Motivating Your Employees And Colleagues

I am hopping that this post will provide you with tips on how  to create a motivating work environment and offer a basic understanding of employees motivation.

Some days it is a challenge to keep myself motivated. The enthusiasm to accomplish a specific task seems to disappear magically. It was there, but it isn’t now. So where did it go?

The task at hand might be sticking to my diet and avoiding those chocolate chip cookies. Or it might be finishing that report I started a week ago.

Where can I find my motivation?

So if keeping yourself motivated is so hard what do you do as a leader in your company? Many job descriptions will include a piece on motivating your team. We get set the task of motivating our colleagues and keeping them that way. We need them to be enthusiastic about accomplishing work.

“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.” – Lee Iacocca

As a leader, it is your challenge to firstly create the work environment and job factors that will help employees to contribute more. And secondly, help the employees find and use these factors to work harder.

To do this, it is integral that you know two variables: the employee’s needs and expectations from their work.

And because they are variables it makes motivating employees a challenge.

Company culture

Many years ago I worked for an American company. I got to hear that there was no ‘I’ in team and other mantras. At the same time they treated employees as a commodity, behaving as if you were the lucky one and you should be grateful they gave you a job. The managers enjoyed their power trips, instituting company policies on the basis that you can’t trust employees.

The thing that really annoyed me was when they came up with company rules. A few people were underperforming. So rather than deal with the few they made rules that affected everyone.

That killed my motivation, and I realised I wanted a workplace that fostered learning and development. A company where managers feel that motivating their teams will bring positive results for the business.

This post will provide tips to create a motivating work environment and offer a basic understanding of employee motivation. If you are curious how to increase your productivity you can find out here.

Every one is motivated

I said it earlier; everyone has something in their life that motivates them.

Every person has some items or issues about which they feel motivated to take action in their life. They may revolve around work, recreation, family, or even food.

You can’t motivate anyone else except you

You can’t do it for them. There is no magic potion that you can give that will motivate them. We have to accept that we can’t motivate another person.

What you can do is provide a work environment that supports employees choosing to become motivated about work issues.

“An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.” – Bob Nelson

None of these actions and activities that provide a workplace environment that is supportive of motivating employees needs to be expensive.

In fact, some don’t cost anything.

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Who doesn’t like the flashy display of recognition from their company? I am happy for you to spend money on me, but the truth is that their impact on motivating employees is short term.

And their importance fades in comparison to how people feel treated every day in the workplace.

Value your people

Workplaces, that treat people as valued team members, score higher in motivation. Creating this environment involves commitment and time from the managers.

In a workplace that fosters employee motivation you find that trust, respect, listening and civil conversation prevail. You also find managers show genuine interest and caring in their team members.

Provide clear direction

The lack of clear direction is a demotivating factor for employees. Every team member wants to know what is expected of them.  And how they are performing against these expectations.

Without clear direction, they can’t be productive. Providing clear direction makes motivating employees easier because together you have created a framework for their expected performance.

Likewise, when you fail to provide prompt feedback to your people, you’re depriving them of the opportunity to improve.

It sounds easy, but it requires consistency. And some bosses just don’t care. They are punching a clock, and all of this stuff about motivating employees is rubbish. In these cases, people do what I did, and they actively look for a new employer.

My job that I told you about earlier, the money was excellent, and there wasn’t any one event that prompted me to leave. A lot of little things added up and I realised I did not want to work there any longer. In fact, I took a lower paying job just to get away.

People don’t leave a job for something better; they go because of a negative influence in their existing job. And that was it for me too.

What works for one person might not work for another

You have done your research and found out what motivates one of your team members. Only to apply the same factors to their colleague and you discover it is not motivating for them.

Employee motivation is a constant challenge. Research indicates happy employees are more productive. So logically, treat employees nicely and you will improve productivity. Not so simple, more is needed for a business to be successful.

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Who wouldn’t love a workplace of happy employees? Unfortunately, it doesn’t guarantee delighted customers, quality products delivered on time, or profitability.

And all three are essential to providing those happy employees with their wages. Factors such as critical feedback, demanding goals, and key performance indicators ensure the organisation’s success.

Ask employees what is motivating for them

Do you know what motivates your team? An effective leader actively solicits information from their team.

Employees know what demotivates them and what they find motivating. Chances are they will tell you if you ask. Giving you a hint: chances are, it’s not just money!

“There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Continually motivate employees so that they never get too complacent – see Yahoo, AOL and many other Internet companies for evidence of what happens when they do.” – Brad Stone

For example, many people are motivated by factors such as achievement, extra responsibility, praise, or a sense of camaraderie.

When you ask be prepared to be tested. People judge people by what they do and by what they say. They key to being someone they trust is following through on the information you get.

When you ask, they will expect to see something changed as a result of their answer. If it is not changing then tell them why.

Walk the talk

Remember, your team is watching you all the time. How positive a role model are you for your team? That means I have to master my motivation if I want to influence theirs.

Related Post: Making A Great First Impression

To shape their behaviour, you must start with your own. Be consistent and chances are they’ll follow suit and set an example for other team members.

It is their choice to be motivated at work

Regardless of how supportive the company policies you institute are and how hard you try, there is a bottom line for motivating employees. It is their choice to be motivated at work.

You can know everything about motivation and do it all, but at the end of the day, employees are ultimately responsible for motivating themselves.

Motivating ourselves is such an important task to create success and live an outstanding life. I would love to find out what you do to motivate yourself and to help motivate others.

Five Ways To Be Successful From Ray Kroc

I reference McDonald’s and Ray Kroc frequently when coaching in business. I love the consistency of product and service that they deliver. Many businesses could afford to learn from them.

At the end of a coaching session, a friend gave me a copy of Grinding It Out in appreciation of the work we did together and the success he had. The book recounts how Ray Kroc built McDonald’s.

Packed with business and life lessons it makes for a great read. Before I share them, I need to give you some background on McDonald’s.

In 1940, two brothers, Richard and Maurice (Mac) McDonald started the business.

Ray Kroc knew about the business because the restaurant was using eight of his Multimixer milkshake machines.

He was curious. No other restaurant used as many of his Multimixers as they did. So Ray Kroc went to San Bernadino, California to find out more about the restaurant.

The restaurant ran a streamlined operation.

It was self-serve, commonplace now but groundbreaking in the 1950’s. It maintained a simple menu of six items: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french fries, milkshakes, soft drinks, and apple pie.

The most appealing aspect of the business had to do with the worker’s efficiency. Each worker’s steps got formatted as if working on an assembly line.

“It costs little for you to think big, but it costs you a fortune to think less of yourself.” – David Brett-Williams

This assembly line provided savings in preparation time which allowed the restaurant to serve higher volumes of people.

This, in turn, helped to lower the food costs to the business. Giving them a significant advantage over their competitors.

At what age do you stop looking for opportunities? If you were in your 50’s, would you have the audacity and drive to build something new, something huge?

The lesson hit me square in the face. Partly because I am that age and also because sometimes I doubt whether I have the energy to drive new ventures.

But the lesson is there, it is never too late to build something new in your life. You can unlock more opportunities in your life.

Here are five lessons I have taken from Grinding It Out :

1. Opportunity mindset

At the age of 52, Ray Kroc firmly believed that the best was still ahead of him. Whatever your age right now, are you on the lookout for opportunities?

Kroc made a reasonable living selling kitchen equipment to restaurants. He was past his prime (or was he?), but that didn’t stop him looking for opportunities.

And central to that was his mindset. He firmly believed that whatever his age there was more to come. Kroc got outside his comfort zone and went looking for opportunities.

He kept looking for opportunities and eventually found a restaurant named McDonald’s.

If you think you don’t have the energy to drive a new venture because you are over the hill, then you won’t spot a tremendous opportunity even when it is under your nose.

If you are not happy with how you define yourself then change the definition of who you are.

2. Act quickly to seize opportunities

When Ray Kroc heard about an innovative restaurant, he decided to travel to see it himself. No delays.

Staggered by the vast potential of the restaurant, he immediately began to negotiate with the McDonald’s brothers. No delays.

He formed the McDonald’s corporation and opened his first restaurant in 1955. No delays.

Windows of opportunity present themselves. If you delay, there is every likelihood that window will close. I fall victim to over thinking things. Never-ending analysis eats up my time  when I should take action.

The opportunity is lost as too much time passes by. That window of opportunity closes.

When an opportunity presents itself, do what Ray Kroc did and act quickly. No delays.

3. Vision of success

Ray Kroc developed a vision of success of what McDonald’s would become. Having decided to seize the opportunity, he focused intently on it.

He placed great emphasis on the uniformity and consistency from restaurant to restaurant.

Initially, he opened and ran the restaurants to profitability before allowing them to be franchised.

“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.” – Ralph Lauren

There was no allowance in Kroc’s focus to get sidetracked. He consistently devoted his energy, money and time to the business.

Until the business got off the ground, he didn’t take a salary. Imagine the sense of conviction to your vision to forgo any salary for years.

Committed to making his vision a reality, he did not get bored because it was taking longer than he hoped. He did not get distracted because it was routine and mundane.

Maybe, I am just calling myself out on a few shortcomings there.

Having a clear vision, Ray Kroc rejected any short-term opportunity that deterred him reaching this vision.

4. Think like Ray Kroc

Ray Kroc saw franchising the name out as the best potential growth for the company.

Unbothered by the plan, the brothers allowed Kroc to get on the mission by himself while using their restaurant’s name.

The two brothers could have built the chain themselves. But they were thinking too small. A little too satisfied with the comfortable life they had from their one restaurant.

They lacked the opportunity mindset that Ray Kroc developed.

Kroc, on the other hand, already imagined hundreds of restaurants across the country even before he came to the negotiating table.

He was thinking big. He had a vision. And that made the difference.

This reminds me of the Michelangelo quote.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

In a future post, I will talk about big hairy audacious goals.

In 1961, Kroc decided to continue the journey alone without the McDonald brothers. He bought the two brothers out for $2.7 million USD.

And then embarked on his mission to make McDonald’s “the number one fast-food chain in the United States.”

5. Build a strong team

Kroc found the right people and put them in the right positions. He recruited people who complemented his own weaknesses yet built upon each other’s strengths.

He built and maintained a strong team, and many team members stayed with the company for years.

With their help, the company grew quickly, and McDonald’s became a worldwide brand.

Looking at your strengths and weaknesses, you build a team around you that will let you make your vision a reality.

No one person can do it alone. Much of the credit for the company’s business success must go to the team and not Kroc.

Structured to earn revenue as an investor in properties, McDonald’s also generates a revenue stream as a franchiser of restaurants and an operator of restaurants.

It was this investment in property which converted McDonald’s into a money machine.

The management team devised the property investment strategy. And that is why they have a business plan that is unequalled in the food business.

And that ethic exists today.

McDonald’s understands the contribution and importance of every person within the organisation. And considers each individual employee as a vital part of achieving success.

You may find the  Beginner’s Guide To Motivating Employees an asset too.

I learned a lot of lessons about success from this book.

To develop an opportunity mindset, act quickly to seize opportunities, have a clear vision of the future, while thinking big and build a strong team to support your vision.

What about you? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Learn Self-Confidence The Harvey Specter Way

Sports break my good intention of not spending too much time watching TV. Sitting is terrible for you and all that! And I don’t like many TV shows. However, one I watch regularly is “Suits”, mainly for its lead character, Harvey Specter.

He’s the sharp-talking, corporate lawyer, renowned for drinking single malt scotch, wearing custom tailored suits, and winning in the courtroom.

Despite being emotionally constipated he embodies a clear desk policy, his shirts are always immaculately pressed, and he has great hair.

And while some may like him for the eye candy appeal (he does genuinely have great hair), I love his character, despite his arrogance. You can’t help yourself rooting for him, and he is an absolute genius with one-liners.

He prowls the halls of his law firm disseminating nuggets of insight and knowledge all while selflessly reminding everyone how awesome he is.

“We need people who think on their feet, not another clone with a rod up his ass.” – Harvey Specter

When you see Harvey Specter, one of the first things you notice is his immense, undeniable self-confidence.

He always has a witty remark up his sleeve, thinks fast on his feet, and he continually seems to get his desired outcome. Wouldn’t we all want to be a bit more Harvey?

Okay, I admit that at times, when feeling deflated or faced with a difficult decision, I have asked myself “What Would Harvey Do?” Channeling my inner Harvey Specter with my mental cue of WWHD.

Harvey Specter and self-confidence

So you can gain that Harvey Specter self-confidence for yourself, I will analyse his character and pinpoint exactly what makes him so confident.

Have you ever heard Harvey apologise for who he is? Never. He has a healthy dose of self-confidence and never self-doubts – two things most of us could learn from him.

When we see people like Harvey, we assume they were always confident. They were born like that. Really? So if you are not confident it is solely down to missing out on the genetic lottery? Here is the truth:

It is all about self-image.

Self-image and self-confidence

Harvey Specter sees himself as anyone’s equal. Admittedly, he goes past this many times and believes he is better and more capable than anyone else.

As a consequence of his self-belief, he is confident around anyone: his clients, his boss, his colleagues.

Regardless of who he meets, he believes he is on an equal or higher plane than all of them. In his thinking, no person is better than him.

That sounds arrogant and will make many people uncomfortable, but seeing yourself as at least on an equal status as the person you’re talking with is an essential key to self-confidence.

Harvey knows how to be alpha: he boldly tells people that.

“I’m not interested in great, I want to know who its Daddy is.” – Harvey Specter

There is no hint of doubt. No hint of shame. No hint of insecurity. The man proclaims what he thinks about himself, and doesn’t care if anyone is offended by it.

Harvey Specter has many sides to his character. He knows how to be charismatic and charming, but sometimes he decides to be an alpha and exudes confidence.

How do you want to be seen? If you see yourself as successful and influential, other people will see you that way, too.

Conversely, if you see yourself as a failure and weak, other people will……..

Improving any skill takes time and practice. And self-image is no different. Start working from the inside out, focusing on changing your way of thinking.

Confidence from the inside out

The goal is to develop a more positive self-concept for yourself. One without the internal barriers that can keep you from doing your best, while accepting yourself and seeing yourself honestly.

There are many ways to change negative thoughts and self-criticism to more positive. If this of interest read Self-esteem is about self-respect.

Once you have developed a self-image reminiscent of Harvey Specter, then you will foster a positive and realistic attitude toward the world around you. You appreciate your worth, while at the same time behave responsibly towards others.

Let’s apply this logic. You get invited to a work event. Excited at the prospect of the good food you are keen to attend. These events are always well catered.

“According to me is the only according to that matters.” – Harvey Specter

Then you find out you are sitting next to the CEO. Argh! You haven’t even met your head of department yet let alone the CEO. The anxiety kicks in days before the event.

Looking at what happened, if you think that someone is leagues above you, you are going to start feeling awkward and uncomfortable. And the other person will notice that.

Related Article: How To Recover From Rejection

The reason why that happens is that you let their perceived importance influence your perception of them. And, you give them a higher value than you should.

The simple truth is, whether you are confident around someone is dependent on how you see your status compared to theirs.

So, to act confidently in situations like these, you need to accept the fact that their job, looks or wealth have nothing to do with you.

If you are high-worth, which you will be, you’re going to act confidently because these people are of similar worth. They are merely your peers.

Body language, style and confidence

In the very first episode, Harvey advises his protegé, Mike, to go to his tailor “….tell him I sent you and spend some money.” The advice is supported with, “People respond to how we dress.”

The car manufacturer, Kia, surveyed what makes people feel confident. In the top 10 list for men, were included: a new suit, a freshly shaved face, and a nice smelling aftershave. For women, it was: a little black dress, high heels, and designer perfume.

Your body language, style and the clothes you choose reflect and affect your confidence and mood. This phenomenon is termed ‘enclothed cognition’ and involves the physical experience of wearing clothes and their symbolic meaning.

Professor Karen Pine, of the University of Hertfordshire, “When we wear clothing we adopt some of the characteristics that are associated with it.”

WWHD? Get up, get dressed, and win each day. Harvey knows to feel more attractive, confident, and strong; you must change out of the casual duds and put on clothes that give you power.

“The better you dress, the worst you can behave” – Harvey Specter

There is a reason superheroes from Wonder Woman to Batman change clothes to assume their kick-butt persona.

When you watch the TV show, you will also see consistent traits in Harvey’s body language.

1. Holds strong eye contact

This is an excellent indicator of confidence. If this is something you struggle with try asking yourself, “What Would Harvey Do?” WWHD: hold direct eye contact for two seconds, then look at their nose for two seconds, their mouth for two seconds, and then their face as a whole for two seconds. Continue this rotation throughout your conversation. You are not looking directly at their eyes the whole time, but the other person won’t be able to tell.

2. Chin up with head upright

Confident people don’t look down at the table, the ground, or their feet. They are always looking up. WWHD: pretend that there’s a string attached to your head that pulls your chin up.

3. Stand up straight with shoulders back

Good posture projects confidence, authority, and poise, while slouching makes you look unprofessional and disinterested.
WWHD: roll both shoulders back allowing your upper body muscles to relax while maintaining firmness in your core to avoid looking tense.

4. Never fidgets

Fidgeting or putting your hands in your pockets are two ways to damage that otherwise confident appearance. When people are nervous, they tend to hide their hands. Who wants to send a message that they are uncomfortable or uncertain?
And crossing your arms has a similar adverse effect. It makes you appear closed off and unreceptive. WWHD: Make sure your hands are always visible, never hiding.

5. Talks with a smirk on his face

It’s imperative to be aware of your speech mannerisms and tone because people measure confidence in the way a person speaks. WWHD: Firstly, cut out words such as ‘um’ and ‘like. Practice being more articulate by speaking precisely and directly. Use inflexion to show enthusiasm and adopt a more confident, lower, more powerful voice by pressing down firmly on your abdominal muscles when you speak.

There you have it, the two factors (impactful body language and style and a tenacious belief in oneself), that built his immense, undeniable self-confidence.

What are your WWHD moments and how do you maintain your self-confidence? Drop a comment to let us know.