On motivating your team

A team can do wonders, when it is highly motivated. There is research (gallup survey in Oct 2013) that shows that when teams are motivated, the firm's profitability increases (20%), productivity increases, quality increases, employee turnover/absenteeism falls (60%). However, the same survey shows that only 13% of employees are actively engaged with their work (63% were not engaged, while 24% were actively disengaged).

What do actively engaged people do to make a difference?

• They are willing to work hard, often working or thinking about work outside work hours. 
• They learn all they can about the work, and push the envelope (improving efficiency, or delivering innovations). 
• They are craftspersons in their field, take pride in their work, and that shows in the quality of their work. 
• They are willing to help the team be more successful. 

So, given the above, how can we get people to be more engaged? It would be good to understand some research and models of motivation, to see what works. There are three models we will look at:

• Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1940s)
• Here's the hierarchy; the claim is that only when one need is met, one thinks/cares about the next level. 
• Physical needs (food, clothing, shelter)
• Safety and security 
• Belonging (being part of a community)
• Esteem (a sense of self, confidence, of having unique skills and abilities)
• Self-actualization (fulfillment of one's skills/abilities)
• It could be that individuals rank this in a different order (belonging more than safety, for example), but the idea is to be aware of these different needs of people, and to use this understanding to motivate different people accordingly. 
• HermanMiller did a similar study across cultures, and found 6 common needs: Security (safety in Maslow's terms), status (esteem), achievement (esteem), autonomy (esteem), purpose (self-actualization), belonging (belonging). 
• If values can be learnt (religions tend to influence values, and there are several religions), how uniform are values across cultures. This research (of ~ 30000 people) shows that across cultures, there are 10 core values ranked in this order: benevolence, independence, understanding/wisdom, security, conformity, achievement, pleasure, excitement, tradition, and power. 
• Millennials value achievement more than security. 
• Inter-generational conflicts decreases productivity by 12% (cref this). GenX, GenMe tend to value extrinsic motivators like bonuses and leisure, more than intrinsic motivators like meaning at work etc. 
• Hertzberg's two-factor model
• Hygiene factors and motivators
• Hygiene factors prevent disengagement, are table-stakes
• Company policy/admin, relation with supervisor/peers/subordinates, work conditions, salary, status, security, personal life
• Motivators actually enable satisfaction, and higher productivity
• Achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, growth
• Deci and Ryan's extrinsic and intrinsic motives
• Extrinsic motives: money, badges, titles, fear of failure, gold stars etc. 
• Intrinsic motives: autonomy, belonging, curiosity, love, learning, mastery, meaning
• Which is more important? In what context? 
• This research on sales people showed that intrinsic and extrinsic motives explain 49% of performance, and intrinsic motivation had 44% more impact on performance than extrinsic motivation. 
• Intrinsic motives can be undermined by focusing only on extrinsic motives. This research shows that while extrinsic rewards can give a short term boost to performance, they do not result in long term increase in performance. Intrinsic motivation is key to achieving long term performance. 
• This research shows that while intrinsic motivation boosts performance (even with no financial reward), direct extrinsic rewards do not go much beyond, while indirect extrinsic rewards (paying for engagement, not outcome) does the best.
• Intrinsic motivation works better for quality, while extrinsic motivation works better for quantity (research by Cerasoli et. al. here). 
• Meaning of work is often considered the most important intrinsic motivation. How can we make the employees feel their work is important? 
• Tie their work to the organization's work (not just a cog in the wheel)
• Remind them of the beneficiaries of their work (radiologist example here, and doctors/nurses washing hands more when patients are involved here).
• It's interesting though that intrinsic motivation can cause dissatisfaction, when you feel a commitment despite the downsides. Some research on zookeepers here. 

Now that we know what motivates people, it's good to be aware of common pitfalls in applying this understanding:

• Social projection: thinking the others are like you. The research here shows that we assume our group shares our values to a greater degree than is true, and that we assume other groups share less commonality than is true. 
• Extrinsic rewards do not linearly increase happiness. This research shows that after a certain point, money does not make us more happy (probably because we compare with others even after reaching a certain class). 
• Using inappropriate rewards for a given context. Extrinsic rewards are more useful for routine jobs; intrinsic rewards are better for innovative jobs (refer to the indirect extrinsic rewards mentioned above). 
• Customizing rewards to the point of being perceived as unfair. Given the above, the natural inclination is to customize rewards to the values of each employee. Need to ensure that rewards are commensurate with contributions, and that they are equitable.