Leadership | Behavior Matters! - Part 7

Category: Leadership Page 7 of 8

A New Motivational Model Using the 4-Drives: Upcoming in 2011

Ok, this is a little bit of a teaser…we are in the process of doing a major overhaul of how we look at the 4-Drive Model.  We’ve talked about the need to update this model before (see here and here).  We are underway in getting that developed and should be launching it the first quarter of 2011.

Here is a sneak peak…the four main motivations as we’ve defined them are now renamed and constitute different elements:

1.  Personal Motivation- focus on the intrinsic motivators that we have and encompasses the Drive to Challenge & Comprehend

2. Reward Motivation- focus is on the extrinsic motivators that we have and encompasses the Drive to Acquire & Achieve

3. Social Motivation- focus is on the social drives that motivate us and includes the Drive to Bond & Belong

4. Passion Motivation (this name is still being hotly debated – but for now its what we are running with)… – focus is on the motivational element of purpose and passion – including defending one’s honor and tribe

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Today I’m Grateful For: My car window being unstuck

There is a sense of justice in the world. As I wrote about yesterday, my car window was stuck open in the middle of winter in Minnesota…and I was grateful that it happened when it did for a number of reasons (see below).

But I’m even more grateful today!

I was on the way to bring the car into the local auto repair shop that is located a couple of miles down the road. I was getting the kids bundled up and the Au Pair ready to take the other car to the shop so that I would have a ride home instead of walking two miles in 18 degree weather.

If you’ve ever tried to get a 1 year old and a 4 year old ready for the snow, you know this is not always easy – so after 10 minutes of haggling, we were ready to go when I realized that the car keys for the 2nd pick-up car were in my wife’s purse with her at work. Ok, unbundle the kids and readjust plan. Now I’ll pick up my wife at the end of the day and we’ll get the 2nd car and drop off the broken window car after that.

Here is the good part…

On the way to pick up my wife, with the plastic taped over the open window, I gave the window button one more try…and to my amazement, up it went!

So I’m grateful that I didn’t have the keys for the 2nd car when I was going to take the broken window car in. I’m grateful that the window miraculously fixed itself. I’m grateful that I saved a few hundred bucks that I am now going to give to charity (Worldbuilders through Patrick Rothfuss’ blog – you should check it out).

All in all – just very grateful!

Rethinking the 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation

I have been touting the 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation since I first read the 2008 Harvard Business Review article “Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model” by  Nohria, , Groysberg, and Lee.   It is a powerful theory on human motivation in general, and in particular, employee motivation.  First presented in the 2002 book, “Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices” by Lawrence and Nohria, the model outlines four main drives of motivation.

At the Lantern Group, we’ve been working with this model for almost three years now.  We’ve posted on it several times in this blog (see 4-Drive Model here, Impact on Leaders here, and other info here, here, here, here and here for just a few examples).

It’s  good – but not perfect.

Right away we realized that it needed to be tweaked.

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How Well Does Your Organization Stack Up? Guest blog by Paul Schoening

As the hiring outlook improves with anticipation of the new calendar year on the horizon, election dust settling and corporate tax liability gaining clarity, the talent exodus will begin in next few months.

Are you ready?

If your organization has not installed proactive mitigation efforts, you could lose your best talent over the next 2 quarters (in other words, if your not doing something now, you’re going to pay for it later).  Successful recession recovery strategy should not ignore the critical variable of having the best talent on-board as well as engaging the “survivors”, lest ye not forget;

“High-commitment organizations outperform low-commitment organizations by 47%”

Watson Wyatt

“Engaged  employees are 43% more productive.”

The Hay Group

Our research shows that engaged employees can increase your financial position by almost 200% while disengaged employees can decrease your financial position by almost 25%.

http://www.globalstrategicmgmt.com/engaged- employees.

“In high-growth organizations, 84% of employees know where the organization is headed. In low-growth organizations, only 52% do.”

In Momentum

“Dependence  on remote forms of communication has left many younger workers bereft of interpersonal skills.:

Fast Company

“Camaraderie  between co-workers fuels much more than new business leads – relationships are also key drivers for recruiting, engagement and retention.”

Talent Management Magazine

Must we go on with the quotes? These are some pretty credible sources I might add.

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Empowered or Entitled? guest blog by Paul Schoening

Increasingly we are seeing data that engaged employees drive business success.   As the economy recovers at the current snail’s pace, companies are also looking at their employee engagement scores deciding they’d better do something about it now before wholesale exodus occurs by their greatest resource.

Proactive talent managers planned for this factor 3 years ago.

Where are your engagement planning efforts at currently?

Emotional Engagement

Just this week, another study was released by The Brand Union, a brand strategy and design consultancy. This recent study surveyed 680 U.S. professionals revealing emotional engagement outweighs other forms of employee interaction, offering critical insights for executives who want to improve employee engagement health and create business efficiencies during lean times. 

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Shhhh…keep your goals to yourself

Derik Sivers tells us that to not share your goals with other people will make them more likely to be achieved.  This is contrary to everything that I’ve ever heard or read…thus I like it (but I’m also a bit skeptical).

There are some very interesting insights into how the mind works that makes this have some credibility for me (watch the video).   If true, this would have a lot of implications not only for the motivational work that we do, but for motivation theory in general!

I will need to do some more research on this.  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Can Dilbert’s Wally Really Be a Top Performer?

I just had to laugh at the second clip in this.  Wally should be up for a very large bonus based on his analysis…

What is sad, is that many companies reward programs actually would reward this type of behavior.  Not failing is actually seen as a positive and rewarded.  This leads to all sorts of behavior that minimize risk and limit exploration.  Think about what this means for a company long term?  Think the type of culture it breads?  Do you think people really want to work in a company that rewards the Wally’s of this world?

Let us know what you think – leave a comment!

Teams – Part of the Motivation Equation

Team building

Team Building Fun!

We know teams

We do a lot of work helping improve how teams operate.  Some of it is straight old fun team building – you know the type where you go off-site for a day and do different types of games and activities (note – some people love these types of programs and others detest them with a passion).   Other programs we do are much more intense and involve really working on specific team issues and developing action plans for greater collaboration, communication, or productivity.

We’ve worked with big teams.  We’ve worked with small teams.  We’ve done programs for executives and for line-workers.  We’ve worked with teams that are working well and just want to get to that next level and teams that really are on their last leg and need immediate urgent care or they will implode.

We have done one hour fun sessions.  We’ve created on-going programs that last months and require intensive work by the participants.

Regardless of the type of team development we are doing – it is also part of building a more motivational organization.

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You mean showing appreciation is a bad thing?

I’m linking to this blog as it has a great post that highlights some of the “old school” thinking that is still out there.  It amazes me that in this day and age there are still managers that believe that showing appreciation is a bad thing….

Employees: Do you take them for granted?

Let me know what you think…

Leadership lessons from a dying Raccoon

RaccoonWe had three very cute  baby Raccoons in our yard last Thursday night.  They were fearless, lost, adorable and wondering around lost without a mother.  Kind of like employees without a good leader…but more on that later.

We went out and watched them as the toddled around the yard and gardens.  They were obviously hungry.  The smallest one could not keep up with its siblings and kept cooing out to them (that’s the only way I could describe it, like a mix between a cat’s “meow” and and owl’s “who”).  The siblings would circle back and rub noses with the smallest one.  They would try to get it to climb the rock wall to the garden or move under the table.  The smallest Raccoon would waddle slowly after them and try to keep up.

But the siblings were hungry and cold themselves and soon enough – they left the smallest one by itself.

The next morning, the smallest one was almost dead by the side of the garage.

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