Part 7 - The number one essential management skill - Motivation and Support
This post is based on a course lesson from How to incrementally improve your Team.
Putting people first
The number one people management skill you need to become well versed in is motivating and supporting your staff.
Managers who actively support and motivate feel closer to those whom they are helping. By showing a sincere interest in your staff, you are building trust and inspiring others to achieve higher levels of performance.
A team is a group of individuals who must be managed as individuals. It is important to accept individual differences (e.g., some staff receive more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure. It also follows that when delegating tasks, it should be done as a means of developing staff.)
These techniques are based on the High-Performance Management model, which uses a Transformational management style, that is, it puts people first. The risk is that you may attempt to use Traditional management style techniques which aside from being outdated will not work on the new, millennial generation of employees.
Motivation and Support Techniques
The following Motivation and Support techniques result in substantial increases in performance, productivity and creativity.
Everyday techniques
Simple, everyday ways to motivate.
Recognition Technique
This technique is for the general motivation of team members to show them that you value their contributions.
Take it to the next level Technique
This technique is good for motivating a team member who has prepared a report, a presentation or a document that does not meet your expectations.
The Hand Technique
This technique is for managing team members who are experiencing a fear of failure or fear of not meeting your expectations.
Don’t talk Technique
This technique is suitable for team members who are troubled, underperforming, have dropped the ball or are not engaging in change like their colleagues.
Support
It’s important that all staff know that no matter what they do, their worst mistake, you will support them and back them up, protect them from the wolves. This is important for everyone’s morale.
Everyday Motivational Techniques
These are a set of general motivational techniques to show your support for your team members.
Give Recognition - Give effective recognition for a job well done by doing it in front of others. Be sparing in your praise - recognition must be deserved.
Highlight Strengths - Look for opportunities to improve communication between team members. Highlight someone’s strengths and underpin any shortcomings by saying that once they had trouble with something, or we’re just learning something new, but that now they are an expert.
Provide Feedback - Every time you speak with one of your team members is an opportunity to provide feedback on their performance and to offer support and motivation. Everyone needs to receive positive feedback so that they understand they are important, are a contributor, a team player and believe they are receiving an honest assessment of their performance.
Comment on a recent email or report you received.
Comment on customer feedback you received that concerns their area.
The comment that you think things are going well.
Make observations not criticisms about things you don’t like. Do not make criticisms but instead make unfavourable observations. As soon as someone feels they are being criticised they turn off and do not hear what you are saying - they don’t take it on board. High-Performance Teams are taught never to be critical.
“I noticed that the last email you sent me was very long.”
An employee of the month - Implement programs to recognise the performance and efforts of all staff.
Ask for suggestions by email from team members/staff a week before month-end.
Issue by email who the winner is and why they won. Mention who came second and third.
If you are in the office, do this as part of the end of week drinks or similar.
This creates competition to win - its effectiveness is off the scale - I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Accept mistakes - but not when the same one is made three times.
What de-motivates
Lack of recognition, support and motivation.
Lack of autonomy or overly micromanaging.
Making decisions about team members without consulting them.
Allowing team members to miss commitments without a negative consequence.
Not making allowance for personal factors and their effects on work.
Recognition Technique
This technique is for the general motivation of team members to show them that you value their contributions.
As we know, it’s the simple things that work best. Everyone responds favourably to receiving ‘recognition’. The boost this gives to people is enormous. Our good feelings about ourselves increase, our perception of self-worth goes up, we feel valued and most of all, we feel that our contributions and efforts have not gone unnoticed.
How to do it
The trick is to keep it simple. Whenever you are speaking with one of your team members make a comment or observation about something, anything, they have done recently. This is just making a comment or observation, it is not about dishing out a huge amount of praise. If a team member has done an excellent job at something, that should get public praise in say your weekly management team meeting.
These comments should be given at the end of a conversation, or in an elevator, tearoom or a quick corridor chat.
Examples
“That last email you sent me, I found that really helpful, thank-you.”
“At my Business meeting yesterday, the work you're doing was mentioned, they seem very happy.”
“I spoke to one of your staff members this morning, she is doing a great job, I guess that means you are you too.”
“That urgent reply I needed to my email yesterday saved me a lot of grief, thank-you.”
“I don’t think I say this often enough, I just want to mention that I appreciate your efforts and everything that you do."
So, whenever you’re chatting with a team member, think to yourself - what simple comment can I make about their efforts. Do it regularly, it’s a comment; not a heap of praise.
Take it to the next level Technique
This technique is good for motivating a team member who has prepared a report, a presentation or a document that does not meet your expectations. It is an easy and effective way to get the changes you want without demotivating your team member.
How to do it
Acknowledge the work that has been done by saying,
“This is a great foundation”.
Do not say “This is a great start” that implies it’s not finished whereas the team member probably thinks it is. Try not to say anything negative as they will immediately turn off and you won’t get them turned on again.
Next, try saying this,
“With what you have done, we can now take this to the next level, which is what I was hoping for”.
This reinforces that you like what has been done and that you have confidence that the team member is capable of making it better.
Now, walk through the changes you want, always commenting that each change takes things up a notch, makes it a first-class result, and if the foundation was not there, these changes would not have been possible. As you walk through the changes, ask the team member.
“Do you think you can do that?”
That is all that is required. You have turned a negative into a positive mentoring of the team member and made them feel confident about what comes next. They should leave you feeling good about themselves and the session, and so should you.
Challenging team members and addressing fear of not meeting expectations - The Hand Technique
This technique is for challenging team members to take on new or more difficult tasks and also for managing team members who are experiencing a fear of failure or fear of not meeting your expectations.
Challenging team members
This technique is very good for convincing team members to take on new and more challenging tasks. If you have a High-Performance Team then this technique is used to get team members to extend themselves by taking on tasks for which they have no previous skill, experience or knowledge of. When using this technique always aim to use it as a means of developing team member responsibilities or accountabilities, new roles and the development of new skillsets.
Fear of not meeting expectations
There is a much more significant and more insidious cause for failure, and that’s our self-defeating thoughts brought on by fear of not meeting expectations. You can see it in people’s eyes when you give them a task that they do not feel confident about. They have learned that failure - not meeting what’s expected - can have negative consequences or in extreme cases, be punished.
The consequences can be humiliation, no further work allocation of the type just tried, no promotion or not being given a second chance to take on something new or significant. Only negative thoughts about their lack of ability, and possibly their job is at risk, resound in their head.
Fear of failure is probably one of the main reasons why we prefer to numb ourselves through inaction rather than move forward. Sometimes we are so afraid of letting ourselves down or letting others down or disappointing them that the opinions of others dominate us to the point of paralysis. Other times it is a deep-seated feeling of unworthiness that makes us question our abilities.
Succeeding or failing is not the issue; what is the issue ishaving a go’. The following technique also works well with people you are getting to know or to whom you are giving a difficult task that they have no experience or knowledge.
The hand technique is very good at removing the anxiety about their ability to do the task and what your expectation of the outcome might be. This technique is remarkably successful, especially as people get to know you and what you expect of them. Just having a go, giving it a try, is what it’s all about.
How to use the Hand Technique
Explain the task and what you think the outcome may look like and then deliberately place your hand about 10 centimetres’ above your desk and say,
“What’s important here is having a go. I don’t care if you only achieve this much”.
Then raise your hand a bit higher,
“Or you achieve this much. What I care about is you’re agreeing to have a go at this task please, I am not interested in what you achieve.”
Finish up by saying.
“Please come back at any time if you need help - helping is part of my job.”
One of your most important management functions is to support and motivate your team members. A negative or positive comment goes around and around in a person’s head all night.
Motivating troubled team members - Don’t talk Technique
This technique is suitable for team members who are troubled, underperforming, have dropped the ball or are not engaging in change like their colleagues.
At some stage in our careers, this tends to happen to us all. Most of the time we pull out of it. In this case, I am not talking about someone who may be depressed. The underlying causes are either personal or professional problems. The same technique is used for both as at the outset; you don’t know which is the problem.
How to use the Don’t talk Technique
Call the staff member in and have a conversation as follows.
“Come in, please sit down, I have something to say to you, and I would appreciate you hearing me out before making any comments. I have noticed that you are unhappy at the moment, and that is bothering me greatly. You are clearly dissatisfied with work just now, and I can see that your morale is low. I don’t know what the cause is, but my approach to situations like this is that I am the cause, the problem is me. I have failed to sufficiently support and motivate you in some way, perhaps the work I have asked you to do is not challenging enough, or I have failed to adequately explain what it is I would like you or the team to undertake.”
“You don’t have to make any comments about this just now unless you want to. In fact, I would prefer you didn’t, but instead, come back and see me tomorrow and let me know what you think. Tomorrow I want to talk about what I can do, let’s talk about training, a new job, different work, let’s talk about how you see things, what your needs are. If the issue is a personal one, let’s talk about that. Whatever happens, please accept that the real problem is me; somehow, I am failing to support you in some way.”
“Let’s catch-up at 10.00 tomorrow morning.”
What happens next is that the person concerned digests that you see the problem as being with you, this is a surprise to them and it nearly always allows them to come back and be very open and honest about what is really troubling them, be it a personal or professional issue. This creates a context for an honest conversation. The usual causes behind team members who are underperforming are:
Their job role - they are a square peg in a round hole, their current job does not match their job aspirations or capabilities.
They are not handling change - they see their peers doing well, and this is creating anxiety for them as they don’t think they are capable of changing.
They don’t know what you want - they are having difficulty understanding what it is I want of them - there is a communication problem?
A personal problem
At the beginning of the follow-up meeting, outline these possible causes and start by saying:
“I have been thinking about our next catch-up, and I think the issue could be one of the causes I just outlined. What do you think?”
Then pass the conversation over to them.
You clearly need to address the underlying cause of the issue; you can’t brush it aside. Management and Teams use the Transformational management style, that is, it puts people first. The risk is that your approach to solving situations like this is that you may use the Traditional management style where people are viewed as units of labour. I’m sure you are not like that though.
So, the approach is that you are the problem, not the staff member. Meet once, outline what you have observed, state it’s your fault, let them go away and think about it, then meet again with suggestions and more importantly, hear them out. I believe that as managers, we are responsible for the health and well-being of our staff; this includes their job satisfaction and morale. We create the work conditions, and therefore we need to take responsibility for a person’s reactions to those conditions.
Support
It’s important that all staff know that no matter what they do, their worst mistake, you will support them and back them up, protect them from the wolves. This is important for everyone’s morale.
Here is a real-life example I had once. A network team member did a network link upgrade but got it badly wrong and bought down several major links. This took out services to Hospitals, Operating Theatres and Pathology Laboratories. No matter what the circumstance, it’s an unforgivable mistake, the most basic of quality checks stops mistakes like this from happening. Following the Network link upgrade process would have picked up the error, but that didn’t happen, the process was not followed.
I was absolutely livid; I don’t tolerate mistakes of this kind given they are avoidable. My approach to this was as follows. I told the Network Manager to come and see me with the offending staff member after the services had been restored. I knew that both of them, whilst fixing the problem, would be thinking about their upcoming meeting with me. They will be thinking about how they are going justify making such an obvious, stupid and catastrophic mistake. They will know that they have let not just me down, but themselves and their whole team down.
So, when they finally come to see me and sheepishly come into my office, I look up and ask, “is it fixed?”, “yes” comes the reply, I go on “the process includes a quality check, does it not?”, “yes” comes the reply, “and you didn’t follow the process did you?”, “no” comes the reply. I continue, “it’s my job now to take the heat from the impacted surgeons and Hospital and Pathology administrators, it’s your job to follow the process, don’t do it again please, you’re better than that, that’s all, you can go”. The whole IT Department would hear what happened and I seriously doubted that anyone would make the mistake of not following the process again, which is in fact what occurred.
We all make mistakes, some more serious than others, but as we know we learn from mistakes. I see no point, nor have I ever seen any point in crucifying someone when a serious misjudgement has been made. When someone makes mistakes often, then you have a performance issue and that clearly requires a different response. Team members and staff must know you have their back.
Recognition
As we know, it’s the simple things that work best.
My team building and change management experiences have taught me one thing in particular; everyone responds extremely favourably to receiving ‘recognition’. The boost this gives to people, including you and me, is enormous. Our good feelings about ourselves increase, our perception of self-worth goes up, we feel valued and most of all, we feel that our contributions and efforts have not gone unnoticed.
How to do it
The trick is to keep it simple. Whenever you are speaking with one of your team members make a comment or observation about something, anything, they have recently done. I stress, this is just making a comment or observation, it is not about dishing out a huge amount of praise. If a team member has done a really great job on something, that should get public praise in say your weekly management team meeting.
These comments should be given at the end of a conversation, or in an elevator, tearoom or a quick corridor chat.
Examples that I found worked extremely well.
“That last email you sent me on XYZ, I found that really helpful, thank-you.”
“At my Business meeting yesterday, the work you're doing for them was mentioned, they seem happy.”
“I spoke to one of your staff members this morning, she is doing a great job, I guess that means you are you to.”
“That urgent reply I needed to my email yesterday saved me a lot of grief, thank-you.”
“I don’t think I say this often enough, I just want to mention that I appreciate your efforts and everything that you do."
“Don’t forget my Rule Number 1, “You need my permission to die, and you don’t have it, you're too valuable” (For the humour value, works a treat.)
So, whenever you’re chatting with a team member, think to yourself -
“What simple comment can I make about their efforts”
Do it regularly, it’s a comment; not a heap of praise