feels. Ask questions. Observe. While not scientific, this is often the best measure. You’ll know it when you see it.

Let us know what you think or ways that you measure employee motivation. Click below!

Category: Leadership Page 5 of 8

4 ways great leaders can impact employee motivation using the 4-Drive Model