Susan and I just had the wonderful pleasure of spending a day interviewing 11 people at Oak Ridge Hotel & Conference Center to try to uncover their secret – because they have gotten the formula right on employee motivation. Anyone who has ever stepped into their facility outside of Minneapolis can attest to the customer service mentality that every employee exhibits – from the front desk, to housekeeping, to the chefs, groundskeepers, and even in accounting. There is a definite difference in how the majority of these employees “show up” at their job everyday and how they view and take care of their “guests”. They are truly a company that is doing something right. While we haven’t had time to fully analyze the interviews (we will in the upcoming weeks), there are a few things that I can say definitively:
1. Leadership counts – the one overriding conclusion that hit us in the face was how important leadership is in this process – they need to be present, genuine, and focused on the right things.
2. Its not about the money – I was a little surprise to hear (actually to NOT hear) about bonus plans or contests or other recognition that had a big dollar value. It wasn’t important. It didn’t drive their day-to-day activities or play an integral part in their motivation.
3. It is about the team – teamwork was an overriding theme in all of the interviews that we did. It wasn’t ever about “my job” but instead about serving the customer. If that means that top managers have to change sheets, then that is what happens.
4. Genuine recognition rejuvenates – real, honest recognition that is done on a regular basis, in public, helps reinvigorate and help drive the culture. Knowing that their work is important and recognized keeps people engaged.
5. Its about people – employees were seen as people first. Management spent time getting to know them, getting to understand who they were, spending time finding out about their families and interests. They care and it shows.
Over the next few weeks we will let you know more about our findings and get in depth with some analysis. Oak Ridge Hotel & Conference Center has been kind enough to give us access to their people and allow us to share our insights with you. There is something to learn here if you are interested in creating a workforce that is motivated and engaged. Stay tuned!
So Amazon is leaving the incentive market which they just entered three years ago. From all reports it isn’t because the venture isn’t profitable, but instead it is about ensuring that their brand and their customer service reputation are not sullied. Paul Hebert in his blog wrote, “the decision was made to drop fulfillment through incentive programs due to customer service issues. Specifically, the recipient, if they had problems with their order, would call Amazon for resolution but Amazon would have to refer them back to the incentive company – who in turn would do the due diligence to fix the problem. From Amazon’s point of view this created a negative impression of their customer service.” In a nutshell, they are taking a hit on millions of $ to make sure there is no negative impact on the billions of $ that they do in their non-incentive business. In my mind, that is a pretty smart move (one that you wouldn’t see a lot of businesses making). Now I’m sure there are other factors (i.e., tax issues, not controlling the customer relationship, etc…). Nothing is ever quite as black and white as it seems.
In the short time that Amazon was in the market, they shook it up. They offered a new way of fulfilling incentive program offerings. With their great number of items, their back end processing and handling, drop ship expertise, and their low price points, Amazon was able to provide even the smallest incentive companies with a very sophisticated e-catalog of incentive goods. No longer did an incentive house need to have the large capital expense of a warehouse and stocking products. Amazon was able to provide the back-end seamlessly for a price that couldn’t be beat.
Playing against Amazon
I was part of a large pitch (as a partner with a traditional incentive house) last fall to a company that loved what we did, trusted our customer service, thought that our creative approach was the best and liked the way we brought behavioral science into the process (i.e., The Lantern Group) – but, ended up going with a different company because they could offer more merchandise at a lower cost point. How did that other company do it – they used Amazon as their fulfillment partner. At that point, I thought I saw the writing on the wall – that the days of making large margins on merchandise were all but over. How could the traditional companies compete, when smaller, more nimble and aggressive firms could come in and under-price while having a larger item selection and great fulfillment services. In the debrief with the company about why we lost the business, the purchasing agent said, “…this is the wave of the future, all [incentive] companies should be doing this.” It was going to be a new world – and I was excited!
Changing the game
For years the pricing model used by incentive companies has been margin based. While there is nothing wrong with this conceptually, it does create an interesting dynamic. Merchandise is the cash cow for these companies. Without this, many of the companies will fail. There is an underlying need to get people “into the warehouse.” When I started my career (many eons ago) I was naive enough to think that when I was hired on at one of these incentive companies that I was going to work for a consulting firm that was trying to find the best way to motivate and engage employees. What I found out was they were all for that – as long as the way to do motivate and engage led through the warehouse (I’m exaggerating a little here for emphasis, but there was an underlying culture of this).
While that culture has shifted slightly over the years, it is still present in the industry. If Amazon was going to be able to undercut prices because of their buying power – then incentive companies were going to be forced to change their model. This would mean finding other ways to make money – which would lead them to finding other ways to increase motivation. The benefit would have been that these companies would have created a larger toolbox with more tools and thus not fall to the old idiom “when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” This would mean better solutions to motivation problems.
The next competitor
While Amazon might be leaving, they showed that there was a desire in the marketplace for something like this. I don’t think there is another company right now that could fill that role, but that doesn’t mean in the future there couldn’t be. So, with that in mind, it is important to think about the next game. What will this mean for the traditional incentive houses, for the mid or small sized performance improvement firms? Will someone take that bold step to change the game and bring in a different set of plays and players or will they exhale a deep breathe, thankful the other team forfeited, and go back to their old ways of playing? Right now, we’ll just have to wait and see…
Please share your thoughts and rants on this…would love to get a nice dialogue going.
Kurt
If you know someone that might benefit from this article pay it forward and pass it along.
Some days the words just do not come, they do not flow like you would like them to so you sit and wait. Waiting for some of us can be agony as we are used to moving things forward and making things happen.
The cursor continues to blink back at me, taunting me with its steady rhythm daring me to start typing even if I have no clue where to start. I take the challenge and start to type. This is what comes out,
“What motivates you today?”
There is something to be said with keeping it simple.
A few weeks ago during the Motivation Webinar, Kurt Nelson reviewed some practical everyday things you can do to increase employee motivation in each of the Four Drives. Regardless if you attended or reviewed the webinar slides, the following tips are good reminders and may spark further ideas for you today on how to increase your employee’s motivation!
Drive to Achieve & Acquire:
Recognize or provide incentives for your employees in a customized manner (one size does not fit all)
Ensure recognition is timely and focuses on achievements
Reward your employees with appropriate and individualized tools, (i.e. a $20 gas card would not be a motivator for someone that telecommutes)
Make recognition a priority utilizing formal and informal methods – ensure you do this on a regular basis
Get creative, some of the best recognition is low cost but high in creativity
Creative Resource: 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, Bob Nelson PhD
Drive to Bond & Belong:
Create and support opportunities for employees to connect on a personal level, i.e. potluck lunches, business book clubs, work softball teams, bowling leagues, etc.
Develop formal job sharing/rotation where peers learn other jobs on the team
Understand that there is a human need to connect with others, remember to balance the perspective of employees ‘goofing off’
Organize a share and tell day, where employees get together and share what they do within the company and how their job fits into the bigger picture
What motivates one person to take lemons and make lemonade and another person just sees lemons? I recently came across a movie trailer for the movie, “Lemonade – It’s not a pink slip. It’s a blank page.”
Erik Proulx had the idea to document and share the stories of several individuals in the advertising industry who had been let go from their jobs. It is a story of how each one looked at the lay off as an opportunity to pursue something else, possibly a forgotten dream. It is a fascinating take on what motivates different individuals.
The lemonade community all share a common thread of being laid off which has a ripple effect of bonding together a group of individuals from all over the world. They support each other, share their stories, and provide a safe space for dormant dreams to be re-ignited and acted upon.
Recently I was in Dallas conducting focus groups. After two long days of travel and facilitating, I raced back to DFW airport with the intent of trying to get on an earlier flight that I knew left at 3:15 PM. Admittedly, this was a crapshoot and I would be cutting it close. I was scheduled for the 5:55 PM flight, but the 3:15 PM flight would get me home in time to see my family before my two young children were in bed (which is pretty important to me). As luck would have it, I was able to return the rental car, run to catch the bus to the terminal, get my ticket, and get through security and arrive at the gate at 2:55 PM – a good 20 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. Here is an approximation of the exchange that occurred between me and the gate agent who we will call Mr. No.
Dallas, March 24th, 2:55 PM
Kurt standing at the counter said, “Hi. How’s it going? I’m on the 5:55 flight but was hoping there might be a seat open that I could fly standby on this one.”
“Are you a gold or platinum member?” Mr. No replied.
“Not anymore.” said Kurt, wondering why that mattered, “Is there a seat available?”
“I can’t help you if you’re not a gold or platinum medallion member.”
“So there’s a seat but you can’t help me?” Kurt asks with some despondency.
“I can’t get you on now. If you had been here ten minutes earlier I might have gotten you on.” said Mr. No.
“I don’t have any checked bags and will sit down right away. I promise.” Kurt says hoping a little levity might help:
“I’m sorry. I can’t have you go down there – they are getting ready to leave.”
“So you won’t help me? There is 20 minutes before the flight leaves!”
“You’ll just have to take your original flight.”
“I’ll pay. What would it cost to change?” Kurt said
“$50. But I can’t do that now.” Mr. No says right before turning his back on me and checking some paper coming out of the printer.
“Ok?” Kurt said, while pulling out his i-phone to start Twittering about this horrible experience with Delta.
Motivation Observation
It appeared to me that the agent was concerned about the on-time status of the flight, the extra work it would cause to put me on the flight, and the fact that I wasn’t a premium status customer more than he was concerned about responding to my needs. I could go on and on about the motivation (or lack thereof) of the gate agent for Delta, but I do not know that agent, or the procedural rules or incentives that Delta employs to drive motivation – so any insight would be conjecture.
What interests me was my response to this situation and the motivation that drove that response. My first inclination having been denied appropriate customer service was not to ask for a manager or send an e-mail to Delta’s customer service – it was to get on Twitter and to tell over 700 people about my “horrible” experience. I ended up tweeting about this over 15 times in the next 3 hours either directly about the experience or responding to other people’s tweets about this. Here are my first 4 tweets (typos and all):
“Delta airlines won’t let me board plane on standby because it leaves in 20 minutes – horrible cust service!”
“I understand why airlines get such a bad rap – counter agent too concerned about on time deptarture and not cust service”
“Flight leaves at 3:15 I was here at 2:52 – agent couldn’t accomodate me ( not gold or platinum) even if I paid! http://twitpic.com/1aob2q”
In terms of the four drives, which drives were activated? Clearly, my Defend drive was kicked into high gear. The fact that I felt that my goals were being hindered by a Delta kicked that Defense Drive into overdrive! I felt I needed to get payback and the idea of Twittering about this provided a means of vindication. I would make Delta pay by announcing how horrible they were to the world. Hundreds of people would hear me venting in real time and who knows, it could be passed on to hundreds or thousands more through retweeting.
Therein lies a potential second drive – the drive to Acquire. While this sounds contrary since I wasn’t going to the manager or to customer service to ask for money or a free ticket, what I was doing was looking for recognition. Recognition from others on how I had been wronged. I wanted the world to know about what I was going through and to recognize me for that fact. There was a challenge to this as well. Could I write a tweet that was compelling enough to get retweeted and forwarded on – this was a challenge. How many people could this vent be exposed to? Thus a third drive, the Challenge Drive, was also engaged.
A fourth drive was also activated – the drive to Bond. By tweeting about this I was engaging in a conversation with other people about my experience. I was commensurating with others about my experience and theirs. We were sharing stories and experiences and building relationships. By tweeting, I had a group of individuals whom I could talk to about this experience and feel a bond with them. It was a way of venting without having to do it in person to the people in the airport (who would probably thought me a demented maniac).
When all four drives are activated, it is a very powerful motivator. I did not hesitate in writing my tweets. I still feel that it was a good thing to do. While the Defense drive was the main motivator, the other drives played a significant part in my overall motivation. This is a very real insight for me – how all four drives together are much more powerful than any one alone.
Moving On
I would love to hear about any customer service failures that you’ve experienced and see if you see how the four drives impacted your response (or not). Please add a comment and join the discussion.
Another SXSW has come to an end and although I did not attend I have enjoyed reading articles from those that did attend. The event has turned into something of a phenomenon in the techie world even though it was originally touted as a music festival in Austin, TX. Good music apparently attracted some great thinkers, innovators, and all around fun geeks.
I was checking out the Annual Web Awards winners and came across the coolest video not surprisingly created by an ad agency, Boone Oakley.
What motivates an ad agency to create a video that ultimately is there website on You Tube? To get noticed of course! But beyond that it tells their story and somehow creates an interactive website using video. It takes a plain website idea to the next level. How cool is that! If you click on the other areas of the video you really start to have a feel for who BooneOakley is and for me it was great to experience their humor.
Sit back and enjoy. If you need a shift in perspective, motivation to create something new, or just need a good laugh this is the right place to be, have fun!
What happens when each of the Four Drives is fully engaged? Passion.
Passion is a very powerful and emotional motivator. You may have heard of the organization called, Kiva, if not, it is a nonprofit organization that connects mico lenders to those who need mirco loans in developing countries around the world. Matt and Jessica Flannery had a concept in mind to bring together small business owners in developing countries with people around the world that would be willing to invest and help their business flourish. This was a new concept that had never been tried before so it was groundbreaking and probably a bit scary. But they were probably motivated by more than just the thought of doing something good for the world. They had passion.
Turning a dream into reality can take a lot of hard work, perseverance, and no holds bar passion. Let’s take a look at what happens when the Four Drive Model is fully engaged to fulfill a dream.
Drive toAcquire & Achieve: The Kiva founders had a clear goal, to link business owners in developing countries with micro lenders across the world. Having a clear goal on what you want to achieve is critical because it describes the end result. In addition, the more specific the goal is the better, adding dates and measures of success are shown to have an increase in goal fulfillment.
Drive Bond & Belong: This drive is engaged because of the incredible opportunity to have human beings help each other out in service of something bigger. This is the Drive to Bond & Belong at its finest. Individuals who do not know each other are helping one another out where they can for not only financial support but emotional support as well. The sharing of stories of where the money is coming from and what it allowed the business owner to do are incredible bonding moments.
Drive Comprehend & Challenge: To create a brand new, never seen before business concept definitely engages learning and growth opportunities. Similar to the pioneers that went West in search of gold, to explore new territory in the arena of giving and receiving would be scary but exhilarating all at the same time. I am guessing when things got tough or it was hard to see the end, the founder’s initial goal was able to help get them back on the right track and keep moving forward.
Drive Define & Defend: This was an opportunity to define a new way of helping and servicing a population that had great potential. The ripple effect is incredible and as the first donation came in to help the business owner something took place. This exchange was not only monetary but it was emotional it was a connection that formed across continents. The business owners and micro lenders formed a tribe, a grouping of individuals bound together by something bigger then themselves that they would defend if ever confronted by anyone.
Passion, when engaged fully has each of the Four Drives fueling the fire. It also allows one to help move the passion forward from conception to implementation by giving a framework for breaking down the different areas of motivation and drive.
Never underestimate the motivating fuel of passion. From a stem of a dream, the fuel of passion, something new is brought into the world.
Susan
If you know someone that might benefit from this article pay it forward and pass it along.
Susan and I just had the wonderful pleasure of spending a day interviewing 11 people at Oak Ridge Hotel & Conference Center to try to uncover their secret – because they have gotten the formula right on employee motivation. Anyone who has ever stepped into their facility outside of Minneapolis can attest to the customer service mentality that every employee exhibits – from the front desk, to housekeeping, to the chefs, groundskeepers, and even in accounting. There is a definite difference in how the majority of these employees “show up” at their job everyday and how they view and take care of their “guests”. They are truly a company that is doing something right. While we haven’t had time to fully analyze the interviews (we will in the upcoming weeks), there are a few things that I can say definitively:
