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
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.
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%.
“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.
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.
Counter-intuitively, organizations tend to find difficulty prioritizing their employee engagement efforts during challenging environments. In fact, during this recession many have executed a status quo strategy, which communicates to their single greatest resource that you are “damn lucky to still be here”. Take a moment to think about this – has this been your organizations approach to engagement?
Therein lies the issue! If we tell our recession survivors they’re lucky to have a job and yet we label them our greatest remaining resource, we are sending mixed messages.
Olivia Mitchell is one of the best experts on the web when it comes to presentations and public speaking.
She gets it.
I have been following her for over a year now and have been constantly amazed at the quality of her posts and her use of research to back up her statements. In this post, she talks about three myths of public speaking – read it and let me know if you don’t change your mind after reading this.
After reading it, I started to think about how these myths often get in the way of effectively communicating incentive and compensation plans to people as well…
Myth #1: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
Employee engagement health is at its worst levels in decades. Loyalty between employees and organizations has been damaged through this most recent recession as a result of massive workforce reductions, increased stressed on the “survivors” with no prospect of reward post-recovery. We’ve lost perspective of what “engagement” really means, therefore we must remind ourselves of the definition of “Engagement”:
An engagement is a promise to marry, and also the period of time between proposal and marriage – which may be lengthy or trivial. During this period, a couple is said to be affianced,betrothed,engaged to be married, or simply engaged. Future brides and bridegrooms are often referred to as fiancées or fiancés respectively (from the French word fiancé). The duration of the courtship varies vastly.
Source Wikipedia, September 2010
This definition depicts a marital engagement, however it sounds nothing like the employee/employer relationship of today. In years past, young employees would land a job with General Mills, GM or Geritol and remain with those companies until retirement. These companies would hire the formative young workers, instill values and goals consistent with their long-term vision and values which, drove and supported their business strategy. This model has been changing for a long time but the last 3 years has left employers in a precarious position.
Manpower’s Workforce Strategy Survey, released September 27th, shows that many organizations are not thinking strategically about the workforce they’ll need for long-term strategic growth—most are thinking only about the here and now and are not positioned to build the workforce they’ll need to achieve the company’s business strategy in the future. This is quite concerning for Wall Street regarding long-term economic recovery. Investors should focus on employers that have prioritized these 3 key people strategies:
Talent acquisition and alignment with business strategy
“The data reveals that almost a quarter of employers across 36 countries and territories concede that their organizations’ workforce strategy does not support their business strategy, or don’t know if it does. Among those two subsets of respondents, 53 percent admit they are not taking steps to address this issue. With the talent mismatch—the inability to find the right skills in the right place at the right time—becoming more acute as the global economy thaws, companies risk being without the skills they need to execute their business strategy”.
“In addition, among employees surveyed in this study, large sections are still in the dark about how their contributions support the business—one in five employees say either that they don’t understand their company’s business strategy or they don’t know how their role supports it.” (emphasis added)
SOURCE Manpower Inc.
So, what are some engagement drivers that organizations could begin to practice to retain their key talent, re-engage them with business strategy, and invest in their long-term retention and development? Over the next few weeks I’ll explore those themes and make provide some insight. For now, I would like to get your thoughts – leave some ideas in the comment area below.
About Paul; Paul is a successful marketing and business development professional with experience in several industries over more than 20 years. During this period he’s worked for Gage Marketing Group, BI (Business Incentives), Korn/Ferry International as well as founding his own company. He was most recently with Korn/Ferry International as Global Director of Marketing in their talent management consulting division.
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….
We 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.
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.
