Sensible Motivation Strategies

Chief executives must get the best out of their staff—whatever their mentality. This webpage does not aim to be comprehensive, but to provide a guide for thinking, so sensible adjustments can be made to suit a specific organization.

Common errors:

  • failing to combine motivation with control;
  • assuming all employees are motivated by money;
  • assuming money is purely a hygiene matter—i.e. the rate for the job.

Market-centred Employees

Financial rewards are particularly important for Market-centred staff.

Risk: Lack of loyalty—the employee may join a competitor or set up a competing business.

Power-centred Employees

The ambition and drive to dominate and control is a useful but ancillary quality in a manager. A likelihood of bullying, irrationality, risk-taking and borderline dishonesty exists and this could be dangerous to the firm.

Risk: Creation of a sphere of near-absolute control—the employee may develop a fortified mini-empire within the organization.

Cause-centred Employees

Professionals dedicated to their discipline rather than to management are the most common Cause-centred staff. The challenge is to ensure they channel their energies in support of the business, at best seeing the business as an extension of their cause.

Risk: Splintering the organization—factional conflict, turf wars, and energy diverted to the promotion and defence of a profession can obstruct progress or even tear the organization apart.

Community-centred Employees

This class of employees will be found throughout the organization. They enjoy the social dimension of work and believe in achieving through teamwork.

Risk: Loss of focus on the task—energy tends to be put into people rather than into getting results.

Kinship-centred Employees

For those who put family welfare before work, ways should be found to bind them to the firm through family care.

Risk: Distraction—bringing family problems into the work place; using insider information to benefit the family.

Perspective-centred Employees

These employees will be recognized as «thinkers» in the organization. They restrain impulsiveness and seek to make dispassionate analyses. Their output informs debate and decision-making.

Risk: Overcomplicated outputs—so pragmatic action is inhibited or no-one reads or listens.

Reality-centred Employees

Such people are difficult to accommodate in any organization. They should either be restricted to advisory responsibilities or otherwise placed in a relatively isolated position where they are unlikely to destabilize or frighten others.

Risk: Telling the truth—leading to a disturbing awareness that essential values and goals are being violated for pragmatic, personal or corrupt reasons.

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Originally posted: July 2009